Bush Walk

Beau and I have been wanting to take a "bush walk" since we moved into the new homestead a few weeks back. If you look out our "back door"... which is basically a giant sliding glass door ... all you see is a river running into the vast ocean. Awesome. If you look out our "front door," all you see is "bush" heading straight toward the heavens. "Bush" is a term used here loosely to mean forest, jungle, thick foliage, stuff-that's-hard-to-gauge-without-a-machete, etc. Basically, the area of New Zealand we live in is all bush bordered on one side by the ocean, with the occasional house and land. There are a few kiwi orchards around, some random cow or horse herds, several junked cars, and a rare appearance by a criminally-over-priced Ma & Pop shop.

We want to go out into it because we're curious. And because we're now officially fatties. I am 10kg (about 22 pounds or so) fatter than when I was in Thailand a few years back, and when I was there, I already felt chunky. It didn't particularly help matters that Thais found great enjoyment in telling me every day, "Teacher, you are very fat!" I almost had to beat that phrase out of my students.

In fact, one day my tailor took a look at me and said, "You've gotten fatter," and all my future suits for work were then made a bit less snug. And now I'm 10kg beyond that. Fan-tastic!

So, we put on our good hiking shoes (cross-trainers) and slathered on the bug repellent and headed for our goal -- a telephone pole situated at the very top of the ... I dunno... hill, mountain, giant green thing covered in foilage behind our house. I have to tell you, this was one of those moments when NOT being pregnant was a big relief, since I fell a couple of times when I was, and that was always a bit scary. Now, I knew I was destined to fall on my ass or face in this straight-up climb, and at least all that would be hurt would be my pride.

We started our walk, with our dogs Tonks happily padding at our heels. I love my dog, but really, she's a giant pain in the ass, and if she isn't within 3 feet of you at ALL times, she becomes a big whiny baby. So, walking along with us was just bliss for her. As we were rounding through one part of the property (it is MASSIVE), I started to hear Fern, our cat, crying as if her heart was breaking, somewhere behind us.

"Oh, for the love of god. Ferrrrrrrn. Ferrrrrrn. FERN!"

*bar-romp bar-romp bar-romp* Here comes Fern. Great, the whole family is here...it's like we're filming a new version of The Incredible Journey.

We start ascending, and it's a bit challenging, and THICK, but it's pretty cool. I mean, it's like instant jungle, instant rain forest, instant ... fern land. You only need to spend about 30 seconds in the New Zealand bush to see why the fern is one of their national symbols, including nearly all of their sports teams.

We were doing okay for awhile. Beau had found himself a good walking stick to help haul himself up the steep incline, and I was in his wake, trying to find footholds where I could. The big joke of the forest, was that there were branches -- EVERYWHERE -- but every time you grabbed one in desperation, *snap* it came off in your hand and you nearly catapulted backwards to your doom.

It got steeper and steeper, and we were following a trail that really only existed in our minds. Beau was sure that men had previously come this way many times to get up to the phone cables at the very top (far...far). I seemed to remember being told the helicopters were used to get up to those lines. Beau feigned ignorance of such a fact.

I also was a bit uncomfortable with Fern following us. Tonks following us is one thing. She's a dog and loves to push through thick brush. But...a house cat? I mean, I know we let Fern outside now since we moved here, but I still see her as our little kitty, our house cat who spends a lot of the day curled up on the couch. We were getting high up this mountain and our house kitty was hiking right along with us. But Beau said, "J., she's a cat. She'll be fine." And so, whatever. Super cute, kinda weird. Our animals have some serious abandonment issues. Wonder where they get THAT from.

Onward, I continued to "see" trails in the thick brush. I felt like I should be in a Hollywood movie, dressed in khaki Snobby Colonial clothes and wielding a machete as I exhaustedly hack further and further through the mosquito-infested jungle. It was crazy, but when you know your own HOUSE is just like, down there, you don't get all dramatic about it. It's kind of fun! What's the worst that could happen?

It seemed to be getting steeper, and thicker, though once in awhile we'd get a break and find another "trail." There was only one type of branch that was both hearty and strangely flexible and curved and twisted in strange ways, so you found yourself contorting your body to get under and over the same branch. It too, would suddenly 'let go' of its hold in the earth and I'd find myself tottering once again. Beau finally relinquished his stick to me, which I used to keep myself going up, up, upwards. Those telephone cables were real close, right?

We did have a few nice stops where you could make out a breathtaking view of the ocean below, as seen in my lovely photography here. You can just make out the cable on the left-side of the photo.

Unfortunately, there weren't any places you could really stop for long. Definitely no picnics. Usually you had one leg bent at 90 degrees, with your knee just under your chin, and your other leg straight as an arrow, perched on a tiny bit of dirt somewhere below you.

We got pretty high, and like most mountains, you climb and climb, get to a point where you're feeling pretty super-human (as seen by Beau's photo), and suddenly someone goes, "Oh no, the peak is actually over there!" and you look and see another peak, MUCH higher than you've already climbed, and you realize you have like a ton of more hiking to do.

Fuck that.

The telephone cables were hanging just above our heads, and we knew that the pole itself wasn't too far. We felt pretty accomplished, and had no shame in turning back at this point. Besides, how long would it take us to get back down such a steep incline?

We started down, now with me in the lead, one hand on the walking stick, and one hand clutching my camera. I shouldn't really say "me" in the lead. My initial master plan was to let the innate intuitiveness of Tonks lead us expertly through the bush and safely to the ground somewhere far below. Good idea? Well, I spent a lot of time on my ass, so you decide. Most likely the photo to the right is blurry because Beau was laughing too hard watching me slip-n-slide to keep the camera steady.

I was hearing a lot of grunting and various "ow"s and "ouch"s coming from behind me. I turned around and offered Beau his walking stick back. "No, that's okay, I'll just keep grabbing onto this razor-sharp grass for support," he replied.

I guess the bush makes some people a bit snarky.

Finally, at the bottom. Tonks is covered in burrs and both Beau and I are covered not only in burrs, but scratches and scrapes EVERYWHERE. Of course, Fern is still the princess she always is, clean and dignified. When pulling some dead leaves out of my underwear a few minutes later in the bathroom, my dignity kind of went out the window.

Sad, But Okay

Originally, I had no intention of writing about this, but for some reason, I've changed my mind. I think perhaps I feel as if I don't write this stuff down, then I lose the majority of it to my crappy memory. And I don't want to forget. Every once in awhile I read stuff from my blog (Thailand days) and go, "Holy shit, I had forgotten that even happened!" and it's something big, not something minor and humorous like how I almost drove my motorcycle into an elephant's ass.

In about 2 weeks I was going to announce that I was pregnant. It was that close. But as of a couple days ago, I started miscarrying. I'm okay, though in some pain and pretty unhappy about how this all plays out physically. But emotionally and mentally I'm suprisingly okay. Not fine, not great, but okay. Still, my reaction has somewhat surprised me. But I know I'm not in denial.

And the sad thing is, it's because of all my friends' pain. Nearly all my friends have had babies, the vast majority within the past five years. And as this all started going on, I started learning that the majority of them, (though not all), were having at least one miscarriage before successfully giving birth. Initially, this stunned me. I had always thought miscarriages were one of those rare, tragic things that occassionally a woman experienced, but as more friends started going through them, I saw them for what they were -- sad, but somewhat common.

I mentioned in a past blog about a co-worker who had had one -- I believe her second -- and had missed quite a bit of work. She was devastated. And my boss, who is really a wonderful woman, had shocked me by leaning in and saying, "You don't understand, J., they're really common. They happen all the time." I thought she had been a little callous at the time, but as time went on, I learned she was right. And more of my friends went through this, and they were all so sad. It's because I've watched so many others go through this pain that I had already braced for it myself, and in some way, thought I would be lucky if I did not experience it. I'm considered a high-risk pregnancy by default (high blood pressure and age). I wasn't pessimistic, just prepared.

I also learned that miscarriages, in Nature's view, are a good thing. Sometimes a fetus should never develop -- something is horribly wrong with it. And this is Nature's, and the body's, way of saying, "No, this baby would not make it. We need to start over." Nature is hardly ever warm and fuzzy, just watch Animal Planet for an hour or two to catch that. She's brutal, but she knows what she's doing.

I had that, "You've made it past the danger zone" ultrasound scheduled for next week, but I started to bleed, and we all know what that means. What's worse, is that the hospital is over an hour's drive away and Beau works 20 minutes in the opposite direction, so I had to wait for him to get a sub to cover him at work and come get me. We finally got to the place, and had the ultrasound, and it was all but confirmed. I was checked into the hospital, and after waiting FOREVER (it was the day before a long holiday weekend), was surprisingly greeted by an American obstetrician. They took blood, gave me the RH- shot, and told me to come back in a few days. Finally, at the end of a long day, Beau and I drove home, a little sad, but okay. I hate how this is being kind of dragged out. I want it to end, but I'll follow the doctor's advice.

In addition, Beau was unbelievably amazing during all this, which I think also made it a lot easier, unlike one friend who was dealing with painfully difficult husband while going through the same thing (she eventually had a beautiful baby boy, but got divorced soon after). Beau was there every step of the way, though all he could do for the most part was sit there. I think by the end of the day I loved him twice as much as when I had woken up that morning.

Well, it'll be a few more months of waiting before we can "try" again, ugh. I got pregnant SUPER fast due to my anally-organized tendencies, vigilence with my ovulation kits, and a little help from Beau, of course. I thought we were super lucky, and the timing was great. Unfortunately, the first couple months SUCKED. I lost 20lbs, hated nearly all food (Me! a Foodie!), got exhausted after any kind of minimal exertion, and of course, was a bit crabby. It was like having the stomach flu for a month. But I was finally starting to feel better. I was beginning to get excited. Now, we'll have to go through all that again.

Anyway, I had one weird encounter which I wanted to write down, since it's kind of a local cultural thing, and that's one of the main reasons I started this blog in the first place - to record this kind of stuff....

At the end of the day when we had returned from the hospital and were back in our little town, Beau had to go to one of the teacher's homes to pick up his keys from her. Her husband, also a teacher, came out of the house with her. The husband made a gesture at me to smile, and I obliged, though inwardly I was a little bit annoyed. Beau had left the engine running (hint hint) and I stayed in the car. I was NOT feeling particularly social and just wanted to get back home. But of course, in this small town, word travels fast and the word "family" is something you hear a lot. A lot, a lot.

The husband strolled slowly up to my car window, a strange, twisted look on his face. As he reached me, he immediately started in on me, scolding and berating me. Basically, the gist was that we were all a family in this community, we were all together and supported each other no matter what. When there was an emergency, we all drop whatever we are doing and rush to aid that person (he noted that his wife had had plans that day but had, of course, cancelled them to cover for Beau). And Beau and I are not alone, should not act like we're alone, we are supported, etc. etc.

Part of me was touched by this...um...slap in the face, though I felt sheepish and had to keep saying things like, "I know, thank you, I know, yes yes." This is a very kind couple who I have always really liked, and yes, I do know where he was coming from and I did appreciate it. But I was also a little upset that I was sort of being harrassed, especially at such a vulnerable time.

Beau and I are a lot alike -- we can be very social if we have to be, but truthfully, we're homebodies and like to live quietly -- going to movies or out to dinner together. We're really not the types to rush out and proclaim such news (well, um, except for on my BLOG, *cough*). And the LAST thing I wanted was the entire community to know, to have people coming up to me left and right to comfort me. I appreciate well-wishers, but from a distance. I just need a couple of people I care about to care. Anything else makes me feel uncomfortable and uneasy and I feel as if I have to put on some kind of fake face to satisfy them and get them away from me as soon as possible.

Does that sound unbelievably rude? Unfeeling? I don't mean it to be. I guess I just want to have some true sincerity around me and though I may be touched by people's good intentions, for me, it makes the situation worse rather than better.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about my cultural encounter. I know that in this indigenous community, that's how things are done, but I think I am going to find that pretty tough in the future. But as always, you have to try and fit in to the place you live. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" hasn't survived this long for nuthin.

And now, I'm going to go and lay down and read for a bit. Perhaps several months in the future I'll have some better news for you all. :)

Good Luck, Obama.

Although the moment has clearly passed, I kind of feel bad I haven't said my part about the whole Obama inaugeration. It's really neat to experience these kinds of things abroad, because you get to, well,...experience what a whole 'nother group of people are thinking about something. It's kind of like being behind one of those mirrored windows when someone is talking about you on the other side.

One thing that has really made an impression on me is just how much of an...impression Obama has made on the world. I mean, here we are in little bitty New Zealand, an ocean away, and Obama is ALL the news. People here are excited, they're hopeful, they're inspired. I knew that the rest of the world liked Obama as much as they hated Bush (and if you think Americans didn't like Bush toward the end, ask a European, or well, any other nationality), but I didn't realize that Obama had actually touched people around the globe as he has in the U.S. People in NZ actually feel that now famous "hope" that our new President has seemed to almost have patented. There were celebrations here and all the newspapers were plastered with giant, colorful photos of Obama's stoic face.

We were supposed to have gotten up at 5:30am to watch the inaugeration. At some point during the night I had moved to the bed in the other room to escape Beau's earth-shattering snoring, and so didn't hear the alarm go off. Beau did, but decided that perhaps one more hour of sleep DURING THE INAUGERATION was okay.

Okay, so I'm still a little annoyed about that.

Anyway, we made it up by 6:30am, just in time to catch the end, and then a whole bunch of Kiwi commentary on it all, including shots from the American embassy where random American ex-pats would claim some sort of link to Obama ("I used to sit near his mom in grad school!"). I really enjoyed seeing the swearing-whoops-in! I thought Michelle was going to burst out laughing. That would have been the most awesome oath of office ever if she had.

And hey, it was my birthday too (my birthday here, a day earlier in the U.S.), so it kind of helped make it all jut a tad more special. It all feels pretty good. I mean, it feels real good. I know he has an enormous river or shit to wade through, but here's hoping he comes out on the other side. We don't need a hero, but we certainly need a good President, a good man.

Good luck, Obama.

P.S. For those of you on Facebook, I thought this was pretty damn awesome: A fan club for Aretha's hat!

Water, Water Everywhere....

So, our new place, which still gets comments like, "Man, you really ARE out in the bush" from locals hit its first major snag the other day. And it kind of sucked.

We have our own water, which is basically rainfall that is collected into this giant cistern a little off from the house. (see photo to the right). A smaller storage tank is nearer the house and a pump connects them. Supposedly, assuming we're not water-sucking hippos, every once in awhile we flick a switch and the pump does its thing for about 25 minutes and voila, we have water! We have a filter for drinking water, but otherwise, it is what it is. It's a bit...rustic, like everything else, but this city girl is trying to be a sport!

On our first night in the house, we slept in the only room with a bed (ours was still at the old house, halfway disassembled), and plugged in a fan since it's summer here and gets a bit warm. We had a nice night's sleep with the cool air oscillating over us.

Sometime the next morning, when I finally got out of bed, I was having a drink and looking out the window that overlooks the storage tank. "Hmmm," I said, "It must have rained; the ground's all wet." Continuing to sip my juice, I glanced up at the tank, only to see water pumping out the top of it, spilling all over the place. Oh shit!

Within a minute, we figured it out. Here in New Zealand, their outlets are really great -- each one has a switch on it, so you can switch the electricity on and off. Eco-wise, I think it's a cool thing since I was told that plugged in appliances use "40% of their electricity even when they're sitting there." This way, you can just switch individual outlets on and off at will. And since we plugged in that fan the night before, we had switched on the outlet.

Well, we had forgotten from our 2-hour tour of the house before we moved in, that that particular outlet switch also switched on the water pump. The water had been pumping from the cistern to the water tank ALL NIGHT LONG. Oh, fuck.

Now, the owners had told us they'd done that once themselves, and it hadn't been a HUGE tragedy, just a dumb mistake, so we sort of laughed it off and went on with our lives. I have been pretty conservative with the water overall though, always keeping in mind that it's not an endless supply. It rains here -- a LOT -- but not for several months yet.

Then yesterday, Beau noticed the water tank was getting low and he turned on the pump and adeptly set an egg timer for 25 minutes. But after some time had passed, he noticed that the pump didn't seem to be pumping any water. He went down to the cistern, took a look inside, and all he saw was some damp sand at the very bottom.

Uh oh. That's probably not good.

I mean, that is our WHOLE water supply -- drinking, toilet, shower, washing machine, etc. I couldn't believe it had all been gone. The owners, who had raised 3 daughters on this property over the years, said they had only ran out of water one time in their 25+ years of living there. How had we run out so fast? Could our little pump mishap really have sucked out THAT much water.

And I really needed a shower.

A call was made to a woman I'll call Paula. She's the sister of the owners of our house. She lives just down the road and has been living in that house since birth and so in turn knows our place pretty damn well as well. She's our go-to gal. We told her the situation, she was pretty shocked, but then told us she'd make some calls.

Well, sister hallelujah, she worked fast. She had called us back pretty quickly and said she had a relative who would help us out. Now, in our Maori community, almost everyone is a relative. All the teachers are Beau's school are called "Auntie" or "Uncle" and it's not just a term of affection. This close-knit community thing can really come in handy when you need something done, since you always know someone who has a truck, or a chainsaw, or can fix your drain, or whatever.

"It's going to be the local fire department," she said, "They'll fill up your tank."

No shit.

A couple hours later a fire truck rolled up our drive and backed in near the cistern. Beau, in his typical way, made fast friends with the guy, and the two of them were chatting away as the firehose was inserted into the cistern. Within minutes, the truck was empty. "We gotta go get more water," they said. What? Are you shitting me.

The firetruck made FIVE trips total! Five! That's how much water that damn cistern holds! We knew we hadn't pumped THAT much water out with our little folly.

And the next to the last trip took a few hours (we were hoping he'd finish so we could leave). When he finally rolled up, apologetic, he told us how he had rounded a corner by the bridge, just in time to see a drunken pair of 17 year olds swerve around the bend and crash their car, flipping it upside-down. One had to be air-vac'd out of there. Sheeeeesh! No problem about the water then!

But now, here we are a day later and all is well. We haven't actually paid for the water yet, which we were told was a $1 a K. What the fuck's a K? We hope a K is a big buttload of water, cause 5 trucks of water seems like a helluva lot to pay for. I guess we'll see when we get the bill. Maybe we should start up a raindance or something.

Of course, Beau's colleagues always find our little troubles endlessly hysterical, and one pointed out that since we were living just about a giant river, we had plenty of water if we needed it. Too bad I left my donkey back home in the U.S.

Scariest. Bug. Ever

So, our new place is like in the middle of the woods...or as they say here, "the bush." It's so remote, it doesn't have a mailbox or its own water supply (besides a big cistern). It's kind of cool, cause it's very beautiful and isolated, but being so...rustic...means you get to meet all sorts of new friends.

Fucking scary friends.

It happened late last night when Beau went by the front door to call Fern, the cat in, who is now officially an outside/inside cat since without screens on the windows or doors, it is now impossible to keep her indoors (she climbs out the windows). Beau saw her playing with something and he went over to check.

Then I heard, "Hey J., get me something to pick up this bug with."

I went to grab some paper towels. "No, no," he said, "Like a jar or something...it's a really big spider." I ran back inside and grabbed an empty cranberry juice bottle. Beau scooped it up and brought it inside. I shrieked.

I'm not typically a shrieker. I tend to kill the bugs and save the shrieking for rats and stuff. But this bug scared the bajeezus out of me.

Meet the Weta. The most terrifying bug I have ever seen in my life, mostly because, and this is not a joke, it's the size of a hamster. It is "one of the largest and heaviest insects in the world." And as one website says, the weta "has changed very little in the past 100 million years" and predated the dinosaurs. Terrific!

To me, it looked like a ginormous ant right out of a B-movie. Attack of the killer ants! And they're pretty hard to kill as well. Someone

Beau brought it to work today and they quickly I.D'd it and then told him it had an unbelievably painful bite. Oh, and it scratches too. Fan-tastic! At least Beau saved little Fern, and himself, from that. *shiver*

Btw, "Weta" is a Maori word for the bug which can be translated to "God of Ugly Things." Uh huh.

One site says, "You can help save the Weta from extinction by treading carefully and putting Weta somewhere safe if you find them on the path." Hahahaha.

Okay, so Beau let it out in the woods....really far from our house. I hope it doesn't find its way back to seek revenge.

Moving Again - Really - KINDA

Today we begin moving -- again. Although this is the 3rd place we'll have lived in in New Zealand since we got here in October, it doesn't REALLY feel like moving. Basically, it feels more like "upgrades" since we're staying in the same city.

First we were in a flat owned by the school, which was like one long apartment split in two. Next door was a young woman with a baby who had a LOT of friends and played her hip hop awfully loud, but overall was fine. But we were still glad to get out of the place, which was a bit suffocating. It's mostly rented out to vacationeers, so it's not the most ideal home.

Then we moved just 2 spots down to a house also owned by the school. A tiny, but cute little 3-bedroom home with a nice-sized back yard and a kick-ass view of the ocean across the street.

But then one of Beau's colleagues approached us to make us an offer -- come for tea at her brother's place to talk about it.

Her brother's place, now only occupied by his wife, was about 25 minutes west of us along the coast. It was a road, right off the highway, that you'd miss if you weren't looking for it. It then immediately jutted upward at a 45 degree angle. At the top was a lovely little place -- a modest house on an enormous piece of land. Behind the house rose a mountain full of pine trees, in front of the house was a view of a river running into the ocean below. It was breathtaking.

This was the deal: the husband was off in Australia working, and the wife was here. This is pretty common here, as you can make anywhere from 2-4x your NZ salary in Australia. You get generous vacations to return home to family as well. But the wife had stayed behind at their home, and with 3 grown children flown from the nest, she was lonely and missed her husband. She wanted to join him, but feared leaving their beloved home, which they had built from scratch many years ago, empty and vulnerable.

See where we come in? Beau was just about slobbering to accept -- all he could see was that fat river below and his mind kept saying, "Ooooh fly fishing, fly fishing!" I was less enthusiastic at first, cause you know, it means we'd be MOVING, though walking around the land and seeing the wildlife, the fruit trees, the "chucks" (chickens we'd take care of), and the much nicer home overall, I was beginning to get won over. Another HUGE plus -- about 25 minutes CLOSER to town. As beautiful as the drive to town is, an hour-long drive just to get to a crappy grocery store and another 30 minutes to get to a good one, gets REAL old after awhile. Real fucking old.

The land also has a tennis court on it, though I'm not going to pretend I'm all that interested in playing tennis. It'll also be really wonderful for our dog, Tonks, to have all this land to run around in. Right now, at 5 months and the size of a Shetland pony, she's wearing thin on our nerves in the house. She's the proverbial bull in a china shop and bangs into tables and human legs as she barrels through the house, chasing a tennis ball, or more likely, the cat. The dog-cat playtime was real cute when it first began - we wanted them to get along - but now that the dog is ginormous and apparently completely oblivious to her power, she's hurt the cat a few times which is real scary. What's worse, and weird, is that the cat LOVES these games and will always be the instigator, which makes breaking them up all the harder. It's hard to yell at the dog to stop when the cat is enticing her from around the next corner.

Anyway, everything seemed to have gone to plan -- moved the phone service, called up the cable company to start service (we haven't had cable yet, and have grown REAL tired of New Zealand's three channels), and fixed it with the electric company. But when we talked to our broadband people, they dropped a bomb on us -- we can't supply broadband in your new place.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?

Omg, omg, omg! Dial-up was available *cry* for $10/month for 30 hours. I think Beau uses 30 hours in one day, seriously. Plus, with 2 computers, I suspect dial-up, which I have been told is as slow as you'd fear, would be painful at best. It looks like our only option at this point is satellite internet.

Yeah, and it's just as expensive as it sounds. *sigh*

Well, I guess I could live without internet for awhile.

.....

BUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

So, until I get this internet thing straightened out, who knows how much I'll be on, not that I've been blogging up a storm, but still. Much more depressing for us than you.

A bientot, my friends! I'll post pictures later.

Black Eye on a Beautiful Green Country

One of the neatest, but strangest things about living in New Zealand is the fact that the entire country has about 4.5 million people in it. Now, I looked on Wikipedia, and my former residences of NYC has 8.27 million people and Bangkok has 8.1 million people. So now, I'm living in an entire country that has half that population. It's weird.

What makes that really cool is that you kind of feel like you live in a small town. Something that happens, well, anywhere, is "local news." A murder, a missing child, even robberies that happen as "far away" as the south island (we live on the eastern side of the north island) seems to touch you a if they were in the next town. You learn all the details and names involved. Kind of like when George Carlin once joked that if you hear of a massive earthquake that killed 80,000 people, you're much more likely to give a shit the closer the catastrophe is to your front door.

Beau and I started noticing something strange on the news. Child abuse. There is a LOT of child abuse. First, there was a hugely sensational case about some poor 3-year old girl who was basically beaten and tortured over a long period of time by nearly every single person who ever was supposed to "care" and "protect" her. Heartbreaking stuff.

Then, after people were convicted and things died down a bit, the next day on the news there was another case. And the next day, another. And each day thereafter. We were perplexed. Was it just the media focusing on these scattered cases after the one big one that had taken up so much airtime and was now gone? These stories became so regular, we knew it couldn't be too much of a media obsession. It had to be a national problem. A national shame.

Obviously, there is domestic abuse everywhere, in every country whether it has 4 million people or 400 million. I guess what I'm thinking is ... there are issues...thousands of issues, and they never get totally solved, but the point is ... they need to be tackled. There have to be TV campaigns and school education and NGO and government intervention (your party directs to which degree), and resource centers or shelters. And there needs to be a conscious effort by parents and women and teachers and officials to battle the issue and raise awareness, strengthen self-image, and empower the weak. Despite the fact that I do believe all this makes a big difference, it never erases the problem. It just improves things.

Domestic abuse seems to be a dirty little secret, and accepted here as a kind of...tradition. I feel like it's the black eye (figuratively and literally) on the poor. Not that the rich don't beat their wives and kids, but there's something about the link between domestic abuse and poverty. The link between abuse and alcohol and drug abuse, the stress over finances, the acceptance of one's shitty situation since "getting out" just isn't conceivable. As someone who grew up in a house with domestic abuse, I know that as a kid, you just can't even wrap your mind around the fact that there's a way out before you turn 18. Though maybe now, it's different. I hope it is.

If I'm going to go just by what the media we're fed, the abuse problem is more pronounced in the Maori community. Since Maori are much more likely to be in the poverty range, that makes some sense to me, though I admit, every time I see the newscaster announce another case, I close my eyes and go, "Please don't be Maori, please don't be Maori." We live among the Maori and adore the majority of the people in the community.

But I've believed for a very long time that things are really more about class than race. If we would focus on class issues rather than the color of people's skin, the focus would be much better spent. If you've ever seen the movie, "Once Were Warriors" about the problems faced by an urban Maori family, you would have been completely horrified by the domestic abuse and the character's acceptance of the situation. The main female character had been severely beaten by her husband the night before. The next morning as she and a friend were having a beer together, the friend joked on a common Maori saying, "Keep your mouth shut and your legs open."

Even more shocking to me was something Beau told me. When we were discussing the issue, he told me about a female teacher up at the school. This was a very prominent teacher of advanced age -- one who kids did not fuck with. This woman had been discussing to Beau and a few others about her daughter's mouthy ways. This woman said to the group, "So, I said to her, 'Girl, you better learn to control your mouth if you don't want to end up with a lot of black eyes!'"

I was pretty astonished when I heard this, especially from who it had come from. It also kind of scared me. When stuff like that comes from the mouth of a woman is when I think it is the most dangerous. When your own mother thinks you deserve a black eye, how do you ever convince yourself you don't? A mother is your teacher and your protector.

Sadly, despite the case of the 3-year old above, I haven't heard any news of domestic/child abuse awareness come from it. Usually you do after a tragedy hits. In fact, another issue we've also noticed is water safety, though the response seems more encouraging. This is a very aquatic culture, which makes sense since if you're not living seconds from the ocean like we are, you're never more than 3 hours from it, no matter WHERE you live in the country. Pretty amazing. Not to mention that there are also tons of beautiful lakes and rivers as well. It's summer now and also Christmas vacation, so there's a huge rush to the water, and we've noticed that people who seem to be butt-poor and have tiny houses still seem to have boats! And they're packed on the water now.

But the sad outcome is drownings and accidents. Today on the news I heard of 4 seperate aquatic accidents that led to twice as many deaths. The most tragic is a local sports star who jumped in the water to save someone else in trouble and he was immediately swept out to sea. They still haven't found his body.

Unlike domestic abuse though, there does seem to be some kind of response. Incredulously, many Kiwis cannot swim -- this is still something that perplexes us, and naturally, the reason for many drownings since the wearing of life jackets is not really done here with much consistency. I have seen some commercials recently begging people to learn how to swim. And on the news today, after the deaths relating to the four accidents, including a waterskiing girl who was run over by another boat (and killed) or a jet ski that collided with a boat (several deaths), someone said, "Well, maybe now we can start talking about this. There are too many boats on the water and no one is wearing their life jackets." I hope so!

It's interesting what must make one issue come out and be dealt with while others are not. For instance, one thing that I think is really fantastic, is that EVERY SINGLE motorcycle rider I have ever seen in New Zealand has been wearing a helmet. Every one! I used to fume and spit in the car back in Montana because it was a rare rider who could be bothered enough to protect his idiot head and I just couldn't fathom such stupidity. Or back in Missouri when rural men in trucks thought wearing a seatbelt was...what? Not macho? Who knows...but they don't do it, to this DAY, and the many deaths caused by not wearing a seatbelt, again, just seemed ridiculous.

Is it Darwin's Law or just a lack of community focus? I'd like to think the latter, with a few stupid people who think they're invincible thrown in.