Hello to all from Taihea, a beautiful little beach town on the edge of whole bundle of history. We only left a week ago today (New Zealand time), and yet NMH and winter seem so far away. So much has happened it’s difficult to know where to start, but I’ll do my best to give a quick update.

Traveling felt weird, as if entering into a time machine instead of an airplane. The six hour plane to LA felt like days, and the 13 hour plane to New Zealand seemed lost between Michael Jackson movies and fuzzy dreams. We spent the next few days exploring the city, adjusting to jet lag, and learning all about a little thing called perspective.

On our maps, New Zealand barely shows up. It’s way down there, barely hiding beneath Australia, the “last stop on the way to the south pole”. Here, it’s a little different. America is the far away land, where wonders and myths take root. Have you ever seen someone get shot? Is it like High School Musical and Mean Girls? Are there cliques and drama and matching clothes and songs and guns? They ask these questions with wide eyes and complete sincerity, marveling at the world they saw on TV. Never before have I been so aware of the perspective that the media sends out to the world.

Auckland was awesome. Clean and beautiful, it’s steep roads snaked up into the hills and back down to the ocean, piercing the sky with a silver sky tower and marking the seas with a thousand sail boats. The City of Sails, as it is known, was a place where people would bend down and pick up trash on the ground, instead of adding to it. Different from New York or Boston? Just a tiny bit…

The next two days were spent staying at this gorgeous Marae. We were met with a formal Powhiri (welcome), where we had to give a speech, sing, and present ourselves in the most vulnerable way possible, with a hongi. The sharing of breath and the touching of noses, or sometimes it’s in the form of a simple kiss on the cheek, represent the Maori’s way of seeing you, not just the way you look, but who you are. After that moment, you become family.

And family, we were. The children would hang on us and ask us questions, pulling at our clothing and speaking freely in their sweet New Zealand accents. One of the children, Lateal, slept on my mattress the first night after begging her mother to let her have a slumber party with us. Bright and spunky, Lateal never failed to give us her own opinions on everything around us.

Many more stories have taken place, scenes and images that would take a thousand words to explain when I only have as long as my store bought internet card will allow, so I’ll have to show you a few of them in pictures.

Portrait: Triniti, age 5

Travelers luck. Meeting the Prime Minister of NZ!

From Lion Rock, beach trip number one

I found Nemo.

Tomorrow we will immerse ourselves into the Maori culture with the annual Waitangi Weekend, a time for celebrating what came before, and what will come in the future.

To all that I love, I hope you feel as if you are here with me, I miss you all and can’t wait to see you again.
xoxo,