Arriving in Alice Springs

I'm now back in Alice Springs once again. I arrived about 1:30 this afternoon and was picked up by Julie, one of the EHOs in the office, and taken the the flat that I'll be staying in for the next couple of weeks. It's hard to know if Alice Springs has really changed that much since I left. It seems a lot busier and the housing prices are amazingly high but apart from that I don't really know. I dropped my stuff off at the flat and immediately headed into town to pick up a few essentials (cleaning products as the flat was a mess).

The Hong Street flat where I am staying.

After that I walked back into town and bought myself a pillow. Since I arrived back in Alice Springs I've been thinking that it would be nice to have something like a home comfort to make my stay easier. Also while I'll gladly use the sheets, a pillow is more personal. I'd rather not have my head pressed against someone else's dried dribble as I sleep. I'm glad I did. I used the voucher that Laura and Paul bought for me. At the moment I'm just thinking of my time here will hold however long that will be.

The plane that I arrived on being unloaded at Alice Springs airport.

Walking around town I can see that the social problems around Alice have not improved at all over the previous three years. I saw a lot of broken glass around and a lot of indigenous people just sitting around with nothing to do. One thing that I also remembered which hit me as soon arrived. The smell. It's not so much smell of Alice but more of the smell of some of the residents. It's a mixture of dirt, wood smoke and weeks of built up sweat. It was obvious. As I say, on the surface, it appears that nothing has really changed even with the intervention that started before I left and is still continuing. At the moment I really don't know whether or not it is good to be back. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it goes.