Kia ora to Kiwi Land!

Before coming to New Zealand, there were a lot of things I thought of when I thought of New Zealand. Lots of things I’d heard and seen- The All Blacks Rugby team, for example. Maori people with beautiful markings tatooed on their faces. Dense forests. Volcanos. Soft spoken people. But knowing a place in theory is different than knowing a place in reality. And so when my plane began to make its decent onto this strange country covered by a long white cloud, it suddenly dawned on me where I was. Six months away from home, and exactly on the other side of the world. As we flew closer, the water turned from bright blue to light mossy sea green. You know the crayola cran color “Seafoam Grean”? Well I think the person who came up with that title had been to New Zealand. Because that’s the only way I can describe it. The earth was dark, the water sea foam green, the sky an omniscent grey, offset by the lush trees that grew everywhere, with dark brown branches and leaves that were various shades of green- like a gradient on an artist’s palate, growing lighter and lighter as they reached the tips of the dark branches. Hills sprang up from nowhere. Later I was told these out of place clifflike hills were actually dead volcanos, after years and years of dormancy they became accustomed to the surrounding environment. Grass, trees, flowers and houses cover these earthy scabs, and have become only a shadow of their potentially dangerous past.
Its funny how much the earth shares human characteristics.

I was greeted at the airport by a wonderful older woman, with wild red hair and a big big smile. She was a writer, as I would learn in the car, and a poet too. She told me all about her involvement in the Auckland literary scene, and her tumoltuous past fleeing Johannesburg 12 years ago. She explained to me her view of the difference between New Zealand (aka Kiwi) interests and South African interests. Apparently, she had found similar results with poets and audiences in New Zealand as I did in Australia: a general distaste for anything addressing uncomfortable or gruesome realities of others.

As we drove along the coast to her daughter’s house, she pointed out key neighborhoods and streets. At one point I looked out the car window and was astonished to see a dark looming figure rising out of the sea.

It’s form was stereotypically volcanic- black dark soil, strange mossy colored plantlife. Mount Rangitoto- she pointed out to me. Last erupted 600 years ago. It’s been dormant since then.

How did I meet this woman, who generously picked me up to the airport and drove me to her daughter’s house? She was the mother of a friend of a mother of a friend of mine. Yeah, I know. Crazy. And that’s what always gets me: the unbelievable hospitality and generosity I’ve been shown in the past six months. Perhaps its because of the distrustful american mentality I was exposed to as a child, but I never EVER expected people to be this welcoming and caring to me, a strange girl far from home.