Yvonne Margarula cannot read or write and her English is so poor she prefers to converse in her native language, Gundjehmi, one of three Aboriginal languages she speaks. Until now she has refused requests from foreign and Australian journalists to be interviewed at length. But the growing renown of the Stop Jabiluka campaign has led her fellow campaigners to convince her to agree to an interview using a interpreter. An air-conditioner wheezes noisily in the stifling tropical heat as a couple of children wander in and out of the rooms. Campaign jumble is everywhere.
Desks are cluttered with leaflets and files, columns of photocopying paper are stacked on the floor.
Letters of support from interstate schoolchildren and hand-painted protest banners are pinned to the walls. A Japanese environment group has sent a massive black, red and yellow banner. When Margarula arrives she is exhausted and impatient, having spent the past three days attending a meeting of the Kakadu board of management. Its Aboriginal board members come from three different language groups. The board does not have an interpreter so discussions are held in broken English, making proceedings laborious and slow.