Kia Ora

Kia Ora!

New Zealand. Where to begin other than wow. This has been a truly amazing and intense 5 days. I can’t believe it has only been five days either. I am currently typing this off line because in New Zealand they pay for internet based on bandwidth rather than speed. Lame sauce. Perhaps I’ll just do the first couple of days, or maybe all 5 days. It’ll be an intense batch of reading and writing either way.

Day 1

So, I suppose I’ll begin with the trip. Pretty basic flight stuff. Flew, transferred planes, flew, waited, and flew for 13 hours. You know the drill. The night flight was pretty basic. Watched some movies, ate some food, slept a lot. Let me tell you though, we are missing out with American Airlines. Air New Zealand is prime when it comes to flying. Even the domestic flight today was on spot. They gave us wine and cheese twice, juice and water all the time, lollies (hard candies) a few times, and the food was great.

We met a bunch of Butler kids at San Fran, but it was hard to get to know people because we were sitting in the plane most of the time. Once we got to the air port it was insane. We piled of the plane 4:30ish NZ time and were herded through immigration and customs (which wasn’t as bad as everyone said, I got my girl scout cookies through!) and then queued in the small court area where we could make a quick call home. Then out to the bus and NZ equivalent to a U-haul for our gear.

We drove through Auckland on our way to Shakespeare Regional Park. Auckland is the largest city in NZ with 1 million people (25% of the population). A regional park is the equivalent to a state park I believe, and this particular park was not named after Will, but rather a prominent family that lived in the area and had a significant farm. We stayed at the YMCA lodge, which was the homestead of the Shakespeare family. So to get us over our crazy jet lag, they had a crazy busy schedule of stuff for us to do. It was basically morning kai, stuff, morning tea, stuff, mid-day kai, stuff, afternoon tea, kai, stuff and bed. If you didn’t guess, kai is a meal. And literally, we ate 5 times a day.

So the first day after morning kai, we had wander, which is basically a mild hike or intense-ish walk. We went up to a lookout 1.5 km from the lodge where we had an amazing view of the country side, bay and Auckland. Then we did about another 1.5 km back. All around us were pastures with sheep. It was great. Then after our afternoon tea we went for a kayak paddle. I was pretty excited, but we were all pretty tired as you can imagine. I love paddling, but I was really hoping it would be laid back. Kiwis do everything pretty intensely as I found out. We did almost 6 km totally on the bay with some strong winds. My body hated me. But we had a great swim after. The waters here are the most amazing deep teal ever.

Of course more kai which this time were baby pancakes with chutney (pickled fruit spread, sounds awful but tastes amazing!) Then we went to nearby Waiwera (which is apparently famous?) to go swimming in their natural hot spring pools. This was amazing and I wish we had these in the states. Basically it’s a swimming pool that’s fed by underground naturally geothermal heated mineral water. We started off in the ‘coldest’ pool that was like 35°C which was like bathwater. Then we moved to the 40°C water which is above 100°F. The hottest pool there was 45°C and appropriately named the Lava pool. To give you a point of reference, water boils at 100°C. I couldn’t even put my hand into that pool for more than a few moments. But the pools felt so nice after our crazy day of flying and activities. That night I had my first taste of mutton. Mutton is lamb, and the style we had was marinated in a mint sauce and grilled. It was great.

Looking out to the bay

Day 2

So we started off our second day with crazy New Zealand food. These guys are crazy; my view of breakfast is as follows. Breakfast = dinner food on toast. So today we had spaghetti on toast. And believe it or not, I was one of the few who tried it and it was great. We spent the morning doing orientation style stuff and ended with a ROGAINE challenge. It’s an acronym that stands for something like Rough Outdoor Group Agility something something something. Basically it was a map of the park with areas we had to visit. And we only had 40 minutes to find these hidden spots and get back. It was intense; we were running up and down these huge hills through beaches and forests; bounding over fences. It was great.

Native bird called Pukeko (its about chicken sized)

Then more kai. This time it was ground lamb on a pita with melted cheese garnished with sour cream and chutney. Love this chutney stuff. We had some choices of outdoor activities like mountain biking, archery, bush walking and mountain boarding. Mountain boarding is basically take a snowboard, put wheels on it and you go down a hill. I really wanted to try this, but you all know that my grace and balance aren’t really there so I opted for the walk. They tempted me with the promise of nature guide books. I couldn’t resist.

The walk was pretty nice, no descript forested areas with some nice plants and birds. There aren’t more than 2 native mammals (bats and a large herbivorous mouse) so it’s all birds and bugs. But we saw some great flora and a ‘waterfall’. Christina (a friend who also goes to Canterbury) and I hung back and walked around the rest of the park. So unfortunately we missed afternoon tea (oh no!) and we were late for the opportunity to learn rugby. But I watched and it seems like a pretty cool sport.

That night a Maori women name Waatara Black came to brief us on Maori culture because the next day we were honored with the opportunity to attend a Marae which is a sacred meeting of the people.

Day 3

The next day we had a new Kiwi breakfast which was baked beans on toast. And crumpets! Crumpets are sweet as (Kiwi slang for awesome). They’re basically a hybrid between half cooked pancakes and English muffins slathered in butter. Go for it, you’ll love it. Most of the day was just orientation stuff.

After lunch we headed off to the Marae. But first we had a stop off at the Auckland history museum to get some knowledge!

Now for some Maori culture lessons. What we experienced was essentially what a fellow tribe would experience when coming to this tribe for the first time, or what other visitors would experience. The tribe essentially tests us, and then welcomes us into their family. It’s really an honor; especially because this was a real tribe and not some tourist attraction.

The Marae is the field in front of whare moe (meeting house). We gather at the end of the Marae with the women in front and the men behind to protect us. Then the chief of the tribe approaches us performing the haka which is a dance combined with Maori martial arts meant to intimidate. Then he presents our leader (who was a guy we chose to represent us) with a large stick (traditional weapon). If our leader takes the stick, it’s a challenge and he gets cracked over the head with it and probably knocked out for a bit. These guys don’t mess around; we signed release forms so anything goes. Then if we pass that first test, the women of their tribe call us in a welcome song which we respond to by slowly walking down the Marae.

Then once we come upon the whare moe, we remove our shoes and the men proceed to the front with the women in the back. Once there, their chief elder sings a greeting song in the native language which call first the spirits of our ancestors and deceased relatives to join. Then he allows our elected male speakers to speak. I know it sounds like women don’t do anything, but we were told that women have a huge part in the society, and they make many of the decisions which is really cool. After each speech, we (the women) sing. Our song and how its sung describes if we agree and to what degree. The songs we sang were beautiful. The language is really lyrical and amazing. Then their chief talked to us and they sang a song.

The songs we sang were as follows. I wanted to post a vidoe of the songs, but you should youtube them. They're very nice :)

Tutira Mai

Tutira mai ga iwi,

Tatou, tatou e.

Whaiai te maramatanga

Me te aroha, e nga iwi,

Kai ko tapa tahi

Kai kotahi ra

Tatou, tatou e

Tatoue, tatou e

Stand forth, people.

Let us unite;

Come forth, people,

Let us be one.

Seek for enlightenment,

And for love,

All people,

Work together,

Unite together,

Let us be one

Te Aroha

Te aroha

Te whakapono

Me te ragimarie

Tatou, tatou e

With love

With faith

With peace

We are all one together

After that we were part of the family. To seal the deal as some would say, we had to perform kia ora. We learned more about kia ora later in the night from Waatara, but I’ll explain now. Kia ora is their hello and it translates to ‘I give you the breath of life’. It originates from their creation myth where their male deities came to Earth and created a woman out of the soil and breathed life into her by placing their forehead and nose against hers and breathing. So you perform kia ora by taking hand (as if you were shaking) and placing your nose and forehead against the other person. So you are literally breathing the same air if you sit there for a few seconds. I think it’s a lot more meaningful than just shaking hands and it wasn’t as awkward as its sounds.

Kapa Haka

After the ceremony, they preformed he kapa haka. It’s a traditional performance of singing and dancing. Really awesome. Try to check out some performances on you tube, I serious! Then they prepared for us a traditional celebratory meal. All day meat (lamb, chicken and pork), sweet potatoes, regular potatoes and pumpkin were wrapped in leaves and cooked in a hole using heated stones. The food was amazing. It had a really unique smoky taste. Not a huge fan of pumpkin though, I think that is the first food here I haven’t completely enjoyed though. Dessert was fruit with real homemade whipped cream.

Then, we attended a koero by Waatera which is a traditional talk. She told us the meanings of the whare moe. I wish I had pictures of inside, but we weren’t allowed. So around the entire room there are beautiful intricately carved statues. These are the statues of the ancestors and each tribe has a statue in each tribe’s whare moe. So when there is a meeting, they sleep under their statue. And this way there is always a connection to their past for guidance. Along the back of the building there are photographs of the past 5 kings and the queen. There are also pictures of other important tribe members. This is the reason why we are not allowed to take pictures. Waatara also told us her lineage along with the history of the Maori people all the way back to creation. It was pretty intense. Waatara had and still has a huge hand in the liberation and recognition of the Maori people in New Zealand. There was a huge movement of cultural identity in the 60’s when she was a teenager. Her mother also led the ‘revolution’. On Friday she was going to Wellington to talk with the government about getting their sacred burial and village lands back. Like I said, she’s intense and amazing.

So we spent the night in whare moe. We all basically slept in a huge dog pile. We slept with all the doors opened, and somewhere in the middle of the night a bunch of cats ended up sleeping with us. Awesome. So it was really weird, because I had a dream of this guy in the group and I catching this kitten, and when I woke up it was right there in front of me. A lot of people were talking about intense and vivid dreams they had that night that they don’t usual have.... coincidence?

Day 4

So today we woke up and had breakfast with the Maori, pretty basic food. Then we piled in for Mike (an orientation leader’s) ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. His name is Mike Cash, but they all call him Mike Dosh because dosh is kiwi for cash. And just because I feel like this is a good time to mention it, kiwi’s are blunt and sarcastic as hell. So I am an easy target and always confused. We drove outside of Auckland and the mystery tour turned out to the Marie Vinette. This is the most famous New Zealand winery! We were given a tour of the vineyard and had a wine tasting led by the owner/creater/head wine maker. It was pretty intense. He taught us how to properly taste wine. We had 6 wines, 4 whites and 2 reds. I have no idea anymore what they were. But I do remember that they were supposed to be really high quality. When we were tasting, the conversation went somewhere along these lines.

Mark: So what do you taste?

Us: apples, strawberry, dirt, fruits, ect.......

Mark: Okay.... well.... does anyone taste pears?

Us: yea! Of course, definitely, I was totally thinking I smelled/tasted pears. Of course!

Mark: ....

It was a lot of fun, and most of us came out of it feeling pretty tipsy. They were quite generous on our portions of wine :D

Then finally we were off to the airport where we flew to Christchurch, got to uni, got our rooms, and were dropped off half a mile down at the market for some food. And here I am. Typing. In my flat. I only have two flatmates so far. There’s Alexis from New York and John from Montana. They seem really nice. The flats themselves are really nice. A sweet modern feeling. I have my own room and Alexis and I share the bathroom. Sweet as!

Well, sorry for how intense this post was. There was just so much to tell, and trust me, there was a bunch more. Thanks for bearing with me and reading! I hope you enjoyed all of the pictures, videos, links and what not :)

Oh, I uploaded a few more pictures with some captions on my Picasa site. Click here!