Forty years ago.
One October, when I was six, my family left Holland and arrived in Australia, a land of salty air and big skies, plenty of space and warm enough coming into summer for it to be all about outdoor living (even in Melbourne!). The four of us moved in with my uncle and aunt, in their small suburban house with our six slightly wild cousins.
The younger of us kids rode the streets on our bikes, from milk bar to milk bar, crossing asphalt school playgrounds and train tracks with ease. One of my fondest memories is of a game we ‘played’ after the sun had set. We creeped around the neighbourhood houses, and knocked loudly on people’s front doors (this was in the days before everyone lived behind 6ft fences). We’d then make a run for it, doubled over in stifled giggles, and hide behind small trees or leafy bushes. We cacked ourselves (hehe that’s probably an old Melbournian saying) as we watched people open their doors and look about, frustrated or bewildered. We cared not a whit that we’d bothered them. If they happened to spot us we’d bolt. Innocent hysterics. Simple fun. Simply fun.
In the quiet leafy suburb where I was privileged to grow up I played hide and seek with my friends for hours in the bush across the road. There we also climbed my humungous Magic Faraway Tree to visit the Land of Topsy Turvy. We had even had tea parties on rooftops.
In friends’ backyards we boogied like Swedish dancing queens and belted out How How Howzat! Complex board games would sprawl for days on ratty living room carpets, Leggo towns scattered, Snap games turned to when mindless fun was needed instead.
Sandwiches or snacks were often served to us wherever we happened to be. No need for our mums to consult their diaries and schedule ‘play dates’ on our behalf. Back then a lot more mums were at home, and the community kept a squinty eye on ‘us kids’; as long as we returned by dinner time we were free. Sure, I did calisthenics, athletics, tennis, swimming; but there always seemed time to just hang around too. And summer holidays lasted FOREVER!
When I was 12 we moved to the country and I got a pony. I rode my pony, alone, around the streets and bushland. No mobile phones. No planned itinerary or route. Sometimes I would head off for the whole day, with a backpack and packed lunch.
My family moved back to the city again, so on weekends I travelled, alone, to my pony. I was 14 and rode my bike a few kilometres to the Brighton train station, lifted it onto the train going to the city, changed there onto the country line, travelled 40km, then rode a few more kilometres to the paddock where my pony was agisted. After a day of riding and mucking around, I reversed the whole trip back in the afternoon. There is a nice jagged scar on my chin, and I’ve spent too many dollars of ongoing dental care on broken teeth over the years from when I hit the gravel riding my bike back one day. Yep, ‘look mum no hands, look mum no teeth’. Except mum wasn’t there! The reins of the bridle I had stupidly looped over the handlebars got caught under the wheel, and 40km from home I limped bleeding and toothless into a stranger’s house to ask if I could use their phone to call my mum. How times have changed.
Twenty years ago.
It’s a wonderful thing for kids to grow up in an environment that allows freedom and exploration, to learn by trial and error, to have unstructured fun.
My kids also enjoyed all this as we lived for 12 years on acreage, along a quiet dead-end street that followed a big river. Many weekends and holidays they spent roaming about. War games battled in the shade of tall black-bean trees using the dry pods as weapons. Munching wild mulberries along the river bank during breaks.
Our dam, large and deep, was a haven on hot days when half a dozen kids would try to balance together on an old mouldy surf ski before toppling into the murky depths.
Happily escorted by our dogs, the kids would ride their bikes or their ponies to their friend’s place up the road, where mum Cherie would feed them as many pancakes as they could stuff into their eager mouths. Then on full bellies they continued playing more games that were just made up, improvisation allowing imaginations to blossom and strategic and logic abilities to develop. Without parental or authoritarian pressures or expectations.
Sometimes wee little Gus, at the ripe old age of 7ish, would don his backpack and head off up the hill to explore nature, literally crawling on hands and knees under prickly lantana bushes and clambering over rocks. Who cared about deadly snakes and spiders! These solitary explorations where his adventures, and allowed him to develop his courage and independence. But once he even dragged his 70+ year old Nanna along with him (he was a most responsible and confident expedition leader).
In those days I job-shared, freelanced or worked part-time and went to uni, so I did my best to spend time at home. Between us, the mums of the various houses in the street would keep a casual eye on the kids. And sure, all the kids enjoyed structured extra-curricular activities like dancing, ju jitsu, rugby, tennis; as well as many daily typical farming chores like feeding all the animals, balanced by hours of reading Harry Potter and Star Wars. But there was still time to play, and they too were lucky enough to have some freedom to do so.
Today.
We all know most children in developed countries have much less freedom these days. Cars drive way too fast, roads are congested and footpaths can be unsafe, and sadly we have heard about too many child abductions. To let a young teenage girl travel so far from home, alone, like I did, would be unthinkable today.
In many families both parents must work just to pay the rent or mortgage, and they juggle the kids’ activities with full timetables and tightly supervised play times. Helicopters hovering. Not many primary school children ride their bikes to school anymore. And I wonder if anyone still plays cricket out on the street? Sadly, the practice of the village raising the child has all but disappeared. And it’s not just about perceived or real dangers. It’s because life is so fast. Parents too busy.
So it’s refreshing to come to a place like Gili Meno, where there are no cars at all, there is no town or city, and the village lore and law ensures crime is kept to a minimum. Where people and things move slowly. It’s a developing country, so sure, it’s vastly different to the privileged middle-class white-kid upbringing I had. The kids on this island have so little – toys are virtually unseen – but, at the risk of sounding cliched, in many ways they are richer.
Here primary school children start school at 7am. I see kids as young as 5 riding pushbikes to school alone at that time of the morning. One tiny tot even doubles a friend – or two – on his small electric scooter! At around 11am you see them all returning. Heading home for the day, and in time for lunch.
After lunch they may have a sleep – their ‘siesta’ – and then spend the late afternoons gallivanting around the village with other children, playing tiggy, barefoot, through the bush. Outside my gate most afternoons their laughter and chatter is loud (in the Lombok language) and I only wish I could understand what secrets and nonsense they are sharing.
They create makeshift swings or bouncy things out of young bendy boughed trees in the coconut field next door. They play badminton using bits of cardboard, or flip-flops, as racquets. Or they ride bikes to the beach, and paddle in the shallows in taped-up old styrofoam boxes, or spend hours running up the soft sand and turning around and running back, jumping with glee into the crystal clear ocean water. Cartwheels and somersaults. For sheer delight.
Sometimes mum or dad won’t be far… cooking or cleaning outside their huts or at their jobs, or running their own business. Or sleeping on the berugak with one eye open. If not, there will be other mums or dads or villagers close by somewhere, keeping half an eye on the littlies. But essentially they are free. Free to own their own experiences. Free to slumber when tired. Play when energetic. Roam when feeling adventurous. Long, carefree hours.
They also learn from mum and dad through observation and through assisting. I’ve seen two year olds wielding very large very sharp knives cutting up fruit, copying the adults. And why not? They develop resilience, independence and responsibility as well as learning about adventure, whilst feeling safe and secure. And even if they carry a younger sibling on their hip, or in the basket on the front of their rickety bike, they are free to be children. Because the village and the island is their playground, their school, their home. And because there is time. Like there was for me forty years ago. And for my kids twenty years ago. In some ways this paradise island – where life is very basic but the children are not in abject poverty – is lost in time. It is called Gili Meno; Gili means small island, and Meno sort of means stay the same. I doubt it is possible, but I sure hope it stays the same for a good while longer. Maybe one day (not yet!) I will be lucky enough to have young grandkids visit to share the freedom and the slow pace. Little nieces and nephews (and maybe some loved “stepsons”) first though please! To experience the fun and adventure. A world of simple and enriching pleasures awaits them here.
