Weekend at a Marae

Now, on to August. Over the weekend of August 14th, we stayed at a Marae, which is more or less the home base for the Maori tribes of New Zealand. Each tribe has a Marae which is their spiritual home and meeting place, and we went about an hour and a half north of Auckland to the Omaha Marae. When we arrived, our group welcomed onto the Marae by an old Maori man who told us about his tribe and family's culture, including a funny story about how they used to all live on an island that was barely visible out in the horizon. The settler's wanted the island for their own purposes, and forced the tribe to come to the mainland, but every time they brought the family's matriarch over she would wait until night fell and swim back to the island by herself. This apparently happened several times. Next, we had a little snack then did what is called a Whakawhanaungatanga, which is where everyone gets up and tells a little about themselves, but that was largely pointless. The rest of the night, we all just hung out.

The next day was much more eventful. In the morning, we went to a local farmer's market. After lunch, we had our first of many weather-related schedule changes. When it's raining or has been raining, the Maori think it is wrong to cut flax (palm) leaves, so we couldn't do the raft-building that was planned. Instead, we split up into two groups and took turns fishing and kayaking. The fishing was interesting for a while, and the kayaking was lots of fun until it started pouring while we were out on the water. Regardless, it was nice to be back outside. Being outside in Auckland has that inauthentic feel that being outdoors in any city gives you. It's still fresh air, but it's nothing like being by the water or in the woods.

That night, we went to a nearby sawmill-turned-tavern, where a local band was supposed to be playing. The band was decent, and the bar was a little expensive for our tastes, but added entertainment was free of charge courtesy of the bachelor party and their guest of honor.

An integral part of the stag here in New Zealand is dressing up in costumes. Recently, I saw a Superman, Spiderman, Batman, and a fairy princess walk into a bar around 4 in the afternoon, presumably getting an early start on the fairy princess' last night of freedom. But at this place, everyone was dressed in white haz-mat suits except for the man of the hour, who was dressed as a green fairy. While we were waiting for the band to start, it was clear that the green fairy was making the most of his evening. He stumbled around with a dazed look in his eyes, and often stopped for minutes at a time and just stared into nothingness. It was at this point when one of his mates told us that the green fairy had been over-served on the way up (in vans driven by some hired ladies) with absinthe, hence the green fairy. I know, very clever. But needless to say, they were a fun group of guys to be around. Much to their dissatisfaction, however (because I'm sure none of them expected to encounter any college girls on that particular evening), we had to retire back to the Marae early.

The next day's initial plans of going boogie boarding out on the water was given the ax because it was too rough, so instead we went to the nearby Goat Island marine reserve. In the summer, you can wade in and all kinds of fish will swim right up to you, but in the winter, all you can really do is stand on the beach and take pictures, and take pictures we did. Next, our guide Pete took us to a beach where we played some touch rugby. It was my first rugby playing experience, and while a little better than watching it in person, it's still a strange, strange game. There just isn't much enjoyment in it. And on top of that, it's usually a poor idea to have 8 athletes who haven't played sports in months do anything competitive. True colors tend to shine through, but luckily for me, my true colors show that I'm a winner. We won handily.

Lastly, after a pointless stop at a honey factory, we came back to the Auckland War Museum, which is about a five minute walk from Huia and struck us as an unnecessary extension of a weekend that needed to end. Though we had all already been there, we hadn't been with a knowledgeable Maori guide who could give us some insight into what we were seeing. Before we even got inside, we realized how much different the experiences would be when B, the owner of the company who was giving us the trip, told off the museum receptionist and refused to have us all pay the suggested $5 donation for entry because they had stolen many of the artifacts from her people and we weren't going to pay to see things she should have been able to show us elsewhere for free. It was fun to see, plus we didn't actually have to pay five bucks, so it was even better.

Inside, we learned about some specific exhibits, mainly the war canoe. The tribes fought over it for centuries before the British sunk it in the Auckland harbor, and it was recovered and restored for the museum. We also learned about some of the weapons and face tattoos the natives used to use. For all the complaining we initially did about having to go to the museum, it turned out to be a worthwhile trip. And so ends the long-winded recap of our Marae trip. Here are the pictures to go along with it. The second half of that album, my weekend at the Uni ski lodge, is worthy of and will get its own post.