Camping trip to Aoraki

I left Dunedin early Friday afternoon with Lucia and Libor (a Czech-Slovak couple), Cynthia (Brasilian) and Lorenzo (Italian). The sun was shining and it was really warm (24degreesC!) so the drive was really pretty. I was surprised at how similar the countryside looked to back home. But the unplanned pause in our drive from a herd of sheep getting moved across the road was wholly NZ. For the last hour of our drive to Aoraki (Mt. Cook) National Park we could see the mountain in front of us- its grand peak stretching up into the summery sky.

After pitching our tents and having dinner we got to enjoy one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen...

This beautiful preclude to the night was deceiving...none of us slept much because of the horribly strong gusts of wind and rain that tore off the outer cover of the tent multiple times and threatened to flatten the entire tent on top of us a few times! But despite waking up a little worse for the wear we were rewarded for our restless night by a rainbow that stretched in front of a mountain range next to our camp.

Lorenzo, Cynthia and I

We did the Hooker Valley track on Saturday morning. We followed the track as it wound up the valley, crossing the river twice over narrow suspension bridges, and generally getting soaked all around. (It rained the entire walk in and puddles covered half of the trail)

Although we ended up sopping wet, the hike was gorgeous. There were clouds covering the tops of the surrounding mountains but we could still see the bottom parts of the glaciers on their slopes. Waterfalls gushed down from the bottom of the glaciers, feeding into the stony-colored stream that we walked next to. There were boulders strewn across the wide floor of the valley, left behind from an ancient glacier.

The rest of the foreigners arrived late Friday evening in time for us to have a nice candlelit dinner together. It was a very classy style of camping- most of them brought all the luxuries from home and the campsite we were staying at had a public building with tables and sinks. AND the campsite had recycling, trash, flush toilets, and potable water. It was definitely not roughing it. But it was really funny to see all of the foreigners trying to toast marshmallows in the flames of the candles.

On Sunday we hiked up a different valley to see the Mueller Glacier and then hiked up the adjacent mountainside. The track was pretty steep and at times treacherous (I saw more than a few of the wooden trail stabilizers that had fallen from the trail onto the steep mountainside).

But the steepness of the track was worth it because as we climbed an amazing view of the valley opened up before us. By the time that we got up to Sealy Tarns (small mountainside lakes) halfway up the mountain we could see all the way to the lake that we drove past on our way into the park in one direction and up past Hooker Glacier to the base of Aoraki in the other direction.

While we rested at the tarns the clouds blew away from the mountain tops and we finally got a full view of the Mueller Glacier.

Mueller Glacier from the campsite.

Before driving home we stopped at Tasman Glacier, the biggest glacier in NZ. The few meters of rock rubble covering its surface hide the 200-600 meters of glacial ice filling the valley.

Looking down Tasman Valley from the Blue Lakes lookout.

And the sun came back out in full force just in time for our drive back to Dunedin.

A Day in the Life of Elena

The infamous Dunedin fire truck- courtesy of the antics of the Scarfies.

My walk to and from the grocery store, pretty eh?

My flat (on the left).

Leith River and flats on my way to campus

Te Whare Wanunga Photos

Shaffer, Victoria and I modeling Rokka's art with Roka and Carey in the sleeping room

traditional Maori garments made from harekeke

All the Bearcats outside the whare ready to go clamming

making flowers in the wharenui

prepping the harekeke

whakanoa- getting rid of the tapu of the powiri ceremony by eating food (which is noa)

Waikouaiti Whare trip pictures

Digging for tuangi (clams) at Blueskin Bay

Roka and Victoria digging up dinner

Shaffer following tikanga Maori- washing the sand off of the tuangi so that we leave it with the ocean, where it should be.

(I'll post more pictures once I get them from the other students)

Te Whare Wanunga

This weekend the WU students at Christchurch came down and we all went out to a whare wananga (a house of learning) to experience Maori culture and learn about weaving. The whare was established by Roka and Carey, an elderly Maori couple, years ago so that they could teach Maori ways. Roka is very well-known for the amazing Maori cloaks that she has made from harekeke, flax, fiber that she has shown around the world and that are on display now at Cantebury Museum. She is now a teacher of Maori arts at Uni of Otago. Carey is part Maori part Scots who was very grandpa-like with his short Santa Claus-beard. He used to be a schoolteacher before founding the whare. It has been used as a private school, a carving school, and it has developed into a place where they offer harekeke, flax, weaving courses. They established it independent of the government and now they are connected to the largest university in NZ, a Maori one called Te Wanunga te Aotearoa. After this educational purpose it also serves as a place for their whanau (extended family). They have quite an extensive whanau because along with their children and grandchildren they also took care of hundreds of children through the welfare system over the years. The whare wanangua has become their family home where at least some of their whanua come for the weekend. When they have children they return to the whare to bury their whenua, placenta, in the ground to give them a deeper connection to the earth, also called whenua, there and the family.

We spent the weekend learning about tikanga Maori, Maori ways, and enjoying being in their family. When we first arrived at the whare we were sang onto the ceremonial green by Roka's daughter. The women in our group entered the open courtyard first, followed by the men, to her eerie, wailing song. Roka, singing the replies, led us in to our seats along the long wooden benches facing the whare's front and her seated family. Following Maori customs the men sat on the benches in front of us as Carey stood up to welcome us. He spoke Maori in a deep booming voice and he greeted us and our ancestors and paid respects to them, the whenua, and the atua. The Stas gave a short response in his native Greek before we finished closing the space between us visitors and their family. We said 'Kia ora' (hello) to each other as we gripped arms and touched our noses together. The nose represents tihei mauri ora, the first sneeze of life, and thus our ancestors; so by touching noses we were kind of introducing our ancestors to each other and getting rid of any foreigness between the two. The welcoming cermeony had created a state of tapu, a sacred state of separateness, that we broke by eating food which is noa, or common. When Carey said that we were going to have tea I expected a few biscuits and some hot drinks. Instead we went into the main hall to find three long tables laden with trays of food. (This theme continued for the rest of the weekend- we ate often and well.) After taking tea we all went down to the village green where they were having their annual A&P (no idea what that means) show. It was a mix between a farmer's market, garage sale, and an auction. Little children were riding ponies and taking rides on a small fire truck that went around the green blaring its tinny horn. There were huge steaming pots of local clam chowder and tubs of homemade raspberry honey.

After lunch we had a runanga, an introduction circle, in the wharepuni, sleeping room. All of the whanau, weaving students, and Willamette students went in and made ourselves comfortable on thick mattresses and fluffy pillows. We then went around the circle introducing ourselves; the ones who could speak te reo Maori (the Maori language) did, their beautiful flowing words were very sleep inducing. Which incidentally was allright because we were doing things the Maori way. Traditionally meetings were held in the wharepuni and everyone lay down on blankets and mats on the smooth earthen floor. The meetings would usually go long into the night so if anyone was ever tired they could just close their eyes and go to sleep and wake up when they were rested to get back into the conversation. So Carey kept on encouraging us to just take a nap if we felt like it, an offer which for college students is a bit too needed. We got to sleep in this wharepuni with the weaving students who were there for their weekend course work. It's long walls were set with tall windows that were separated by elaborate wooden carvings that were made by Carey's students. The end wall was covered with a harekeke carving that represented their whanau's whakapapa, their genealogical table- half a ship and half a canoe were connected by a bible to show the Pakeha-Maori origins. The two wooden statues on either side of the door represented each side of the family. On the other side of the door was a whale's tail sticking out of the ocean, to represent their origin from the sea.

After meeting everyone we went to Blueskin Bay to do some clamming while the weaving students started working harvesting the harekeke leaves. Blueskin Bay got its name from the Maori who used to live there- they were so heavily tattooed that their skin looked blue. I had never been clamming before, so it was an entirely new experience for me. Roka and her family still follow the old Maori way of only taking those tuangi, clams, that were larger and leaving the smaller one to breed and grow older and larger. After collecting enough tuangi to go along with dinner we took a leisurely stroll along the beach to a sea arch. It was a gorgeous day out, cloudy but not cold, with the bay calm until it reached the sea.

After returning to the whare Roka taught us how to prepare the harekeke and to make small flat baskets out of. Harekeke was, and still is, very important to the Maori. They use harekeke leaves to make baskets and decorations and use its fiber to make nets and clothing. After dinner one of Roka's granddaughters taught us how to make flowers out of the leaves. She was much, much better at it than we were, but was very patient with us clumsy Americans. Now I have an everlasting bouquet of beautiful flowers made of harekeke on my desk.

Pictures

Every day at the Clubs and Societies Center there is a $3 lunch put on by the Hare Krshna. I usually go once or twice a week with my friends...the food is delicious and they
give you tons of it! My favorite day is Wednesday which is soup day, they give you barley soup, a hearty homemade roll (it's huge!) and dessert. They serve the a different
flavor of the same dessert everyday- it's sambola. I'd never had it before, it's texture is most like Cream of Wheat...except it tastes good.

This is what a common flat of a university student looks like. Not too tidy, but usually with no major damages. The street in front of it is usually covered with broken glass
because the students here don't recycle- when they're done with a bottle the just smash it on the ground or throw it somewhere or at something. Some of the flats are decorated
with art, like this one's surfing penguin, while others have names like "the Castle".

This rugby stadium is being built right between the campus and the harbour. It is going to be used in the Rugby World Cup which is coming to NZ in this upcoming summer.

Fun Fact: Agave's first flower is usually their last. This particular plant is about 10 metres tall and took 25 years to get to a point where it was ready to flower. Just a few
months ago it had a bright yellow flowering-ball on it's top. The flowering takes all of the plant's energy, so it will die after it's flower finishes. Althought it's no longer
flowering, you can see how amazingly tall it was.

Just another week at university

Since classes have started I haven't had much time for big adventures, but I have managed to do quite a few fun things around all my very strenuous schoolwork (ha).
We had another WU dinner at Stas' house last weekend for which I made dessert. It was chocolate peanut butter cheesecake which was a completely new recipe for me, which always complicates things, but it was made even more difficult because it was an American recipe and I'm in NZ. They don't have graham crackers here (which I wanted for the crust) and their cream is in a totally different container than we have. So grocery shopping took a really really long time. But the dinner and dessert were delicious, so it was worth it.
I discovered that my flatmates Jenny and Elizabeth like playing badminton, and I'm always down for a good game, so we went to UniPol (the gym) to play and we ended up staying for a few hours. It was really fun, especially because we were playing with no rules. Jenny was especially funny, when she would miss hitting the birdie she would throw her hands up in the air in disgust and surprise.
The next day there was an international barbeque for the students living in my part of town. So I got to meet a bunch of new people (mostly Americans) as I tried to eat my not-really-delicious-veggie sausage. I even met some Idahoans when we were playing grass volleyball.
I had my second massage course- we learned a legs and feet massage. I got to be the example so I had a great massage from the instructor followed by an unsatisfactory massage from another student. I think I'm going to try not to pair up with him again. For the most part everyone is really cool and mature about the massage thing, but I think he is not used to it and I was kind of creeped out. Especially at the end when, after we had been talking about good places to run around town, he very excitedly invited me to go running with him and then, and I quote, "we can massage each other afterwards". Yeah, that's not happening.
I finally got to meet the local student who is supposed to be my mentor during my time here. She's really nice, lives out on the peninsula with her family, and is a theatre major. So we went to the lunchtime theatre performance together (every Thursday and Friday there are hour long performances in the theatre). It was a really strange performance about two teenagers who had been born in a bomb shelter and whose parents had been killed and eaten down there by their crazy cook. The cook then kept the children imprisoned so they had never been above ground. It was very well-written, not allowing you to realize where they are or what exactly is happening until the very end, but it was still slightly disturbing and extremely dysfunctional.
I went to my first movie here on Friday night- Alice in Wonderland in 3D! It was exactly like going to the movies in the States. And it was a great film. I was supposed to be taking my surfing class this weekend, but a huge storm rolled in towards the end of the week and stuck around all weekend so it didn't end up happening. There's nothing to slow down the wind as it blows up from Antartica so by the time it hits New Zealand it's pretty rough. It was so strong that I was actually trying not to go outside because if a big gust came up I would get blown around. It made walking to class a bit difficult. On Saturday I went to a party at our friends' house that was all non-American international students (except for me and one of the flatmates)- it was really fun. People were mostly speaking in English, but sometimes small groups of people would form speaking their own languages or people would shout across the room to their countrypeople in foreign languages.
My flatmates and I have been going to yoga every Monday and Thursday night. It's getting pretty difficult sometimes, but it's still really fun. It's a good flat-bonding thing also...especially when something funny happens. Like last night when we were doing the cat pose (where you kneel on hands and knees and raise your sacrum and head to the ceiling while dropping your spine towards the floor) and the instructor told us quite seriously that if we work hard we could eventually touch the back of our head to our sacrum. Elizabeth and I immediately looked at each other in complete disbelief and had to work really hard to not laugh too loudly.
Yesterday morning I went to volunteer at an animal shelter that is just a few blocks north of the botanical gardens. It was really nice to finally be around animals even though it was depressing to see all the animals in their cages. I loved being able to play with the kittens. The only really difficult part was during my training when the woman who was showing me around kept on telling me where normal things were but since she was using Kiwi-words for them, I had no idea what she was talking about. I think she thought I was a little slow because I kept on having to ask her to repeat things or show me where they were because I couldn't understand what she was trying to say. Like when she told me to put the trash in the 'spat', which is the very obvious dumpster outside one of the buildings, and she ended up having to show me what she was talking about because I couldn't figure out what she meant.

Cute Sea Lion video

Being a Scarfie?

(The students at Uni. of Otago are called "scarfies" for the scarfs that they wear, I have yet to see anyone wearing a special scarf but maybe when the weather gets worse?)

Every Thursday the Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Farming, and Environment puts on a seminar that is open to students and the community. I went to the one last week at which Rob Rosenfeld was talking about ways of effecting change with indigineous groups and local problems. He mainly spoke about his work with the Yukon area tribes in cleaning up the toxic waste from the military base up in Alaska (documented in the film Yukon Circles). He was the founder of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council that was formed of 70 different indigenous tribes who had signed a treaty to do everything possible to protect the Yukon River Watershed. I went in expecting a room with chairs lined up in rows at which the speaker would speak from the front of the room and it may cause a small amount of sleepiness. I ended up enjoying a very informal conversation where we all sat in a circle and were encouraged to interject any questions that we had. About halfway through the seminar glasses of wine and plates of cookies, sandwiches, crackers and cheese started being passed around. Sitting around sipping on drinks and nibbling on the food while listening to the presenter's stories was not at all what I was expecting, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. I think that I'll go back every week, if only for the high quality cheeses they had!

Aramoana Beach

The next morning I jumped into the car with my flatmates who were going surfing and we went northwest to Aramoana Beach. The drive along the Otago Harbour was a great way to start off the day: the sun was just coming up over the green hills, the bays were peaceful with the small boats floating at rest, the narrow road we were on hugged the water's edge. At the beach the sand felt like silk between my toes as I watched the waves rolling in towards the beach from the Atlantic Ocean. The sun slowly rose higher into the sky as the moon stolidly held its ground over the top of the seaside cilffs. Sea lions were sleeping near the sand dunes, their fins twitching as they dreamt of whatever sea lions dream of. From the beach you could see up the eastern coastline of the mainland for what must be miles, I couldn't see any signs of human habitation, just mountains, beaches, and the ocean.

Yesterday Stas, a Willamette professor who's conducting research here this semester and acting as our interim-parent, took Leslie, Schaffer and I out to the Otago Peninsula for a day trip. We drove along the Otago Harbour on the opposite side from which I had gone out the day before. Where the sun had been shining down from a clear blue sky the previous day, this morning the sky was hidden behind a shield of clouds and the mountains were covered with a trailing mist. We pulled over to the roadside to take some scenic photos and saw some kind of concrete formation in the hillside beneath the road so we climbed down to check it out. There was a semicircle of stone set in front of two doors that led back into the hillside.

The mysterious tunnel

Through the doors were a maze of passageways and rooms, obviously unused and covered in graffiti. We explored a little bit, but not knowing what it was, continued on our way. It turns out that we had stumbled across the fort that was built in the 1880s to guard the harbour against a potential attack from the Russians. The semicircle was part of a hidden gun system from which a cannon could be raised from the ground and its recoil energy would return it to its subsurface position. The hillside doorways were entrances to the fort system. It was strange to be poking around a place that had obviously seen a lot of human use and was now left entirely to the ravages of time and spray can-toting teenagers.

Schaffer and Leslie exploring the dark rooms

We spent the rest of the day hiking and exploring beaches. On both Victory and Allans Beach we saw sea lions, intriguing rock formations, and of course enjoyed the ocean's pounding waves.

Leslie in a sea arch at Allans Beach

The sea lions were really cute, most were just lying in the sand sleeping or relaxing, but a few were entertaining- scratching themselves, waddling around, rolling in the sand and shaking themselves like dogs, or just rearing up to enjoy the feel of the wind in their fur (or for some other reason). They seemed harmless as they lay in the sand, staring back at us with their large doleful eyes, but one of my friends told me that they can run about 40 km per hour on the beach! On our drive back into the city we stopped at a monument for the fallen Kiwi soldiers of WWI. It had been a pretty windy day on all of the beaches, but this monument was on top of the ridgeline of the peninsula, so the wind was blowing really strongly there. It felt like it was about 60 mph...you could lean into the wind and it would keep you from falling over. When I lifted one foot to take a step it would blow me into my next step. We had to hold on to the railings if we wanted to be sure about standing in one place. We had our own little sky-diving practice up there, playing in the wind.

"The Pyramids"- natural rock formations at Victory Beach, composed mainly of basalt

Let There be Light!

We had our power shut off yesterday, because no one had paid the electric company, so we were wandering around in our dark flat for a few hours. But by the time I got back last night it was back on. I was really glad because I don't know where my flashlight is!
I took another long hike this weekend, up the Pineapple track to Flagstaff Mountain. From the lookout on the top you can see all of Dunedin, most of the Otago Peninsula, and the mountains to the inland. It wasn't the most beautiful hike I've ever been on, but it felt great to get out of the city and be looking down on it from a mountain in only a few hours. The sky was blue and the sun was out, and it was a clearly marked trail the entire way, it was great. I was glad that I was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt (to block out the super strong sun because the ozone layer has a hole in it down here) because it got pretty chilly once the sun started going down during my descent.

Classes started this week so I've been doing the school thing: going to class, getting all my course books, starting to read for lectures. I like the subject material for all my courses so hopefully the lecturers will be good, from their introductory lectures I like them. My environmental history prof is a hippie historian. For my other two papers (courses, in Kiwi-talk) there are a bunch of contributing lecturers, so hopefully it won't be too difficult to have a different lecturer for each class. My classes also aren't as big as I expected, the smallest is 50 students and the largest is about 300 students.

I went to my first yoga class on Monday night and I'm still sore from it. The floor of the large hall in the student union was filled with students and mats. The yogi was this chill older man who had a very calming voice and peaceful manner, his hair tied back in a bun as he walked among us helping our poses. We did some pretty hard poses and my inflexible muscles were not liking it- but it should help a ton by the end of the semester. I also had my first massage class last night. The instructor was very good, not only teaching us techniques but also about protecting our own bodies while giving massages and about making the client as comfortable as possible. At the end of the session we got to give and receive a half hour back and shoulders massage. Ahhh...it felt so good, I only wish that I had this class every night!

I was requested to tell more about the hangi....so, here goes. Although there were probably a hundred people there, students and people from the Maori department, it was like being at the barbeque of a large family. They were all laughing a lot and telling jokes. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and when people said hello they hugged each other. All the women who worked in the department seemed to treat the students as their own children. In the backyard of the department, it kind of had the vibe of a Hawaiian luau if it was held by a close-knit family. It reminded me of my experiences with Hawaiian culture, if that helps anyone picture it.