The start of summer...

It is summer here. This is marked not only by the official start date of December 1st but also by the weather and the beach-goers. It is definitely causing me to forget that Christmas is on the way - we almost missed the last mailing day for overseas packages – but I guess if that is as bad as it gets, I’ll probably make it…

Befitting the first day of summer, we had a jam-packed summer weekend. Friday, after stopping at my newest favorite-spot-in-New-Zealand, Pluto’s Juice Bar, I wandered down to Pilot’s Bay. This isn’t the “main” beach at the Mount, so I hadn’t really anticipated the sunbathers, but there were young couples and families and moms with kiddos. I sipped my tutti-frutti smoothie and sat on a picnic table for awhile. A few kids in their togs splashed about in the water, but mostly folks just lounged about on the grass or sand, a few reading, a few sleeping… That evening, I went for a walk and stopped for a while on the main beach to watch a 7s team (a modified version of rugby) practice and to see the novice surfers on the small breaks. It’s been four months since we arrived, but these are the scenes that still take me by surprise and delight me.

Saturday I headed into Tauranga for their farmers’ market while Cory was rounding at the hospital. Usually he enjoys coming too, but we were hoping to get on the road as soon as we could, so I needed to finish my errands early. It is a really nice farmers’ market, with great fresh veges (that is how it is written here), citrus, smoked fish, meats, breads and baked goods, cheese, olives and oil, honey, potted plants, and cut flowers. As soon as Cor was done, we drove down to Rotorua to visit our friends’ at their new place. The registrars (or residents) at the hospital move to new assignments on December 6th, and the couple going to Rotorua had all ready re-located, so we headed down to check out their house. They live near Okarewera Lake, with a pretty gorgeous view out the back windows. We ate lunch on their deck, with Cory lounging in a hammock for most of the meal. Then the boys threw the kayaks on the roof of the truck and headed down to the lake for a paddle. The girls opted to laze near the lake’s edge.

As the afternoon wound down, we had to say our goodbyes and zip back to Tauranga for the inaugural Tauranga Moana Seafood Fest! It was a great evening – we had mussel fritters and stir-fried squid, and then we watched the Ngati Ranganui, a local Maori iwi (tribe), and some fire dancers perform. The food was good and the performances even better. The fire dancers, which included the usual flaming batons and hula hoops and also featured flaming whips and a little fire-breathing, were pretty crazy, with a fire fighter escort to boot. But the hands-down favorite for both Cory and I were the Ngati Ranganui dancers. They performed a number of traditional songs and dances that were completely amazing. Our instructor for our Te Reo Maori class was there performing, too, which made it even cooler.

Cory took some video and posted it on YouTube; link to this from the photos if you are interested. I’m going to try to take a minute to explain some of what is on the video, but if you are actually someone who knows something about the Maori culture, you should either a) skip reading because you’ll be annoyed with the lack of detail and my inaccuracies or b) email me and add to/ edit it for me! Here goes… The songs and dances of an iwi are deeply ingrained in tradition. I can actually tell you very little about the lyrics, except that they communicate important information, usually telling a story. The two dances that Cory has included links to are the poi ball dance and the haka. Poi balls were originally used by young men to practice hand-eye coordination for the art of war, but somewhere, these poi balls have been incorporated into a dance performed by the women. The ladies make it look easy and graceful, but it is not simple at all. The haka, performed by the men, is a war dance. Before a battle, the two warring tribes would face off, each performing a haka to intimidate the other group. The large eyes and aggressive facial and body posturing makes their intent clear. The haka is also well-known because a version of it is performed by the All-Blacks rugby team before games.

Anyway, if you get a chance to watch some of the video, it is really great. And that Saturday night should have been enough fun to get us through the weekend, but there was more to come!
Sunday was just as beautiful a summer’s day as you could ask for. We had cranberry-orange muffins (made with left-over cranberry orange relish from Thanksgiving) and some hand-squeezed orange juice (great deals at the Farmers’ Market) on the balcony, while watching the finishers of the Tinman Triathalon straggle by before heading down to the Mount for some Christmas shopping. After that, we headed over to a staff member’s house for the annual Ortho department pig roast.

Having not been to many, make that any, pig roasts, I really didn’t know what to expect. I guess the concept is pretty self-explanatory, and we’ll leave it at that. The host’s home was beautiful, with distant views of the Mount and a magazine-worthy landscape. A pool, water feature, horse paddocks, tennis court, and children playing cricket on the lawn pretty much finished off the panorama.

After a grand meal, though, the idyllic scene was shattered. Remember “Movember”? Well, it and all of it’s horrible hair-iness was about to come to an end… The residents and a few willing staff were ushered into the center of the crowd of party-goers. The opportunity to shave off the facial hair of your favorite (or least favorite) man was auctioned off to the highest bidder. Cory went for 100 bucks, making him the second-highest participant behind the host. I didn’t know, really, how to handle the congratulations I received, but I guess maybe I’m proud or something like that. Anyway, the beard, and Movember, is history!

How’s that for celebrating the start of summer?