Recap

I have been travelling solo for nearly a month now (apologies for being too distracted to keep the blog up to date) I have met a huge range of amazing people, witnessed incredible geology, got myself into and out of some very dodgy situations, and learned a hell of a lot about myself. Travelling on your own encourages you to strike up conversations with random people, pick up hitchhikers, and be extra conscious of your tiny, precarious existence

Some memorable happenings (both highlights and low points):

1. tea and conversation with the one legged man making moonshine in his rundown trailer (and his appearance seemingly out of nowhere on the dark and incredibly foggy night prior)

2. staying up until two in the morning listening to/playing music at Chillawhile Backpackers after being severely music starved during the semester. Dear Elliot Smith – how had I never heard your music before?? Rest in Peace. Also waiting an hour for this music video to load.

3. three days of good weather at Aoraki/Mt. Cook giving me a chance to tramp around near the three main glaciers (Hooker, Mueller, and Tasman) of the associated national park


4. repeatedly running into two Israeli boys I met at the first hut on my first backpacking trip (4 times now and counting!)

5 hours without seeing anyone in a valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains on the Greenstone Track (even if it was a bit rainy)


6 hours above the bushline on the Kepler Track


7 drunken fisherman showing up late in the evening on the Manapouri track forcing me and another tramper to change back into soaking wet clothes and hike another hour in pouring rain (to reach a tiny hut with a resident mouse which chewed into garbage and food during the night despite our best effort to hang the packs)

8. trading keys with the large animal lab technicians from Massey Uni at Woolshed Creek Hut. Allowed me to see the crazy extrusive rocks on the north face and them to avoid a rough eight hours on the windy south face


9. camping in Ruataniwha Conservation Area best equipped free campground ever!! (first encounter with anti-DoC graffiti as well – very interesting....)


....170 Little Blue Penguins coming in from the ocean at dusk and making a racket as they hung out around their burrows
__________________________________________________________

Today I moved to a new flat! Any letters sent to me by post should now be addressed to:
4/174 Forth St.
Dunedin, New Zealand 9016

It is a smaller place, fitting four flatmates as opposed to six. The complex features several cats which seem to expect to be let inside. I have a ground floor room but I think the view is still better than at my old flat. I am looking out at the edge of the botanic gardens and a clothesline as opposed to a birds-eye view of pavement and a bunch of other apartments. I have a nice big desk, a bookshelf, and an enormous closet. There is a cosy common area with a big sliding glass door, blankets and cooking spices left by previous residents, and one of the oldest televisions I have ever seen (only picks up one of NZ’s six TV stations ^_^).

Tomorrow Stephanie arrives!

Farewell to an especially eventful 2009 and wishing you a very happy new year!

End of semester

Posing in front of the Otago sign, with the departure of flatmates to go back to their home countries or travel around New Zealand imminent.
from the left: Jason, Dave, Anna, Me, Ditte, and Kyle

The semester has ended following a very long exam period. (so long that I went on a six day trip to Stewart Island in between finals).

I am going to the Fjordlands. Potentially for several weeks.

“Clean, Green” New Zealand?

One of my major interests in coming to New Zealand was to compare environmental policies and attitudes to that of the United States. It would be misleading, given my limited experiences to extrapolate and speak for the sentiments of the New Zealand public. I live in a complex of predominantly international students and it has been difficult to make strong connections outside of this network – most of the ways I’ve found to engage in environmental issues involve attending events which naturally attract those concerned with the environment. There is a strong dichotomy between the way environmental issues are treated at my flat (I’m not sure half of my flatmates understand what recycling is/make no effort to do so – our recycling bin is continually stolen so it’s difficult to blame them) and the opinions of people in my environmental politics class, in the tramping club, and attending environmentally focused lectures and debates. That being said, I feel like three and a half months should be enough time to make some general comments.

In large part, NZ is “clean” and “green” because of its low population density rather than any sort of purposeful planning or good regulatory controls. In fact, based on a study done by the OECD, New Zealand has some of the least “red tape” for businesses to get through of any developed country. The Resource Management Act (RMA) stands as the dominant form of environmental legislation. It dictates the resource consent process and the relationship between district, regional and national government. It advocates “sustainable management” but leaves what this actually means open to interpretation and so far the government hasn’t provided many standards or policy statements to clarify. The act is also very much effects-based; as long as a potential resource user can demonstrate that a proposed project has only minor impacts on the environment or that the effects will be mitigated, the consent will likely be approved. Because of this, the act is poor at dealing with the cumulative resource requests in an area and privileges present users over potential future uses for the resources.

That being said, some positives:
- environmental issues seem to get a more central place in political campaigns.
- more public concern and involvement (this one is the most likely to be affected by being encompassed by a university) Ex. there is little question of whether or not climate change is happening and strong support for the NZ government to step up its pledge to lower emissions. (The only person I have seen to question its existence was a professor attacking the validity and universal application of scientific knowledge and the people around me were getting pretty angry…) There has similarly been strong backlash against the current proposals to open conservation land (national parks and reserves) to mining.
- pay as you go rubbish collection – In Dunedin, the waste disposal services will only collect one type of trash bag approved by the city council. They are very expensive and are meant to be an incentive for people to recycle more (free service) and limit their waste.
- paying for plastic bags – this has been implemented by some stores. New World, the grocery store I frequent, put a policy in place momentarily where customers had to pay 5 cents per bag, but have unfortunately since rescinded it to prevent losing business. :(

Through my environmental politics class and other lectures around campus I have managed to hear 4 of the 9 NZ Green Party MPs. Jeanette Fitzsimmons spoke regarding the Emission Trading Scheme currently being proposed by National (equivalent to Republican party – they are currently in control of parliament) She argued that it would not be effective at reducing overall emissions to meet the Kyoto target and instead detailed the Green Party suggestions for reducing carbon. I also heard Sue Bradford speak about grassroots activism and the role of democratic practices in proper operation of a green party and the two co-leaders, Metiria Turei and Russel Norman, describing the NZ green party’s basic campaign platform and strategies.

This last speech was especially great because one of Norman’s specific interests was in water resource distribution. Someone asked him a question about current proposals to change allocation in the Canterbury region and, though he was clearly trying to keep his comments brief, it wasn’t long before he was filling the board with diagrams. He declared freshwater and water quality to be “New Zealand’s greatest environmental issue.” Not something I would have expected.

Experiencing Kiwis perception of what constitutes a healthy environment and sound policy gives perspective – from tramping club members bemoaning increasingly not being able to drink straight out of streams to outrage at the idea of using aquifer water (unsustainable) it is a very different baseline from which to measure environmental degradation. As another example, landscape has a completely different value here. In Environmental Politics, part of our assessment was based on presentations about recent, local resource conflicts. It turns out there is a surprising amount of antipathy toward proposed wind farms in Otago amongst the student presenters as well as in public response to the proposals. For the last four years I have been surrounded by people who are very optimistic about wind as an alternative energy and have scoffed at those who were opposed to them for aesthetic reasons as being unrealistic about our energy options (NIMBY – not in my backyard). I haven’t changed my stance but certainly putting wind turbines on the top of a ridge in a rural area of Otago means something very different to people than putting them in a field in rural Minnesota.

Some other issues:

The country champions biodiversity and has some amazingly cool endemic species including the only mountain parrot in the world, a variety of rare penguins and amusingly thick worms. But with 40 million sheep, hillsides covered in gorse, and 60 million possums (aka “little speed bumps”) it is hardly an ecological paradise. (Currently there are some pretty hefty debates regarding how to get rid of the possums. The Department of Conservation (DOC) is engaged in systematic poisoning with a chemical called 1080 but recent evidence has emerged showing that it has negative effects on humans.)

Insulation!!! – buildings in Dunedin and especially in the “student ghetto” are old and poorly designed to deal with cold South Island winters. Most houses are poorly insulated and lack double-paned windows. While winters are not nearly as bad as in MN, so much energy could be saved (and comfort provided) if the heat didn’t immediately go through the wall. They are currently working to address the problem – the government is subsidizing installation of insulation - but it will be probably a decade before all of the people on the waiting list can be processed.

All cars in NZ are imported. When a car enters the country, it will likely remain in use for twenty years. Because of this the market does not work efficiently to encourage fuel economy because, even when the price of petrol rises, it is being consumed by a fleet operating on decades old fuel conditions. Currently NZ does not have fuel economy standards for incoming cars – it needs them.

Puspawarna Gamelan!

Yesterday was the final performance of the community gamelan group I have been playing with for the past semester.


The pelog (7-note scale) instruments of our set in place at the Temple Gallery. About to start rehearsing.

It was a rather eclectic concert. The night was opened by an early music group playing pre-opera music from the 1600s on lute, viol de gamba, regular viol, and flute. This was followed by a soloist on Tibetan flute and then us. We played a few traditional pieces, but the main purpose of the concert was to premiere works written by people in the ensemble. One was written in traditional style by Ali, a fourth year honours student. Another was by a composition lecturer and featured a western structure, progression of changing melodies, and had parts for individual instruments written out.

"Frogs" by the artistic director of the group, Joko Susilo called for a string section (cello, violin, and bass) as well as "special effects" of croaking frogs with wooden percussion instruments and gongs placed on the ground.

The string section setting up.




Good old Saron II. Because Puspawarna Gamelan is a community ensemble with members coming and going depending on the rehearsal I've been shifted around to play several different instruments but this saron is the one I know best and the one I was lucky enough to play at this show.

Playing gamelan has been an amazing musical experience. This semester has made me conscious of how strongly dependent on western structural forms and notation I am when understanding music. Unlike an orchestra for example, where though the instruments are played together, the melody and temporary importance is passed between instruments and sections, in gamelan, it is hard to distinguish any particular instrument from the sound as a whole. Everyone is playing the melody or a variation upon it at all times - there are no diva parts. In addition, much time (and frustration) would be spent trying to figure out how many times Joko expected us to repeat a particular section; it was normal to spend ten minutes trying to get him to explicitly tell us the order so we could write it down and then having him cue something different the very next time we played it. Traditionally though, gamelan isn't supposed to be fixed in writing but rather changes based on the whim of the drummer and what he signals.

Also: Community! I am not sure what exactly it is...something about the instrumentation of the songs themselves, the large number of birthdays falling on rehearsal days (celebrated with food and the obligatory attempt to play "Happy Birthday" on gamelan which doesn't work very well because the scales lack the necessary notes), Joko's insistence on giving rides home after rehearsal, or (most likely) the ridiculous amounts of time and effort spent moving the heavy bronze instruments every time we have a concert...but at the after party it struck me how much the gamelan group felt like whanau (family). Music groups often inspire this sort of bond, I have just never felt it so quickly.

The concert was recorded so hopefully I will be able to acquire a copy and post a song or two here.


Gamelan practice room with just the slendro scale instruments. Ali resting while waiting for the truck to arrive with the instruments we brought to the concert.




"Ayun Ayun" written on a board in the practice room. Notably the form at the bottom(AA-AA-BA) is not what we played at the concert. ^_^

Conservation Weekend!!

As per my standard way of blogging this is rather out of date:

I went with eight other Australearn students to Papatowei for a weekend to volunteer at a couple of reserves. We stayed with an adorable older couple who were decades-long caretakers of the Te Rere reserve, a privately managed habitat for yellow-eyed penguins. We destroyed a handful of gorse bushes (a species of extremely prickly plants introduced as a way to fence in sheep but spreading to cover entire hillsides), set traps for stoats, and put out poison for possums. Apparently there are over 60 million possums in NZ and they each eat 1 kg of vegetation per day!! During the afternoon, we got up close and personal with flax – uprooting, splitting and then replanting to provide cover for the penguins. Flax is a huge, tough plant and it took the seven of us half an hour to get one out of the ground. We used a grubber to clear the vegetation around the base of the plant. Then we went around with two spades cutting away at the roots and trying to dig it out of the ground. We put a thick rope around the base and five of us pulled while the others continued trying to cut away at the roots. Eventually we got it out with several people pulling directly on the leaves and Sam tackling it from the side. Once it was sufficiently tipped over, we pulled it apart, being careful that each division contained a substantial amount of root. We then had to cut the leaves short so that the plants wouldn’t blow over in the wind with their seriously diminished extent of roots and replanted them.


Flax plant pulled apart with cut leaves strewn everywhere. Non-uprooted flax top right.


Apparently another accepted method for getting flax out of the group is to put explosives at the base and blow it out of the ground (we were shown a photo of this being done :-) ).

It was nearing dusk when we finished, so we gathered our equipment and went out to a point to watch the penguins coming in.



As we walked out of the reserve, you could hear the penguins rustling around in the bush. Earlier in the day, we came across one by accident which had not gone out to the ocean for the day. It let the entire group slowly pass by it before hiding away. We were so close that you could see its yellow eyes and pink feet! Amazing.

That night we went to the neighbor’s (a 93 yr old woman and her cat) to watch the rugby match between the final Tri-Nations game between the All Blacks and Wallabies. They were playing for 2nd and 3rd so it was vital that we win and not get “the wooden spoon.” It was the first rugby match I have been able to watch all the way through made extra great by having people around with a detailed knowledge of the game who were willing to explain what was happening (fouls etc). All Blacks dominated 33 – 6.

It was a perfectly clear night, so after the game I borrowed a stargazing book and stood in the middle of the street. I’m kind of ashamed to admit how long it took to get my bearings. It’s tricky to find the Southern Cross when it isn’t burned into your consciousness, you don’t know which direction is which, and there are incredible numbers of other stars. Eventually I got the book turned the right way….found the Triangulus Australiana (sp?) and looked at the signs of the zodiac upside down. The Milky Way was crazy bright; even after ruining your night vision with a flashlight, you could see it only a few seconds after turning the light off. You can see galaxies (besides the milky way) in the Southern hemisphere!!!

The next day we did some work on an interactive nature trail in the center of town and wandered around on the beach for a few hours. Best weekend ever.




View out of the window from the place we stayed.

Give Way

I am pretty well accustomed to cars driving on the left now but “give way” symbols (the equivalent of a yield sign but used much more prevalently) never cease to unnerve me. I really think the upside down triangle looks like an arrow pointing in the direction you are supposed to go and, when riding in a car, I am always temporarily alarmed that we are going the wrong way down the street.

Insert catchy title here

I am building up thoughts for a reflection on environmental practice and consciousness in NZ (I’m sure you are all on the edge of your seats ^_^ ) but classes have picked up and I have a fresh slew of essays and presentations to complete. So…it probably won’t get done for a couple of weeks. In preview – climate change is recognized as fact (sooo refreshing!) and there is widespread public reaction to things like opening up national parks to mining. On the other hand, government environmental policy is effects-based, short on pollution standards/policy plans, and largely successful thus far because of the high ratio of resources / people. More later….

Other doings:
1. walked into the hills around Dunedin again on a spectacular day. Though I am starting to get normalized to the tremendous scenery around here, I don’t think I will ever get tired of the view from Flagstaff/Swampy/Cargill!! I was hiking by myself and had some interesting times trying to navigate with a topo map that had a severe lack of road names and trailheads that had a severe lack of signage. I think I may have been on a trail that didn’t officially exist for most of the climb up….. Wandered through Ross Creek Reservoir and Woodlaugh Gardens on the way back.




2. discussion about abortion with my flatmate from the Bible Belt and my flatmate from Denmark. And I am amazed once again at how strongly the communities we live in influence what we take to be common sense!

3. avoided the Undie 500 insanity as much as possible. Students from Christchurch pubcrawl to Dunedin in cars costing $500 or less, usually decorated in some fashion. This typically leads to drunken mayhem and, a few years ago, caused a “riot.” (students debate how bad it was) Last year they tried to cancel the event but people came anyway, repeating past behaviors. This year there were calls to have organized activities to control the crowd but the district council instead just put liquor bans on North Dunedin and declared a “no diversion” policy on anyone arrested for disorderly behaviour. And things got out of hand again…as expected. Here's a video. My flat is two streets away, so I got to smell burning sofas and listen to people making a ruckus. I wish the streets between me and uni weren’t littered with glass shards….

4. spent heaps of time contemplating representations of the South Pacific, kaitiakitanga (stewardship), NGOs and international policy making agency

Moon, magnetics, and mayhem

In addition to different constellations being visible in the Southern Hemisphere (the Southern Cross instead of the Big Dipper), the moon looks different from my new position on the sphere that is our planet. Instead of a “man on the moon,” the pattern appears “upside down” and is understood to be in the shape of a rabbit. Also, the phases of the moon move in the opposite direction – the sunlit portion goes from left to right so that the crescent points to the left when waning and to the right when waxing. Craziness!!

Also crazy for anyone who is a fan of maps, orienteering, or the earth’s magnetic field, magnetic declination here is around 21 degrees!!! (so if you calculate it in the wrong direction, you could potentially be turned 42 degrees from the point you are intending to go!!)


Interesting happenings of the past few weeks:

1) worked with eight other people to plant kanuka on the Otago Peninsula. I went with the understanding that we were attempting to bolster dwindling populations of bees but it turned out that was a cover for the real project, providing habitat for a species that is being poached. I got to meet Lala, one of the founding members of STOP (Save the Otago Peninsula) who is involved in tons of conservation groups in Otago. While staking down weed mats, I saw a skink and one of the coolest stick bugs I’ve ever seen.

2) went to a water conservation order hearing for the Nevis river area. It turned out it was the second round of hearings by a special tribunal, such that the read submissions were really nitpicky responses to arguments I hadn’t heard and pretty much everyone there besides me were presenting evidence. I had a cool conversation with the guy next to me (from Otago Fish and Wildlife??) about how the process worked and the hydroelectric plans being considered by the power company.

3) finally went to the archives! (it only took me two months to find it...) Very, very cool place. I looked at a crazy missionary’s autobiography (and an even crazier children's book about the deeds of that missionary), a tourist travel account for the Pacific Islands from the 1900s, an illegible microfilm journal which was supposed to be about recruiting workers from the New Hebrides, and huge stacks of photographs. In addition to material useful for my essay, I found some 100 year old pictures a volcano. :-)

4) played “extreme” croquet. (at night with headlamps and with the weather threatening to turn wet).

(my game face)


5) attended the Dunedin Folk Club. The evening featured a wide variety of styles - starting with wooden flute and bagpipe and ended with a piece for tubular bells, banjo, and sawed cymbals (cymbals played with a bow). For the first half hour I was probably the only person there under forty… it made me miss having instruments to play on. So I went to an informal open mic session in the hopes of temporarily borrowing a guitar. Despite how it was publicized, it turned out being just the regulars of the club sitting around at a table in a café demonstrating their formidable fingerpicking skills. I didn’t know any of their songs but playing ‘Angel Band’ caused some rather impressive harmonies. I miss singing with you, Stephanie and Ruth!!

Learn to speak Kiwi (part 2)

turns of phrase:
“have a go” or “its your go” = it’s your turn

take the piss = to be given a hard time for something

full on - dense, challenging, difficult...as in “that reading was full on”

Are you winning? (asked if someone walks up when you are studying ) = are things going well?, are you getting a lot done?

Crack up = that’s funny
Good on ya! = congratulations (can be used sarcastically as well)
heaps = lots....as in "there were heaps of sheep in the road"

terms:
torch = flashlight
lolly = candy
rubber = eraser
boot = trunk of a vehicle

take-away = takeout; also a type of fast food restaurant which only serves takeout (they have no tables to sit at.) Typical options are hamburgers, fish and chips, and chinese (often all at the same place).

Haiku for matagouri

bastard of the bush
why have you so many thorns?
nasty, prickly beast

Reflection Time! : haka and maori women's rights

In Maori Society last week, we talked about performing arts and in doing so spoke to one of the questions I posed in my original reflections – what is the Maori opinion regarding the All Blacks use of the haka at sporting matches. I can now say with some confidence: not favourable. The “Ka Mate” haka has been used by the national rugby team since 1903 and is typically interpreted by sports announcers and the general public to be an appropriated war dance used to intimidate the opposing players. But while certain types of haka were used for war, the category extends to many other types of dance as well. “Ka Mate” is technically not a war dance in either form, content (expresses relief and thanks of a chief who narrowly escaped death), or the way it is performed (without weapons).

The iwi (tribe) of Te Rauparaha (the man who wrote the piece) have recently filed a lawsuit for intellectual property rights, something which would be extremely interesting to know more about. Their goal was not to gain royalties for its use but rather to try to regain control over the cultural practice to prevent its further exploitation and misinterpretation. A spokesperson for the All Blacks apparently said that “the haka is bigger than Maori” - that it should not be restricted to a specific tribe but rather has acquired a new and national meaning. While this sounds all well and good, it leads to interesting issues surrounding the appropriateness and way in which Maori symbols are used. As our lecturer pointed out, these symbols at the very least become divorced from their original purpose and history (something important in Maori worldview) and often end up actively involved in the perpetuation of misinformation about the specific practices and culture as a whole (such as in haka being known as a war dance). Plus, it arguably allows for a superficial (read advertisable) embrace of Maori things while practices and perspectives that are more difficult to deal with are ignored.

Among reasons for thinking that nationalizing Maori symbols is a bad thing, the haka is frequently exploited in advertising. For example, this advertisement for the 2007 World Cup match between NZ and France (I’m not going to even try a full on critique of that as there is way too much wrong about it. For a start: primitive/timelessness of Maori culture, objectifying, eroticizing women, isolated and paradisiacal tropics) The haka has further been used and spoofed across the globe. For example, this Scottish employment commercial.

I think I’m going to peg this as just above using demeaning caricatures of native peoples as mascots for American sports teams (like the Florida State Seminoles).

I am also pretty conflicted about Maori views on gender role division. Lecturers and texts take great care to emphasize the importance that women play in childbearing roles and on the marae (meeting house complex). They seek to explain (justify) the logic behind their exclusion from certain ritual leadership roles and place seated behind the men in the marae. I am interested to see how/whether views have changed with regards to the women’s rights movement and how cultural and gender identities intersect/conflict. (Mainly discussions from my Community Based Learning class last year regarding tensions between Native American and women’s rights movements are playing through my head – the perception that women acting out hurt the strength of the indigenous cause because it criticizes cultural values.) To what extent should traditions be maintained in continuation of old cultural practices and when can they be challenged? Does Maori minority in numbers (and consequent risk of being swamped by dominant Pakeha ideas) present an obstacle to cultural evolution? In other words, the desire to maintain something distinct and resist the other major way of being prevent change.

I am impressed overall though with the unique amount of consideration of Maori concerns in NZ law. Studying the resource management act, you find that consultation with iwi is firmly built into the consent process and the document openly recognizes the importance of wahi tapu (reserved/sacred sites) and the “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi (vague to be sure, and possibly would be better to have part of the treaty text reproduced, but still way beyond the typical treatment of treaties in the US). Also, marae have been built on several university campuses, police are trained to say a karakia (prayer) and sprinkle water at the site of any fatal incident, and there are Maori language TV shows and radio stations.

Current topics I'm curious about:

- Maori opinion on contemporary hot topic debates such as abortion, capital punishment (or just punishment by the state in general), and homosexuality.

- Bastion Point, NZ 1977 vs. Alcatraz Island, CA 1969 (both involved occupation of an area for an extended period of time in order to bring attention to indigenous issues) Based on what little I know about either, it would be interesting to compare government responses to these protests.

Party in the Bush!

Every year the Otago University Tramping Club puts on event known as "Bushball" during which club members backpack to Mount Aspiring Hut and once there have a formal dinner (this year a masquerade) and dance party. Around forty of us packed into vans on a Friday evening and drove to a carpark in the Matukituki Valley.



I was too cheap to rent a tent so I slept with seven others under a fly erected between two vans which subsequently blew down causing us to sleep under a picnic shelter. In the morning, we tramped between amazing snow-covered peaks, picking our way around cow poo, crossing streamlets to reach the hut. Upon arrival (it was raining by this point), we set up our beds, then traded our soggy socks and thermals to put on tuxes and dresses. We ate a three course meal complete with gourmet cheese and wine, turned up the music, and danced (and drank) until late. Some of us wandered outside to admire the moonlight on the mountains and the incredible stars. Hiking boots, wool socks, and fleece combined with formal attire is super stylish. The next morning it snowed (it is winter I suppose…) followed by rain, making for a very, very cold, slippery, muddy hike back. During the ride back I had a great conversation with a nontraditional (in his 30s) geology student who told us about the history and recent politics of the towns we were traveling through and ranted about the problems with the American health care system. Can’t wait to go back to the Southern Alps!

Learn to speak Kiwi (part 1)

Turns of phrase:

have a think....think about it

wee....as in: “Take a look at this wee graph”

eh.....interjected at the ends of sentences (several kiwis I know use it as much as a stereotyped Canadian)

flash....posh, flashy as in: “that pub was real flash”

sweet as.....usually used to mean very sweet - as if you are aiming for a phrase like “sweet as sugar” but then leave out the comparison. Can be used for other adjectives too like “weird as” or “paranoid as”

keen....as in: “Let me know if anyone is keen to come tramping”

cheers.....not just when drink, also can mean something like thank you

ta....thank you

terms:
scroggin = trail mix, gorp
muesli = granola
carpark = parking lot
holiday = vacation
tramping = NZ style hiking


Also: “Kiwi” refers to either the bird or NZlander but not the fruit. That is “kiwi fruit.”

One month, 8 days

I am clearly not so good at remembering to blog. So I am going to post several in a row and we can just pretend like I’ve been doing so periodically throughout the last three weeks……

Some adventures of note:

1) Sampled some NZ cuisine including pavlova (type of dessert), meat pies with tomato sauce, L & P (carbonated lemonade type drink), and marmite (spread made from yeast extract and salt)

2) Birthday in New Zealand!! It snowed (just a wee bit) on my way to university. In the evening, I went with some of my flat mates and nearby cohorts to the documentary “Afghan Star” (part of an international film festival) and to a poetry reading at the public library. It was pretty sweet.

3) Spent a day hiking around the Otago Peninsula.









Ditte, Anna, Kyle, Kevin and I rented a car which we used to explore the incredibly beautiful area just outside of Dunedin. We met some seals, sea lions, and most excitingly - yellow eyed penguins!! We waited at a beach until dusk and watched them coming ashore after a day of fishing in the ocean.

They're pretty small in the picture. We had to respect their space or they wouldn't come on land.


Also I drove for the first time on NZ roads! Since you drive on the left, the driver’s seat is on the right side of the car. The most problematic part of that is the controls on the steering wheel are on the opposite sides too – needless to say I kept preparing for rain every time I wanted to signal a turn

4) Found glow worms in a forest. They look a bit like fireflies but don’t blink on and off.

5) I now play the saron in a gamelan ensemble. It is going to take a while to get the hang of it since the notation, scales, and song structure are quite different from anything I’ve played before. One especially neat (and confusing) aspect of this performance type is that it is conducted by the tempo set by the drummer rather than directed by someone whose role is solely to keep the group together. We are going to do a shadow puppet show performance at the public art gallery sometime in September!

6) Wrote my first NZ paper and took my first NZ test (it’s weird not having blue books!)

On classes, earthquakes, and chocolate….

I have finished my first week of classes at Otago. I think, if anything, I have culture shock from being at a large university rather than from being in a different country –although the fact that the entire university student population is of legal drinking age certainly affects the creation of norms and traditions. (I don’t think my kiwihost can conceive of what it would be like to go to college without copious amounts of beer on hand.)

Classes are much, much larger than I am used to. Rather than cut off enrollment, they just move the lecture to a bigger room and add more tutorial sections. Needless to say the classroom dynamic is rather different when there are more people in the auditorium than in your entire college graduating class (In one of my classes, there is something like 470 students!) Lectures aren’t run on a MWF or TTh cycle and are almost certainly held in different locations throughout the week - something which seriously trips me up. I may have definitely had to get up and leave a class after the professor showed up and I realized I hadn’t checked to see if the location had changed. My favorite academic jargon for the week: ‘the tuts are fortnightly’ (small group discussions meet every other week)

I switched classes because the assessment in Human Geography would have been frustratingly easy. There are several hundred people in that class so I figure that if I continue attending the lectures they won’t notice. At any rate, It will be good motivation to drag myself from under my warm covers in the morning. I am now taking Anthropology of Contemporary Issues – a course about globalization – instead.

I am excited to get back into the academic swing of things – the first reading for Geography of the S. Pacific, about how photography changed the way people thought about travel, was wonderfully full of new ideas about space and time and history. The first substantive Environmental Politics lecture involved a description of the 70s survivalists (using exponential population theories to predict catastrophic resource disasters), the Promethean response (the view that technology could handle the environmental crisis) and discussion about how the same division informs current arguments about the environment.

And I am back to being overwhelmed at how incredibly lucky I am to have the luxury of sitting around thinking big thoughts. God, I hope someday I can give back to world enough to even slightly deserve this.


Since last writing I:
1) visited Larnach Castle - the only castle in NZ (and contemporaneous to the Alexander Ramsey House)


2) explored around Dunedin (the farmer’s market, First Church of Otago, the Octagon, the Botanical Garden)
3) explored the university (trying to figure out where my classes were - OUSA, Castle Lecture Theatre, the Archway, the Quad)
4) joined the Tramping Club and Campus Greens
5) didn’t feel the 7.8 earthquake centered only 300 km from Dunedin :(
6) toured a chocolate factory and watched 30,000 Jaffa chocolate balls getting thrown down the steepest road in the world




7) had the rugby match between Australia and New Zealand interrupted by seven guys tied to a keg of beer
8) went tramping on Flagstaff

Greetings from Dunedin

A quick list of interesting things I did during the program introduction this past week –
1) went caving at Waitomo (abseiled 60 meters, admired some damn fine speleothems (aka. cave formations), and ziplined across a cavern with all lights off),
2) ate kumara and lamb,
3) went for a walk in a very unique redwood forest,



4) learned the words and actions for the haka, and
5)was made uncomfortable by the romaticization and simplification of Maori creation myths at an “authentic” hangi feast at the Tamaki Village. Other parts though were amazing - the traditional songs and the atmosphere of the meal. Very not sure how I feel about that evening. How does tourism affect the preservation and presentation of Maori culture?

The New Zealand countryside on the North Island reminds me of a lot of things all at once. If you don’t look too closely at the trees, they seem vaguely the shape and thickness of Northern Minnesotan forests. But if you look slightly closer you realize that the underbrush includes a plant with leaves like a palm tree and that none of the trees look completely “right” It also looks like the Scottish countryside with patches of pasture and sheep, except that in that part of NZ there are more cows than sheep making it feel a bit like rural MN, except that the cows and pastures are set on very hilly topography and ridges. When you put this together with the driving on the left side of the road and the jet lag, it is surprisingly disconcerting.

After the Australearn orientation, we flew to Christchurch, then Dunedin. In contrast to the Auckland international airport which featured cute beagle airport security dogs smelling for fresh fruit and meats and a small army of people opening luggage to check any camping equipment for dirt, the Rotorua airport had no security. Having never flown domestically in any country besides the US, it was pretty weird.

We were greeted in Dunedin by one of the people working for the International Student office and brought directly to our flats. My current home away from home is a lot bigger than I expected. I share the third floor with two girls: a music major from Denmark and an economics major from Germany. Each of us has our own room and we share a bathroom. Below us is a floor of boys – two american boys and one kiwi fellow. On the ground floor, there is the kitchen, laundry, and living room. My flatmates are generally nice though we have yet to have a meeting to discuss cleaning tasks, groceries, etc. I am not sure I can distinguish Dave from the friends he always has over….

I registered for classes today – a process made absolutely mental by the number of students and lack of electronic registration. Lots of standing in queues. The timing of many of the classes I wanted to take conflicted. Right now I am enrolled in Human Geography, Geography of the South Pacific, Environmental Politics, and Maori Society…but I might try to switch things up during the first week.

Mostly, I’m still getting settled in. There are heaps of little connections to your surrounding community that you forget about until you move somewhere new and suddenly formerly familiar activities take twice as long to do. Acquiring public library cards, opening a bank account, finding the nearest and cheapest grocery store, buying shampoo and bulky warm $4 sweatshirts from second-hand shops, etc Exciting mundane little things.

Tomorrow I am going taking the Taieri Gorge Train into the foothills surrounding the Otago Peninsula.

Random tip (offered by a lady at the bank): when the sidewalk is particularly icy, wear socks over your shoes.

Currently excited about: the possibility of playing in a gamelan ensemble, learning how to find south based on the available constellations, the Dunedin botanical gardens, the geology museum, the Cadbury chocolate festival, classes starting up.


My snail mail address is:
16/783 Great King St.
Dunedin, New Zealand 9016

The mailbox is not especially protected from the elements so I don’t recommend sending anything valuable.

My Otago email account is: kerme352[at]student.otago.ac.nz
But again, I still check my old email address as well.

Expectations

And...I'm already behind on the whole posting thing. I have been in New Zealand for two days now but limited access to internet has prevented me from putting anything up. So here, retroactively is something I wrote the night before my flight:

I leave tomorrow for New Zealand. I am pretty anxious which is silly since I am going to an English speaking country to study at a university (which has many support systems established for people in my situation) and will be traveling and living with other international students. I have never, however, claimed to be even vaguely courageous in this regard. I look forward to being there, getting set up, and starting classes so that there aren’t so many unknowns to worry about.

After four years of undergraduate work, you become accustomed to the academic system you’re in and confident in your ability to handle the expectations of classes be it a 3000-level geology or 4000-level philosophy course. It is incredibly cool that I get an opportunity now, at the end of the traditional time allotted to the massive soul-search which is college, to put it all into question again. Three cheers for the chance to experience a different style of teaching/learning!

Things I look forward to:
Mountains (and all of the associated geology), greenstone, tramping (hiking), earthquakes, New Zealand slang , exploring Dunedin and the Otago peninsula, candy shaped like babies, odd and delicious flavors of ice-cream, unfamiliar stars, registering for classes (with so many amazing choices it would be very hard to have a disappointing schedule), geography classes!!, gut-wrenching realizations about my own assumptions and identity

But enough speculation. I’ll write when I actually have some concrete experiences to share.

Kia Ora Aotearoa! (Hello New Zealand)

Welcome to my first blog post. I have started this site as a way to allow anyone interested in what I am doing quick access to my activities and to not bother those who don’t care with mass emails. I hope to post pictures and wonderful, insightful comments with some regularity but have never been good about keeping a journal…so we’ll see how that goes.

I depart for New Zealand on July 1st after spending a few days with relatives in California and will return sometime next June or early July. I am traveling through a program run jointly by Australearn and the U of M Twin Cities campus. When I arrive, I will participate in an orientation with other American students traveling through Australearn then make my way to Dunedin for international student orientation and registration at the U of Otago. Classes begin July 13th.

During my first semester, I will be living with a “kiwihost” and four other international students in a flat on 783 Great King Street, relatively close to campus.

Registration for classes takes place upon arrival so I do not know yet what papers (New Zealand term for classes) I will take. I have completely finished all of my degree requirements at Morris, so I am free to study whatever I desire. I aim to sign up for some combination of geography, Maori studies, environmental history, and geology. (Possible courses include Geography of the South Pacific and Environmental Politics)

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Here is some general information:

New Zealand is located southeast of Australia: map.
I will be living and studying in Dunedin on the southern island: closer map.

New Zealand has two official languages, English and Maori, and uses New Zealand dollars as currency.

New Zealand is located 17 hours difference from the Central time zone. In other words, if it is noon in MN on a Sunday, it would five in the morning on Monday in NZ.

The climate in New Zealand is strongly influenced by the ocean, so in general it is cooler in summer and warmer in winter than in Minnesota. Average temperatures in Dunedin in June are 30-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of this however, central heating systems are uncommon and precipitation comes in the form of cold rain. Though Minnesotans may boast about how they withstand ridiculous temperatures and windchills, when it gets bitterly cold we just crank up the thermostat and scurry between heated buildings. I am interested to see what it’s like to live in a cold climate when the temperature inside is generally the same as what it is outside. (For fun, compare the climate of Dunedin to that of Minneapolis)

New Zealand is home to unique wildlife such as yellow-eyed penguins, albatross, kiwi birds as well as to nonliving things like earthquakes, volcanoes, mountains and fjords.

And yes, they drive on the left side of the road.

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A number of ideas and questions have been circulating in my mind in the midst of packing, postulating, and panicking which I hope to reflect on over the next year:

“Unique biodiversity is a point of national pride and I am interested in what effect this has on current day attitudes toward stewardship of the environment.” This includes government management of natural resources, citizens’ opinions about government management of resources, and how conscientious New Zealanders are about the way their day to day activities impact the environment. There are strong movements to keep genetically engineered plants and animals out of New Zealand and to mitigate the impact of invasive species. And yet domestic air travel (one of the most resource intensive transportation methods) is a very popular way to get from place to place with over 450 flights per day within a country smaller than California. I hope to get beyond the environmentally friendly image conveyed by the tourist industry in order to understand the unique concern New Zealanders have for natural beauty.

Having spent time at Morris studying the Indian Boarding School Service and other interactions between Native American tribes and the US federal government, I am also interested in the effect geographical and demographic differences between US and New Zealand have on attitudes toward the rights of the indigenous peoples. What is the attitude toward the Maori and their traditions? Though the government has apologized for actions taken by early British colonizers, made Maori the second official language, and driven forward legislation on the basis of the Treaty of Waitangi, I wonder what the attitudes of the average person are like. Also what are the Maori’s opinion about the use of the haka at All Blacks rugby games and the scope of reparations? Does cultural tourism create a system through which tribes define themselves in terms of what tourists want to see (something exotic and “authentic”) rather than allowing the traditions to be modified and changed to fit the modern world? Do reparations cause clashes about tribal enrollment similar to tribal gaming in the US?

I also am eager to explore the way differences in geography (topography, size of the country, and climate) affect the way people think about the world.

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If you would like to contact me while I am away, you can use email, Skype, or snail mail. I will be getting a U of Otago email account within the next few weeks (which I will put in a later post) Otherwise, you can use my Morris email account – kerni016[at]morris.umn.edu – as I will still check it occasionally. I also have an account on Skype through which you can call me for free as long as your computer has a microphone and speakers. Given the time difference, however phone conversations will be very hard to coordinate! I am not sure whether my mailbox is located at the place I am living or on campus somewhere but I will post the address as soon as I figure out what it is.

I had best get back to packing. Less than a week left to prepare.