A Funeral, A Roadtrip, and A Home

On Thursday the 13th of August, I attended the tangi (funeral) on the marae. The service seemingly provided a pleasant and welcoming feeling for everyone. Though the service took place on the marae (sacred area connected to a particular Maori group) within the wharenui (meetinghouse) the service was very much a blend of Maori custom and the religious custom of the deceased's faith. Today an individual, who indicated that he was very familiar with the particular marae/hapu/iwi (sub-tribe/Tribe) that was hosting the service, further indicated that he was pleasantly surprised at how well the 'blending' had gone. The service had seemed so seamless to me, that I thought it was 'par for the course,' or the usual way things came together- I guess from this person's experience, this is not always the case.

In an effort to help our small congregation bolster its musical prowess, indeed, to enable my wife to practice the piano so that she will be more prepared to play when called upon (there are few who can play well enough for church services), we decided to buy some sort of piano, as we left our upright one with family in Arizona. Thus, Friday morning this week was spent in travel. I drove about 1 hour 45 minutes away to the Thames/Ngatea area to pay for and pick up an electric piano/keyboard. The scenery, though shrouded in clouds was still nonetheless picturesque. I am only now beginning to understand just how much New Zealand is engaged in the dairy business. Throughout the entire drive my eyes met with pasture-covered green rolling hills upon green rolling hills. I passed several milk processing plants along the way as well. In the colour-muted distance all I could see was green, fenced pastures, replete with thick vibrant grass- in other words, cow heaven. If you have seen the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy, recall the Hobbit shire for a sense of what much of this area looks like. My thoughts turned to David Young's book concerning New Zealand's conservation history- specifically data that indicated how much forested area New Zealand has lost for the sake of settlement and animal husbandry and its businesses. I recall that over 90 percent of New Zealand was, largely over its existence, covered in a sub-tropical rainforest. Thus, what one sees across much of the North Island is anthropogenic- that is landscapes created and shaped by humans more than anything else. The text relates that Maori cleared forest for various reasons, and that this land-clearing continued and intensified with western settlement and incursion into Aotearoa New Zealand (see Young, David, 2004, Our Island, Our Selves. Dunedin: Otago Press).

I got somewhat lost a few times while en route, but I knew at least that I was lost. Having a good sense of the cardinal directions, I knew when I seemed to not be on the right course. The online map/course guide seemed to need some improvement as it lacked a few crucial directions, such as stay right to stay on a certain highway. However, with some kind help from locals, I was given a shortcut, made up lost time, and met Jeanette, the purveyor of the piano. Money and pleasantries exchanged, I was on my way back to the Waikato area. I went straight to the University of Waikato to attend a weekly late afternoon symposium. The paper/presentation, given by a certain Professor Kingfisher from Michigan (U.S.) focused on the negotiation between neoliberal and neoconservative views by struggling single-moms in an area of Alberta, Canada, and in an area of New Zealand. It promoted good argument and discussion among those attending- very stimulating.

In all, the last few days have been quite good and productive. However, not all efforts have come about as planned. I decided to finally put together a slat-bed so that we could stop sleeping on the ground. Well, the bed we purchased was not wood- upon opening the box it turned out to be painted metal- quite different that what we thought it was going to be. I packed it back up- we will return it when we have a vehicle to do so. Hopefully, this coming week our SUV and affects will arrive at Auckland, and then we can setup our house a little more and make it feel more like a home.