Today while out and about with one of my gorgeous clients, an 90+ frail indigenous woman (we say 90+ as her birth date is a made up one appropriated by the Government in the 60's so she is likely to be much older, and often our clients have conflicting birth dates in separate departments that differ by up to 15 years! now that's a lot of aging overnight!) anyhoo, while we were out doing her shopping she requested to go and buy some Pijuri (pr: Pitjiri) or Mingkulpa a kind of native plant to these parts which is used like chewing tobacco (see more info on the link at the bottom if you are interested).
After a bit of a wild goose chase around town, we ended up in the back of one of the land councils offices in a spot I'd never visited since working in Alice. The shop we were advised to go to by the lovely indigenous ladies hanging at the bank who did a really great job of not laughing at my pronunciation by the way *thankyou ladies* was Tjanpi desert weavers gift shop. Now this is not in a tourist oriented part of Alice, in fact it is hidden away in the industrial estate which is a real shame as this place was fantastic! I fell in love with some of the handpainted seed necklaces & beads and was admiring them while I waited for her to go out the back to get my clients pitjiri.
I noticed the lady behind the counter seemed a little stressed so I made some small talk about being 'flogged' after a long weekend...and she told me they had been inundated by people from 'all over wanting to buy the necklace like Kate' was given at Uluru. Now not being much of a news hound, and sorry to admit it but also not really a royalist (but how could you not like the lovely personable Kate), I will admit that I became really interested then as somehow I had missed all the buzz about town (my boss later laughed at me) and had forgotten it was this week. But back to the store...there were so many gorgeous and unique handmade items on display I vowed to go back and wish I had known they were there before I had done my Christmas shopping last year.
If you're interested in buying a unique necklace similar to the one Kate was given and supporting a worthy cause the link is here:
http://www.tjanpi.com.au/
While there I tried to take a tongue in cheek picture of the artwork and store front showcasing the variety of beautiful gear they had on sale for my Mother In Law who is a total fan of the royals and even went to the UK to see these two married....and then this fella did a spectacular photobomb, it was amazingly quick and I didn't even see him coming~!
Looking at the puzzled look on his face now I reckon he was wondering what this middle aged (*gasp*) white woman was doing buying pijiri he he.
(pics of Kate & Andy from www.news.com.au )
OOPS almost forgot to add the link about pitjiri for you fellow culture vultures out there :)
http://quit.nosmokes.com.au/media/10810/history_of_smoking_nosmokes.pdf
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