Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We share our Kiwi immigration story and talk about
our new life in Nelson, New Zealand
August 2007 | Blog home | October 2007
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Leisurely walk on Rabbit Island |
1 September: An eclipse and an earthquake On Tuesday 28 August New Zealand got to see a total lunar eclipse, when the moon is gradually shielded from the sun by the earth. We were able to watch it from our windows, and although we didn't take photos, many people around New Zealand did. Here are a some photos we took from the NZ Herald website sent in by kiwis.
The skies were clear all day ONLY in Nelson, while the rest of the country was in rain and cloud. But by the time the eclipse started around 8.30p, skies were clearing all around the country.
To the right is a shot of the partial coverage as the shadow started going over the moon. It was taken by Phill Hart in Johnsonville, Wellington.
An eclipse occurs when the earth passes between the sun and the moon, blocking the sun's light. It is rare because the moon is usually either above or below the plane of the earth's orbit. If there is enough dust in the earth's atmosphere the surface will appear blood red, as was the case with our eclipse.
The last time a total lunar eclipse was visible over New Zealand was in July 2000, and the next occurrence observable from New Zealand is on December 21, 2010.
Now you must be wondering about the earthquake.
Well, it's more like a fake earthquake. And it has a name. I guess 'she' has a name: Pandora. Exercise Pandora, a major civil defence action that Nelson City Council will undertake on 14 and 15 September. New Zealand is HUGE on preparing for civil defence emergencies, and we, apparently, are in need of practise. For the first time in four years, we are undergoing this major exercise over 27 hours with 160 staff from both the Nelson City and Tasman District Councils and other government ministries to practise all we need to know.
As a member of the Public Communications team, I will be front and center for this exercise. I've opted to take the first of three shifts (mine is 12 hours) because I like the thought of working in the chaos. I'll be keen to share with you all what happens and how it goes.
In case any of you are not aware (and I have reason to believe most of you are not), the 2007 Rugby World Cup begins in 3 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes, and 28 seconds, at the time of this writing. How do I know this exact countdown? Because it has been promoted here day after day after day for months. TV3, our preferred news station, is the official sponsor and television station in New Zealand and has been counting down days on TV for weeks now. "34 days to go ..." flashes on the screen. Then the RWC logo. "19 days to go ..." "7 days to go ..." etc. etc. etc.
This is a really really big deal. In some parts of the world, that is. I bet America has no idea, even though they have a team playing (we'll root for them too). But in New Zealand ... well, we are already rugby crazy (we being a way for me to ingratiate myself with my fellow countrypeople, but I have NO idea about rugby). It just happens that for this world cup, the All Blacks (our team name) are the favourites. People are going crazy.
The RWC is in France this time around, and we've seen the players over the last week during every step of their journey from the team building, to a mall on the way to the airport to visit fans, to the airport, on the plane, off the plan, at practice, on the streets in France, and on and on. It's our own superbowl effect.
I think Don and I will try to host some people over for one of the All Blacks matches as we have that really big TV. Otherwise, we are actually pretty keen to keep up with our team and cheer them on. Even though we have no idea what we're watching, what the rules are, and what's going on. We can understand the score, tho, so that's good. Go ABs!
To read more about the Rugby World Cup, visit their website, www.rugbyworldcup.com
On Monday and Tuesday 27 and 28 August I was lucky enough to attend a two-day training workshop on The Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) at the Whakatu Marae in Nelson with 20 of my work colleagues. We spent two days discussing the Treaty's history and its future, as well as the way forward for Maori (both singular and plural). I've divided this into three parts for readers, and I'll publish over three different days:
Part 1: Ceremonial welcome
Part 2: Treaty seminar day 1, History and looking back
Part 3: Treaty seminar day 2, The way forward for Maori
A marae is a collection of buildings that are sacred to a particular iwi (tribe) who go there for cultural services. The Nelson marae serves several iwi, as I think there are 8 in the region claiming the Nelson area as home. Whakatu Marae’s meeting house is called Kakati, named after an ancestor with physical representations in the building structure that also symbolically represent that ancestor. As one enters the meeting house, it is seen as entering the bosom of the ancestor. The meeting house is the real spiritual center of a marae; you will usually also find an eating house, meeting spaces, and other dwellings depending on how large a marae is.
Upon arriving at the marae, we all gathered outside its gates for the beginning of the hui (meeting) in a stance to indicate we, the manuhiri (visitors), are ready to be received and enter the marae. The women stood in front of the men (not customary for all marae, but it is for Kakati), flanked closely together. This indicates that we are ready. The Tangata Whenua (hosts) form a group in front or at the side of the marae and a woman from the host side does a Karanga (call) to indicated to the manuhiri they can move forward onto the marae. The Karanga is normally answered by a woman’s response from the manuhiri, but none of us know Te reo Maori (Maori language) so our male training facilitator spoke on our behalf. He sang an identifying call to indicate where our group has come from.
We tip toed as a group forward toward the marae doors with our heads bowed, while the Tangata Whenua sang. We stopped at the centre of the path forward where were remembered those who have died. We then moved to the entrance and removed our shoes, as shoes are not allowed in the marae. We moved inside the building and took seats to the right, while the Tangata Whenua took their seats on the left side. Speakers from both sides alternated speaking in Te reo.
The last speaker for the manuhiri presents a Koha (gift or contribution) to the Tangata Whenua. These days the gifts are usually money, given in respect for the hospitality to be shown. It is the prerogative of the manuhiri to decide how much to give, and we all passed around the envelope prior to entering the gate and donated individually and then the Nelson City Council made its own Koha as well. You figure about what it would cost for accommodation for the number of days you stay. The Koha pays for the building maintenance and catering costs of the marae. During our stay, the marae staff fed us breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as morning and afternoon tea—not a small amount of food and work!
Once the Koha was given, the Tangata Whenua indicate that the manuhiri are ready to form a line, shake hands, and hongi. The hongi is two presses of the nose, while shaking hands. In any encounter situation, the hongi brings all the senses into close contact. So we stood in line and hongi-ed with all our hosts, and then with each other—some 25 people. It’s quite an intimate thing to hongi, it invades your personal space and gets you out of your comfort zone for sure. But it was nice to get to know people in that way, and nice to enter into someone else’s culture and get to know their welcome rituals.
The hongi marks the end of your introduction into the marae. At that point, you are cleansed and ready to enter the meeting house and sit before the ancestors. For us, it also marked the beginning of a fascinating seminar on the formation of the Treaty of Waitangi, what happened to Maori as a result of the Treaty and colonization, and what is going on today to right the wrongs.
For those of you who don’t know what the Treaty of Waitangi is, click here to go to my history lesson in several parts from a year ago (scroll to bottom as that is where first entry of four starts). To sum it up into one sentence, it is the founding document for New Zealand that brought Maori and settlers together to form a unified nation with joint power. That is the Treaty, of course, but not the resulting history.
FYI: Selected Marae Kawa (Protocol)
Stay tuned for Part 2: Treaty seminar day 1, History and looking back
On Monday and Tuesday 27 and 28 August I was lucky enough to attend a two-day training workshop on The Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) at the Whakatu Marae in Nelson with 20 of my work colleagues. We spent two days discussing the Treaty's history and its future, as well as the way forward for Maori. I've divided this into three parts for readers:
Part 1: Ceremonial welcome
Part 2: Treaty seminar day 1, History and looking back
Part 3: Treaty seminar day 2, The way forward for Maori
The marae was cold, with no heating and what felt like no insulation. But it was beautiful inside, decorated with carvings and drawings of the whakapapa (family) and iwi (sub-tribes) of the region. Click here for the marae's web page with photos. Mattresses with pillows were set up along the walls, a few chairs were set up in the middle to form a U-configuration. Most of us sat on the mattresses, laying down or sitting up as we felt like it. The marae insists on comfort and casualness, even allowing rebels like me to bring in knitting during the meetings. You could take a nap, you can grab your guitar and play music, you can relax in most any way. The marae is meant as a refuge and is a place of comfort.
Our meeting commenced, once we all got situated, and it started by discussing the meeting of decolonization—what Maori today are calling for. What does decolonization mean? Of course, we were a room full of Pakeha (those from European descent) so we had to put ourselves in the place of Maori, almost as uncomfortable as doing the hongi! We came up with phrases like “balancing cultural influence” and “cherishing diversity” and “eradicating cultural influence.”
In the 1840s colonists pretty clearly determined that anyone who didn’t do things like them, look like them, or believe like them were savages and heathens. They were treated as such for the next 20-40 years while the government stripped Maori of their land at the same time they attempted to colonise them … make them more European. Maori were told that they could only get ahead in life by becoming less Maori and more like the colonists. As a result, they lost their arts, medicine, ceremonies, spirituality, names, clothing, and language. Additionally, they lost their land, forests, waterways, self government, education and justice systems.
Retelling the history, our host Takawai Murphy talked about this battering over 120 years being put down and, as a result, discovering that the great experiment to become more Pakeha wasn’t working. Maori were poor, uneducated, found alcohol, were criminals, had lower-class jobs, and on and on. Their lives didn’t improve at all, the promise wasn’t fulfilled.
So, in the 1960s, Maori decided to reclaim their heritage. It was in the 1960s during a movement that paralleled the American Civil Rights movement. They started speaking the language again; they gave up English names in exchange for Maori names; they practiced their spirituality and performed their rituals; and they revived their arts. They created their own schools and universities, started their own hospitals and medical services, founded radio and television stations of their own.
They also started researching the Treaty of Waitangi. By all accounts it was drafted in good faith by English settlers and signed by most of the Maori tribes. What is most unusual about the Treaty of Waitangi amongst so many other treaties in the world is that it exists in two languages. The problem with that is there are two meanings. Maori expected to keep peace, to remain in charge of themselves, and to keep their houses and tribes strong. The felt they were signing the Treaty to welcome new settlers and have new trading partners for economic gain, and to allow them to govern themselves. They always felt the governance of the country would be from two houses.
The English did not interpret the Treaty in the same way. Which version stood? In history, the English version of course. But legal experts say otherwise. The Maori version of the Treaty has more than 530 Maori signatures and a couple of English signatures. The English version has about 30 Maori signatures and a couple of English signatures. Under the international law principle of Contra Preferentum the indigenous text should have been the text that was adhered to. And it has nothing to do with the number of signatures, although that’s pretty strong evidence by itself. Rather, international law gives more weight to the indigenous version because the Treaty was drafted by the English and they had the responsibility to be fair and accurate in their dealings and in translations.
But, that didn’t happen. What did happen was that a well-intended document turned very, very sour.
Within 2 years after the Treaty's signing, the Crown started passing laws to take large chunks of the 66 million acres owned by Maori. Within 40 years, Maori tribes owned less than one-quarter of that land, and in time most of that would also be gone. Law after law was passed by the Crown to take land in one way or another. Today, Maori own 7% of the land in New Zealand and only approximately 3% is available for use.
Even worse? In 1877 a judge, James Prendergast, the Bishop of Wellington, ruled against a Maori man by nullifying the Treaty of Waitangi altogether. The man, Wi Parata, gifted land to the Anglican Church for the purpose of building a school. Maori tradition is to gift land for a purpose; if and when the purpose has been fulfilled and ended, the land needs to be returned.
The school was never built and Parata asked the land given to the Church be returned to his iwi. In his judgment, Prendergast took the view that the Treaty of Waitangi was a "simple nullity". He called Maori "primitive barbarians", and said they were "incapable of performing the duties, and therefore of assuming the rights, of a civilised community." Prendergast's reasoning was not overturned until 1938 when Te Heuheu Tukino v Aotea District Maori Land Board was decided, where the Court ruled that the Treaty was seen as valid in terms of the transfer of sovereignty, but as it was not part of New Zealand statute law it was not binding on the Crown. So the law stayed that way until the mid 1970s.
Stay tuned for Part 3: Treaty seminar day 2, The way forward for Maori
On Monday and Tuesday 27 and 28 August I was lucky enough to attend a two-day training workshop on The Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) at the Whakatu Marae in Nelson with 20 of my work colleagues. We spent two days discussing the Treaty's history and its future, as well as the way forward for Maori. I've divided this into three parts for readers:
Part 1: Ceremonial welcome
Part 2: Treaty seminar day 1, History and looking back
Part 3: Treaty seminar day 2, The way forward for Maori
The way forward was outlined for us. Both Maori and Pakeha need to stop the name-calling, stop the blaming, stop the excuses. Maori want to have parallel governance systems to operate as a partnership for the betterment of New Zealanders. They want to share power, control, and decision-making. They want everyone to recognise the Treaty for what it is … two houses governing two peoples.
What would the a shared power structure look like? One way was documented out for us. On one side the existing Parliament with fewer seats, 69, that can have political parties and govern just as it does now. On the other side a government house for Maori, with 28 seats and no political parties. The number of seats is based on representation of population statistics. Legislation can be initiated by either of these houses but it requires a simple majority in your own house before it is brought to a third house, the Treaty of Waitangi house. In the TOW house, 25 members for each lower house sit (so 50 total, but 25 for Maori and 25 from the Parliament house), and they can be the same members that sit in the lower houses, or totally different members. It wasn't clear if members of the TOW house are elected by the public or by the lower houses. But, for legislation to become law, it would have to garner approval by at least one half of the members of each part of the TOW house: one half of the 25 Maori PLUS one half of the 25 of Pakeha.
It was very interesting to go through this proposed system--and it was only one system that is under talks--we all asked many questions and poked a few holes and pondered that it might be possible. And the bigger picture came to light that it could be very cool for this type of system, two peoples living together in a real way like so few do.
While this part of the way forward day was uplifting, unfortunately for me we ended on what I found to be a sad final note. When one attendee asked, “When will everything be done, what will ‘final’ look like?” Takawai told us when everything is “fair and just.” But to him, fair and just did not include many of the settlements currently underway or completed by the Government’s Waitangi Tribunal. He is of the opinion that most of the settled claims brought by various iwi are not fair, not just, and won’t hold up to scrutiny even though every tribe is required to sign a “full and final settlement” document.
He gave an example. Apparently one government settlement, unrelated to the Treaty claims at all, with a Pakeha man for beachfront land netted him $35,000 per acre, while during the Treaty talks, Maori are averaging less than $5 per acre throughout their settlements. Is that fair and just? Takawai says no.
He also said the Waitangi Tribunal process is flawed. Final claims must be approved by Parliament, Maori are told who can file a claim and who the chosen participants to the negotiation are, Pakeha drive the process from beginning to end. Takawai feels this is challengeable.
So it got me to thinking, at the end of day two, will this ever end? Will every “full and final settlement” really be full and final? If Maori don’t think so, it seems to me it may never be over. It was a bittersweet two days; uplifting and educational, but sad and a bit hopeless. I guess all I can do is just learn to appreciate their culture and accept their place in the world alongside mine here in Aotearoa.
On Friday 14 September I was involved in a 25 hour exercise with Nelson City Council to practise emergency response for the top of the South Island. We’ve known for months that we would have this two day exercise, the purpose of which was to learn more about our emergency response capabilities and to see where we have shortcomings. All we knew was that it was going to be an earthquake.
I’m a member of the public communications department and so I was involved with one of the key areas, public information. The exercise took place with people working in three shifts, and during each shift there was a Public Information Manager guiding the available public info team, and I was assigned under the PIM to handle all media relations and outgoing communications. Because I volunteered to be on the first shift, this meant I would be in the middle of the chaos, perfect! I think I do very well under pressure, and it sure is the most interesting part anyway.
My shift was scheduled for 10am and went through to 9pm that night. As I was essentially a ‘first responder,’ it was my job to make sure the public info section was setup for immediate access to a computer so that we could try to communicate with the outside world. Our team has a civil defence computer, so I packed that up just before 10am, put with it the emergency printer and some paper. Both pieces of equipment can operate on battery power, and if the internal network is down, we have a wireless card to get us in communication with the rest of the country or, at least, our web server which resides in Auckland.
Right at 10am, the loud fire alarm sounded and we were underway, starting with a fire drill to get everyone in the entire building outside. After the all clear was sounded, those involved in the exercise for shift one went immediately to the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), located in the council chamber. We set up the tables in a configuration that we could operate in as an emergency centre, the technical people started hooking up telephone wires and networking wires so we could attach emergency phones and computers to our desks and start handling what was to come over the next 25 hours.
Our briefing was brief: an earthquake of magnitude 8.2 on the Richter scale hit the top of the South Island. All power was lost, and there were no cellular telephone networks running at all (this is true of most civil defence emergencies, cell phones are usually down for several days). Anyone in Nelson could call out on the telephone system, but only within Nelson, not anywhere else in the country. Buildings in the vicinity—those we knew about immediately after the earthquake anyway—had serious damage, with furniture being overturned, shelves cleared, and structural damage.
Armed with this knowledge, we spent the first hour getting our briefing and setting up the command centre in the council chamber. There were about 60 people on first shift occupying the centre, and some 20 computers were spread out between us. I took about 30 minutes of my time to set up our public info laptop and portable printer. It was quickly ready and I was cracking before most others in the centre. I took notes on the briefing to start my first media release for the local radio stations, knowing that radio is critical, as people are trained to go to their radio for broadcast information in an emergency. I made “contact” with the three stations in town to find out what their situation was post quake and told them what ours was. I was told that they had no fax or internet ability, that all releases would have to be hand delivered. During the second hour, I issued the first release and had it delivered to the three radio stations by a runner on our team.
Now how does all of this work in an exercise? Did I really call the actual radio stations and did I really have someone walk several blocks to their building with a media release? I was curious about how it would all work myself! Upstairs in our building, in a meeting room, about a dozen members of the staff from the Ministry of Civil Defence were acting out the ‘other side’ of this earthquake, what we came to collectively call the "outside world": making fake phone calls to the messenging desk from the public; serving as contacts for the operations folks for generators, power needs, transportation issues, etc.; notifying the EOC of road closures, transportation delays, flooding issues, and on and on. They also served as the people we would call to log in our activities. So when I say I called the radio stations to sort out their situation and share ours, I really called up to the MCD folks upstairs and we play acted what we were doing. They logged all our actions for later analysis. When I say I ‘hand delivered media releases to the radio stations,’ we actually walked them up a flight of stairs to this operations room, where these men and women were making this earthquake and its results happen.
In the first few hours we experienced two aftershocks (not really, of course) for which we crawled under our desks. During my shift I prepared 7 media releases and a couple of public information papers to hand out to people who might organise at Council for information. We publicised the establishment of welfare centres, road closures, the status of water and power, what to do about the flooding issues, and what to do generally in the case of the after-effects of an earthquake.
My work was non-stop, I was full on for about 10 hours straight, and it was really exciting to be part of the exercise. I ate lunch at the computer, ate dinner at the computer, and got away for a couple of toilet breaks. I attended one of the managers’ meetings on behalf of my Public Info Mgr (my boss Penny) for an hour where each section (operations, welfare, planning and intelligence, public info, etc) reported on its status. So I also got to sit with the managers some too.
I handed off my spot around 9pm and headed for a debriefing with the MCD folks. I went home exhausted and tired, but too wired to fall asleep for another 2 hours. As I left the building and walked to my car, I was greeted with a $200 ticket, I thought for parking but later learned that our six-monthly Warrant of Fitness had expired on 29 June and we (Don) had never renewed it so my car was illegal! Not a nice gift after a long day’s work, but we’re trying to fix that up now and hoping for some forgiveness for a couple of immigrants who can’t remember to renew this thing twice a year.
Mt Ruapehu slumbered today after last night's 8.20pm eruption but experts are wary of saying the volcanic activity is over. A covering of ash could be seen around the volcanic crater at the summit of the mountain this morning. The volcano surveillance co-ordinator at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences at the Wairakei Research Centre said the eruption was moderate - Level 2 on a scale of one to five. The eruption threw debris as far as 1.5km from the crater's edge and also caused a 7-minute earthquake which measured 2.8 on the Richter scale
The eruption was "small to moderate" - smaller than the eruptions of 1969 and 1975 but bigger than last October's. GNS duty volcanologist Craig Miller said an eruption from the crater lake sent plumes of black ash into the air which were witnessed by pilots flying overhead.
Lahars (what is a lahar?) flowed down the Whakapapa and Whangaehu catchments and black ash fell on Turoa ski field.
Click here to see pictures of the eruption on Mt Ruapehu.
Lahar is an Indonesian word that refers to a rapidly flowing mixture of rock debris and water (other than normal water flows) from a volcano. Large lahars can present a significant natural hazard. When they overflow their channels they can destroy, erode or bury obstacles in their path. There are various kinds of lahar. A debris flow lahar contains large amounts of sediment (more than 60 per cent of volume) of varying size (from small particles to boulders) and flows like a slurry.
Lahars are a well-known hazard on Ruapehu. The combination of a large volume of water (10 million cubic metres in Crater Lake) poised high (at about 2500 m) above the surrounding terrain on top of an active volcano constitutes a potentially hazardous situation should the volcano erupt or crater rim fail.
The lahar that resulted when the Crater Lake dam failed in 1953 led to the Tangiwai Disaster. Over 60 lahars have been recorded in the Whangaehu valley since the 1860s, the latest occurring during the 1997 eruption. The 1953 lahar was the most hazardous in this period, but much larger lahars in the Whangaehu occurred in the previous 400-850 years.
Most Ruapehu lahars recorded since 1861 have been triggered by eruptions that have ejected water from the Crater Lake. However, lahars can also be triggered by a collapse of part of the rim of a crater lake, with or without an eruption.
Enjoy these photos of our recent stroll on the beach in this park, called Rabbit Island although it's not really an island until the tide daily covers the road to it.
This is what the park generally looks like, the roads around are mostly gravel and the beach itself is off to the right while picnic areas with barbeque pits and lots of green grass are off to the left. You'll find tents (gazebo-like) spread out all over as families come out for a day on the island all year long.
This is what the park area looks like from the beach, full of tall pines for miles.
