Last week I was on afternoon and evening shift all week, which has messed with any chance of really contacting home well, or catching up on news. We tend to sleep in and then work from midday through to 10:30 pm (roughly). Suits my body clock perfectly, but not good for touching base with home.
There has been a bit of grief in our camp since a lot of the media has been getting back here. Most of what is in the mainstream press is half true, but we are powerless to do anything about it. The men are able to use the internet and they are taking every opportunity to protest the very fact that they are even here. We understand that they will tell whatever story they can to change their circumstances. Unfortunately, we will bear part of the brunt of this.
We are ramping up the care management of the guys this week, which is good. Each shift is now given a list of 20-30 guys to do a well being check on every day. We are now able to identify melancholy, illness and other concerns much more proactively, which will help the 3 social workers we have in our team.
Today was probably the best day that we've had in the processing centre. The day started smoothly with all the functions going well and finished with a game of cricket and volleyball operating in the common spaces. Due to a variety of issues in the centre of late, this had not been possible until today. I was facing a very fast Pakistani player (we were Sri Lanka vs Pakistan - I was voted onto the Sri Lankan team somehow) who scared the life out of me, only to later discover he was the national Pakistani schoolboy champion bowler. He bowled me third ball of his over.
Tonight we had a meal out to farewell around 20 short term staff that are heading home to Australia. Their departure coincides with the announcement by the Eastern Territory about how they are going to structure the operations here for the long term. My position is one that will become a permanent paid position, along with a number of others.
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