New Zealand and The Auckland City Mission
Trip Start
Dec 09, 2007
1
5
Trip End
Jun 14, 2008
Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Auckland was pretty cool and mostly about Chris and the mad mad magical world he temporarily allowed me to visit. Another coushsurfing experience, he was the host with the most...of everything, hospitality, cooking ability, fantastic stories, and the kind of charisma and flamboyance that inspire novels. And I didn't stay on just any ol' couch No!...I had my own little cabin behind the house nestled in a thicket of garden delights, buzzing bees, and a friendly cat which Chris had refused to name to avoid becoming attached to it and giving it a home (which didn't stop the cat from coming in and sitting on one of the dinner table's chairs while we had our meals.)
At the Airport in Fiji I was drawn to this fantastic and beautiful woman named Trudie. She was glowing after a conference with the self help guru Anthony Robins. We talked a bit about the stuff she'd learned, each others lives, and her home country and our next destination, New Zealand. (One interesting opinion she had that I've remembered is about New Zealand genders. She said that New Zealand women were really the power of the country and that the men were soft. The men had nice traits in their softness like generosity and kindness, but it almost seemed as though the genders had switched and the impression I was getting was that the men were more feminine and the women were more masculine.) The plane was full so we couldn't sit next to each other, but it didn't stop this angel from writing me out an entire itinerary for New Zealand. I planned on following it to the letter and aside from a few deviations I almost did.
At some point I must have mentioned to her my desire to link up with a volunteer organization that was doing some charity work over the holidays, because it was through her that I got connected to The Auckland City Mission. It was Christmas after all, the time of giving, and the City Mission organizes a, now famous, dinner that feeds thousands of people in need (And in this case they don't define what this need may be. It could be financial or maybe someone who just doesn't have family or friends to join.) After eating an early dinner at Chris's I spent the rest of the day at the Mission dinner interviewing one the directors, talking to folks, and recording the sounds of the event for the Sonic Nomad Project.
Christmas at Chris's was a delight and just nearly matched the character of the host. It involved an incredible feast and interesting company that Chris's rich life had involved like an expat family from West Africa, and a Maori woman that Chris had taken in when she was young and in trouble. Now happy and healthy she joined us with her fun and vibrant daughter and daughter's friend. Throw in a few neighbors going through some dramatic family events and wine to the brim, gifts, and a large Victorian throne like chair where sat Santa Clause (who was anyone who happened to be wearing the hat at any given time!) and a party was to be had!
Chris had been so generous to me that I wanted to mark the occasion with something special for him. So in secret I enlisted each of the guests to come to my cabin and record a message of appreciation for Chris. I then made some graceful ambient music for the background to amplify the emotion and his Christmas gift was done.
Staying with Christ in New Haven was a real eye-opener for me. You see in the US over the past few years due to the growing interest around Maori culture through movies and media like Whale Rider and then the hugely popular Lord Of the Rings Series New Zealand had become a hot topic. This coupled with living in the Bay Area of California where anything popular is distilled and blown up for it's esoteric and social importance such as the spirituality of the Maori and the left leaning progressive green feminist politics of the people gave NZ even more of a mystic.
I even had a friend that told me New Zealand was the land of the next great spiritual revolution. That he was told that the spirits of the "Moriori" a peaceful tribe that settled NZ before the Maori and who were wiped out by the Maori were reincarnating and leading the rest of us in this revolution. Of course there's little evidence to this and the myth which has inspired such new age exaggerations has since been debunked.
Nevertheless the true history of the Moriori and the Maori is a fascinating one ripe with invasions and war and cannibalism and also extended periods of peace (wikipedia about moriori and debunking the myth). The cultural museum in Christchurch has a nice but short exhibition of the Moriori. And despite the fact that the last remaining full blooded Moriori on record, Tommy Solomon, died in 1933 the descendants of the Moriori are creating a kind of cultural Renaissance today.
The reason why Beach Haven was an eye opener was because it nearly completely contradicted the shangrila that the stories of New Zealand had been built up in my mind. Beach Haven once a real "beach haven" had become just another delapidated suburb of Auckland full of an increasingly marginalized population of maori and lower class whites. And though I wanted to believe that all the Maori in NZ lived culturally rich communal lives on the coasts my experience of colonization by modern western culture taught me better.
But this still didn't lessen my surprise to see how amazingly similar the culture and look of urban Maori were like urban black's in America. In fact the urban Maori are refereed to as "Black." I know that hip hop culture has been one that has been easily translated and transported around the globe but I'd never seen an indigenous population take to it like this. It was so strange to see Polynesian faces in low riding cars with big rims blasting rap music and dressing like any kid I'd see in my old neighborhood in East Oakland, CA.
Even stranger and quite disappointing was to see the parallels in racism between the "whites" and "blacks" in NZ and the US. Maybe I was sensitive to it because of the intriguing foreignness of being in another country and history and such, but it seemed that the racism I encountered was somehow even more palatable and apparent than what I was use to in a similar sized city in the states. I had done some research into the indigenous rights movement in NZ and had understood it to have inspired one of the most progressive and inclusive governments in the world. Many have considered the Treaty of Waitangi to be a great historical marker for peace and inclusiveness. Yet what I learned in NZ is that this perspective is usually from the whites, just as most history and information is written and distributed by the conquering and not the conquered.
And although Chris had proposed several times, upon my requests, to take me to a Mori community and introduce me to one of his more culturally rooted Maori friends it never came to pass. His propositions usually came tainted with a sour face and descriptions of poverty and crime that revealed that despite his good intentions he'd do what he could to dissuade my prying on the subject.
Other highlights were the walk up the volcano at Rangatoto, walking the entire West face of Waiheke Island, and hanging with Nicole, uber cool and creative chick from San Francisco. A few days before leaving New Zealand I returned to Auckland with some friends I'd made along the way to see Dj Axwell (one of my favorite producers/dj's) and others play at Groove In the Park on Waitangi Day (learn about Waitangi Day here).
From my journal:
NEW ZEALAND
Prequel:
Arrived in Auckland around 16th stayed in Auckland at Top floor Hostel for 2 nights (horrible place) before finding Chris who took me in and I stayed in his guest house in Beach Haven just outside Auckland for almost 6 days being pampered and awed and well, at one moment actually...frightened (let's just say it involved a clown outfit and gas mask and was literally my wake up call). Don't need to write much about my time with Chris now because it's all burned into memory. But with some more time I'll probably put some of the stories down for ya'.
Retrospect: need to remember to reconnect with the amazing maori live wood sculptor that I met at a market near Auckland with Chris. We had a connected on a few levels and his girl was great too! Then there's Nigel (The First New Zealand Rodie- man! he had stories) and his beautiful family. He's created his life's ambition, an amazing outside venue for music concerts and festivals called Mountain Music http://www.musicmountainmatakana.co.nz/index.html
The Auckland City Mission their own words:
"The Auckland City Mission provides powerful advocacy, emergency assistance and social services to marginalized people in Auckland. This includes families and individuals living in poverty, isolated elderly, people living with addictions and people who are homeless. We provide support and services to ensure people's basic needs are met and work with individuals to improve their options for the future.
Our services include an inner-city drop-in center, homeless program, drug & alcohol services, crisis care, community services, community food program and redistribution warehouse.
It costs the Mission $3.8 million to provide these services and only 9.1% of this is government funded."
The video is of a short interview I did with one of the organizers as well as actual video of the famous Auckland City Mission Christmas Dinner that I attended on Christmas Day 2007. The fed and entertained over 1600 people and gave away some 30,000 gifts to children.
The song posted here "Tongues of Fire" was inspired by the sample I took of a Maori Hakka Dance. The song is not finished but when it is it will be available for you to download in high quality 320kbps mp3 format where you can also donate to this organization at: Sonic Nomad Project
Go to this blog to see more pictures from my time in Auckland, New Zealand.
