BABY BEDROOM DECORATIONS

[14:49] Caty Weezles: The sights of the man she loathed right now had her running ... away. She ducked into the first opening she saw and cowered there for a moment. Peering through the gates on occassion. Back to Elise.

[14:51] Elise Capalini sits in the graveyard quiet when everyone has gone, near the fresh grave that Eamon dug for the birds. One crow. a baby from the looks of it, flies down from the masoleum's roof, to sit on the grave and nose at the dirt. She watches the bird and thinks of the Mass that just was. She wonders if they will ever have a normal one again. She looks up when she hears movement, and catches sight of Caty, who appears to be running from someone. "Caty...are you all right?" she asks. She stands slowly, but doesn't yet approach.

[14:54] Caty Weezles: The familiar voice through the air had her turning, she shook then and backed into the wall, chocolate eyes looking to Elise as a threat too. There over her shoulder was a small bag. It didn't look full by any means. And under her arm she carried a small treasure chest music box. It chimed as she thudded against the concrete. "Go.. go..." She actually stuttered.

[14:57] Elise Capalini watches Caty turn and hears the faint music from her bag when she rocks against the wall. "Are -you- going?" she asks her. Judging by the running and the bag, she wonders if the girl is running away from home. She takes a couple steps forward, though slowly, and keeps her hands visible, not wanting to frighten the girl any more than she already is.

[15:00] Caty Weezles spread one arm across the wall, feeling it for length and how far she could creep before turning and bolting. Terror filled her eyes, the music chiming in now and then. The music was wound too tight, for too long, too many times and was now offkey of the normal soothing music it once played. She shook her head some, her voice croaked, "You go 'way. Cats are bad."

[15:02] Elise Capalini stays where she is and doesn't come any closer. She hates hearing those words from Caty; they feel like a physical blow. She sinks back to the ground, her shoulders slumped. "Why are cats bad, Caty?" she asks softly. "The gate there is open--if you need to run..." She doesn't want the girl to run, but understands well the need to, the need to know escape was an option.

[15:06] Caty Weezles: Tears already threatened to spill down her cheeks. She was ready to go wherever it was they were going to. She thought she was leaving somewhere, "You shooted my Daddy. Daddy says cats are bad! You have to go to jail and Mister Eamon too!" She shouted across the way. It was a choking shout, the kind where you can't catch your breath to get the words out in one stream. "God shouldn't miss next time!"

[15:09] Elise Capalini's throat tightens at the sound of Caty's voice. Oh she'd sounded like that a time or two herself. She blinks, unshed tears stinging her own eye. "I shot your daddy," she says and nods. "Because he was shooting at Eamon--because..." She draws in a breath and closes her eye for a moment. When she looks at Caty again, she says, "You're angry because we hurt someone you love. We acted the way we did because...we were hurt, too."

[15:13] Caty Weezles shook her head frantically as those tears dripped. She sniffed heavily and shot her arm out pointing and accusing, "You made blood! BLOOD! Blood makes people go away, you tried to make my daddy go away! Mister Eamon tried to make my daddy go away! God taked my mommy and I has to keep my daddy! YOU DONT GET TO TAKE MY DADDY! GOD CANT HAVE HIM TOO!" She screamed and shook. Clutching the music box as tightly as she could. It's sour notes somehow lifting high and matching the tension.

[15:16] Elise Capalini finds herself nodding, at everything Caty says. "Blood does make people go away," she says, lifting a hand to wipe the spilled tears from her cheek, "My daddy went away in blood." That night cuts across her vision and she takes a shuddering breath. "Caty, I'm so sorry...so sorry." Her voice breaks and she finds herself crying freely now, letting herself feel the fear from last week, showing Caty how it touched her too.

[15:19] Caty Weezles sucked in a hitched breath. Simply asking in that same choked voice, "Why Miss Elise? Why do you want to make my daddy go away from me?" Her nose stuffed, she wiped at it with the back of her hand.

[15:23] Elise Capalini lifts her head and wipes her cheek again. She presses her mouth into a thin line and exhales a shaky breath. "Not from you, Caty, never from you." Was Forge truly her father? She still couldn't fathom it, but -Caty- believed he was and that was all she needed to know. "He hurt...he was hurting someone I love," she whispers.

[15:24] Janeiro Renard walked slowly long the road infront of the cemetary, blue smoke

Thursday is "payday'' on the decrepit housing estate at South Moree, when welfare payments arrive for the majority of residents. The ensuing partyillustrates the best and the worst aspects of life in today's indigenous communities.

Australia's Aborigines are bouncing back.

For the first time, the modern indigenous population outnumbers the
estimated population at the time of white settlement.
Unfortunately, the world into which this new Aboriginal generation is
being born is sometimes difficult and often dysfunctional.
The life expectancy for an indigenous child in Australia today is 17
years less than a non-indigenous child born alongside them.
This is because the social landscape that modern Aborigines inhabit is a
blighted one, worn out by multi-generational defeats, failures and
neglect.
In the cities and rural towns, where many were relocated by government
policies of assimilation in the past century, and where others have
moved in search of work, ghettoes abound.
In regional and remote areas, where many have remained on and around the
former religious missions and government reserves, basic services such
as clean drinking water and sewerage are often unreliable.
And as the 21st century dawned on Australia's bush and her outback, the
drought has made a hard land even harder.
The statistics are severe.

The most comprehensive government report on the plight of Australia's
Aborigines, Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage, found in 2007 that the
median household weekly income of indigenous people has risen 10 per
cent in a decade, to $340, compared with $618 for non-indigenous people.
But in spite of more than $3 billion in annual federal spending on
indigenous Australians, the imprisonment rate for indigenous women
surged 34 per cent between 2002 and 2006. For men it increased 22 per
cent. Indigenous imprisonment rates rose 32 per cent overall from 2000
to 2006 and are now 13 times higher than the rate for non-indigenous
Australians. In health, indigenous infant mortality rates have improved, but are
still two to three times the national average, while there has been no
change in the numbers of low birth weight babies and hearing problems
among children, which is in
epidemic proportions in remote communities.
And barely a week goes by in Australia without a fresh tale of child
abuse and neglect in indigenous communities, a predicament that led the
government of former Prime Minister John Howard to rush through a suite
of draconian and controversial measures to make children safe in
Northern Territory communities that became known as ``The
Intervention''.
But the desperate coincidence of an exploding population and imploding
infrastructure is rarely as stark as it is in drought-ridden western New
South Wales, where the birthrate among Aboriginal women is twice that of
non-Aboriginal women, despite persistent high mortality rates and record
rates of incarceration.

For some young Aboriginal parents, issues such as alcoholism,
unemployment and limited education are still barriers.