Positive Life NSW

Hédimo Santana on the Hunter/New England Positive Retreat – 21 to 23 September 2007

Karumah Positive Living Centre, located in Newcastle, invited me to join their annual Positive Retreat, held this year at the Aboriginal ‘Tin-Tuppa’ Gunya Cottage in Tintinhull, about 20km from Tamworth.

Positive men and women from the Tamworth, Taree and Newcastle regions gathered once again to discuss issues of concern for rural PLWHAs. It was also a great opportunity to indulge in a weekend of good food, line-dancing, music, relaxation, and evening chats by the camp fire. Some of them came with their partners. Carers and other local health and social workers also attended the retreat.

A relaxing and secluded setting
Arriving at the Cottage around lunch time on Friday, I had a strong sense of relief, feeling truly far away from Sydney and its everyday pressures. Even though I had two workshops planned for the weekend, I could really appreciate being in a warm and secluded space where the only noise was the wind brushing the top of the trees protecting the Cottage.

The afternoon went by very lazily, as it can do in country towns. A few of the guests sunbathed on the veranda, patiently waiting for the arrival of the bus coming all the way from Newcastle with the majority of the attendees.

There, I sipped on a cup of coffee with a couple of previous retreat participants, who had arrived early and were already well and truly settled. Their Caravan was parked nearby, and their lovely little dogs dozed away in the shade of a blooming eucalyptus tree. I also met Greg, a nice chap who works for the Taree Community Health Centre and who would be presenting on the ins and outs of STIs. His workshop, which was scheduled to take place at 9:00am Sunday, was appropriately titled “The Bugs’s Breakfast”. It sounded like we were off to an interesting experience.

Far up the hill was a tent, strategically set up by a member of the organising committee. He chose the outdoors, instead of the cosy environment of the participants’ dormitories with double bunks and a single bed in each room.

The last participants finally arrive
By 4:00 pm the mobile phones were running hot. The bus with the rest of the participants was finally approaching. They had missed Burrabaroo road and the driver had to call one more time to get the directions right. Excitement grew among previous retreat participants as they wondered who was coming to this one. Once the bus parked in front of the building, there was a rush of people greeting and kissing, and at the same time they tried to beat each other’s to the best spots in the dormitories. It appears that decisions about who was going to share with whom were being made in a flash, as people passed each other carrying pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, mobile phones, Ipods and binoculars.

Someone noticed a rustically hand written sign at the entrance warning us to carefully examine our shoes to avoid Spiny Burr grass getting into the carpet. The smell of brewing coffee filled the air, as the participants negotiated the space in the front verandah, trying to catch the last rays of sunshine. Two lads took over the kitchen and started preparing our first evening meal. For the rest of the weekend they would guard that kitchen as if it was a diamond, with heavenly food flowing from the stove at every meal break.

Meanwhile, we were all invited to the meeting room, where Andrew Whitbread-Brown, Karumah’s Chairperson, welcomed us to the weekend retreat.

Getting to know you
Andrew brainstormed with us the ground rules for the weekend: confidentiality, respect for each other, everyone’s right to speak and be heard, etc. Other rules would be added to the board as necessary.

At the meeting room we formed another circle where Robert Karumah’s new peer support officer informed us of the weekend’s agenda, including the “Line Dancing for the Rich and Famous” that he would be MC-ing that Friday night after dinner, and Sally’s “Bingo”, on Saturday night, which promised lots of goodies proudly donated by local businesses.

Dinner was served at 7pm, and soon after that everyone got dressed up in colourful long sleeve shirts caringly made by Robert. I can assert that that was Jack’s third change of outfit since I had first met him at the verandah in the afternoon: firstly in a very butch bikie kind of dress, then in a bright red and yellow fireman uniform and now in a cowboy outfit and brandishing a freshly shaved head. We were then directed to the meeting room, which had been transformed into a ballroom, and where country music fashioned à la Tamworth was blasting from the small CD player.

The dancing started awkwardly. But gradually, thanks to Robert’s monk-like patience, we started getting the right steps and soon we were uniformly moving our heaps, feet and hands to the sound of the country ballad. At the end of the dance we broke up into pairs and moved outside to the camp fire, where the conversations flourished until bed time.

Saturday morning I ran the first of the workshops, on serodiscordant relationships. Even though it was a somewhat heavy topic to start the day, it provoked the desired effect of bringing people together, as participants wanted to share more of their experiences with each other.

After morning tea Sharon Taylor, from Tamworth Sexual Health brought us back to the meeting room, this time for a lighter discussion on the needs and challenges facing PLWHA. This included information on what service providers in rural areas could do for people living with HIV. This gave participants a chance to talk about personal experiences in accessing those services.

After lunch I presented my second workshop on the implementation of a new support group, and we discussed the challenges of setting up such a group in a rural setting. That was followed by a delightful presentation by Richard Riley from John Hunter Hospital on “Happiness”, which looked at the relationship between peoples’ feelings and emotions and the effects these have on their health.

Saying Goodbye
As we were getting ready to leave the retreat around lunchtime Sunday it felt like we had spent a whole month together, so close and comfortable we were with each other. We knew each other by name and we knew each other’s life stories, albeit fractured. But we knew we had more than one thing in common: not only were all of us affected by HIV in one way or the other. We had spent the weekend together doing something about it.

Do you live in the Hunter Area? Karumah Positive Living Centre provides a safe and non judgemental environment for positive people and their families, partners and support people. Come and drop in for fun activities and peer support
Opening hours 11am – 3pm
Monday Tuesday Thursday
Evening Poz space
Tuesday 4pm – 7pm
Ph: 4940 8393
www.karumah.com.au