Sunday, January 30, 2011
First Week
This week has been crazy, we’ve been going through orientation stuff about classes, safety, and rules. But we’ve also had many opportunities to experience Kaikoura. Unfortunately the first few days were really rainy, but it gave us a chance to play games (extreme Uno and Dutch Blitz) as well as get to know each other a lot better. I’ve gotten to know the small town pretty quickly because we mainly get around on bikes it’s hard to miss anything.
On Sunday we split up to go to different churches, which was an experience but the people there were all great and they ended up praying for the group of students that went and our families. Later that day we had a huge barbe (bbq) for anyone from the community to come to. It was great to get to know some of the families; Kiwi’s are really easy to talk to! And I even met a teacher who offered for me to work in class while I’m here.
Monday we went to the recycling center/ thrift store. Kaikoura is known for its environmentally friendly practices. So it was cool to be able to see how much they recycle. After that we went on a hike around the peninsula it was absolutely beautiful, and we all got extremely sunburned. We have been learning a lot about native plants and animals and going out and being able to see some of them was very helpful. After tea (dinner) two men from the local Maori community came to the convent to talk to us about their culture.
Today, 10/25 was another gorgeous day! We went to the Top’s sheep farm in the morning. Which is this old couples farm which consists of 4,000 acres, 3,000 sheep, 8 dogs, 6 chickens, 2 cats, 1 horse, and some geese and goldfish. New Zealand is known for its abundance of sheep right now the ratio is 4:1, so this really was part of the experience. Later in the day we went to the Mari (where the Maori community resides). We got to participate in a tribal welcoming, then they taught us about their meeting house and told us some of their tribal tales; unfortunately we weren’t allowed to bring cameras here but I still got some great memories. After tea we watched Whale Rider, which was really cool after experiencing the Maori culture.
Sorry it’s taken me so long to post. The internet is slow and I have to pay for it by the hour so I will be writing throughout the week and then posting them all on the same day.
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