A day in the sun

The Brighton Bathing Boxes (in Melbourne!) are renowned as a tourist icon. The Portsea Bathing Boxes are renowned for their exorbitant prices. The Baileys Beach Bathing Boxes – now there’s a Melbourne secret! Tucked away past the fastest developing suburbs in Australia, past the market gardens with their broccoli fields and past the Point Cook RAAF training centre are some real hidden gems and I am fortunate to own one! Where else can you find yourself just a metre from the water looking back to the city skyline and across the bay to Arthurs Seat and Mt Martha.  And all just a 30 minute drive from the CBD.

I have been a very – I repeat very – small donor with my own fund under the auspices of the Melbourne Community Foundation. My fund was set up in the early days of MCF specifically to distribute upon my death – hopefully for me in the far distant future – but for the fund the sooner the better! 

Since the GFC I have not been able to add to the fund as I have watched my hard earned cash flow sink like a stone. I felt there was no way that I could be involved with the far reaching community which has been created by the MCF. But that all changed when I had a long discussion with the dynamic CEO Sarah Davies and an idea formed as we were talking.

“I have a boatshed right on the beach just a short drive from the city. Perhaps you may have some contacts who may benefit from an excursion to enjoy what I’m told is my ‘quirky’ boatshed. Could a ‘day in the sun’ for them be arranged?”

In typical MCF fashion Sarah was ‘right onto it’ and before I knew it I was ‘matched’ with Foundation House. (www.foundationhouse.org.au) to host a small group of men from Ethiopia and the Congo who had only arrived in Australia 2 months ago.

This seemed the perfect way to ‘test the waters’ of my idea. I was informed that they liked ‘beef’ and so a barbeque was planned. I must say I was rather apprehensive about the day and how they would enjoy it. After all it was to be their first excursion since their arrival in their new country. But all was well. The weather was perfect, the sea was calm, the small ‘grass’ islands off the shore were exposed (but not enough to go musselling and cook them up as I had hoped), the tide was out and the shallows were safe, there was a cool breeze blowing and the sun was not too hot. I couldn’t have asked for a better day.

Meeting such gentle people and hearing the harrowing stories of their lives, their wait to be allocated a country and then to come to our shores made me wonder why I complained about the state of my ‘finances’. The men were accompanied by 3 case workers – one a 6’8” Sudanese man (in old terms – that tells you a little about me!) and two women – one of Italian descent and the other from the Congo with her own story to tell – arriving in Australia with 2 very young children 10 years ago (and only now being joined by her husband after all this time). The men were charming, well mannered and very shy. The Sudanese case worker ‘stripped off’ to swim and encourage the others to join him. Only one did – he hadn’t been in the sea since fleeing Ethiopia 25 years ago. The camps in Kenya where he has been for so long are far from the sea. He was overwhelmed by the experience and of course the memories that surfaced. Others sat and gazed out to sea asking about the ships travelling up the channel and watching the sailing boats in the distance. Sometimes they sat alone dangling their legs over the ‘walkway’ at the edge of the beach. Only 3 took their shoes off and walked barefoot in the sand.  

They helped cook the ‘beef’ on the barbeque and lined up for the salads I had prepared. Then it was time to find a chair or sit on the edge of the jetty and enjoy their meal. I showed them how to eat the ‘Aussie’ way by taking a slice of white bread, angling a sausage on it, adding fried onions and tomato sauce and folding the bread to make a sandwich – delicious!  After some cake prepared by an 80 year old friend of mine (none left) and some watermelon they had time to kick a soccer ball and lie on a beach bed at the edge of the sea. One of the case workers had kindly sourced their favourite tea – it looked like a whole lot of twigs to me - but after a long brew in the coffee plunger it tasted delicious.

We talked about the Australian flags that were on the table and I noticed 2 of them take them, wave them, clutch them close and then take them home. This is now their country and a beach barbeque and a flag seemed to cement their place here so far from home.

I learnt that having been approved as refugees they have no choice regarding where in the world they will be sent. The ramifications of those choices made for them and the strength they have to continue on after years and years in refugee camps was a humbling experience and a great reminder of how lucky we are in this country – of drought and flooding rains.

After a handshake all round and an invitation to return again soon I waved them farewell.  This day was a privilege for me and one that will live with me for a long time.  And I hope through the many MCF contacts other groups can come and experience my little piece of paradise so close to the CBD.