Paul’s reply

Hi Emil,

My name is Paul Jimenez… as you probably know I live in a remote town 750 kilometres from the next city (Perth – the capital of Western Australia and the most remote city in the world). Our town has a population of 60 people. There is a small primary school in town with 6 kids attending.

To answer your questions:

I have eight subjects this year (my second year of high-school). They are: French, S&E (Society & Environment), Photography, Art, H&P (Health and Physical) Education, English, Mathematics and Science. My favourites are Science, Photography and Health and Physical Education.

There are lots of wildlife in our area. Most common are: kangaroo (I attached a photo of one), goanna (also called bungarra), emu and the wedge tailed eagle. There are many other birds, snakes, spiders and lizards also.

I don’t think it’s boring to live far away from the cities… I grew up in the bush and I consider the ‘big smoke’ (city) too crowded and busy – when we go to Perth to do shopping I almost always get a headache!!!

The next shop is just 800 metres away (the general store) but we don’t buy much from there because it is very expensive and has very few products. Sometimes we order food from Perth and it gets transported here by a large refrigeration truck. Twice or at the most three times a year we go to Perth and do shopping filling up all our fridges in the motor-home. We have a room full of shelves to store food plus two large fridges and freezers.

If I (or somebody else in my family) get bitten by a dangerous animal (such as a snake) we can bandage it and treat it as we have a large chest full of almost all the medicines and sterile tools needed to do give first aid but to be on the safe side we would call RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) who would fly to Sandstone if necessary (landing on a dirt airport) and transport the injured person to the next hospital 750 kilometres from here.

Our motor-home (the one we used to travel around Australia for a year) is a Winnebago, 6.5 metres long. It has a double bed above the cabin and a settee with a 180 degrees view in the rear which at night-time can be used as a bed. It is 3.5 metres high and based on a 6 tonne ISUZU truck. For the three of us it is very comfortable – we like it very much.

Our nearest neighbour is 100 metres away – we are in the centre of the small town….

No, it’s not difficult to make friends – there are some kids in town I sometimes play with. When we travel around Australia I meet some other children and I keep in contact via e-mail. I also make friends with the Epals program which I really like.

I do hope that this gives you an idea about how it is like in Australia….

Until next time….