Wednesday, April 08, 2009 Comment0 Comments

Feb 21st - March 12th (or so)

After our couple of days, we moved on. To Waihoanga Retreat, in the hills of Otaki. What a truly wonderful spot – or rather, it would be if it weren’t for the hills themselves – they’re terribly pretty, but mean that those living in them get to experience about half as much sunlight as those living nearer the coast, in aptly-named ‘sunny Otaki’.

Wayne and Jenny, our wonderful hosts, had bought the retreat some 18 months earlier and fixed it up (see it here). It is able to sleep, at full capacity, some 40 people, and has brilliant stuff like the river and local hills for walkies. There’re also high and low ropes courses on the property, which are frequented by local schools – to our everlasting regret, Simon and I were unable to waylay a teenager in order to pose as them and take their places in the class. I blame Simon, of course.

We were priviledged to be at the retreat when the Maori Language Commision came for their Strategy Planning sessions. A (small) governmental body, they are tasked with seeing to it that To Reo Maori, NZ’s offical language (Te Reo means ‘language’) continues not only to survive, but to flourish. Lovely people, and on their final night, they invited Simon and I to attend that evening’s festivities. They had got to know us, as we had been doing their meals etc, and are, to begin with, a very hospitable and sharing people. Anyway, along we went, and spent almost 3 hours listening to Maori spoken! Apparently, we have heard more, now, than most white Kiwis will in their entire lives, and we got to hear some of the most beautifully-spoken Maori out there.

Note: until relatively recently, Maori was very much the language of the oppressed – children were discouraged, strongly, from speaking it at school or anywhere else. Since then, however, things have definitely changed – we know people who are sending their little girl to a full immersion school – one where the language (and culture) of instruction are Maori! It’s heartwarming to see a country which celebrates its diversity, rather than denying or suffocating it.

There were also other adventures – eating the beautiful food made by Erin, an American WWOOFer who cooks like the devil, learning to make Wayne’s dal (and other marvels, including a raw foods dessert using freshly-picked fruit, nuts and coconut), and, most notably, helping Wayne and Jenny and their kids get ready to leave. Jenny, like me, is a sun child, and the climate in the valley was driving her mad. As a result, they were moving to Australia, where sun is not a problem!

It is worth mentioning here how much we loved meeting and getting to know Jenny and Wayne and the boys – both very warm people, they treated us with great hospitality. In fact, Jenny is the person responsible for introducing me to the people who hired me for some freelance editing work – thanks again! Simon also had fun, doing a lot of work both on the retreat (which needed some heavy work done as terms of sale), and also on the website – done in his spare time, Simon did a brilliant job of adding some great moving pictures to the site…

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