Return to the Quake Zone

The last time I visited Lyttelton was four days after the Feb. 22 earthquake and the trauma was all too obvious, both physically and psychologically. Situated closest to the violent quake’s epicenter, this small port community saw its main and lower streets all but destroyed, with historic brick buildings tumbling down in tandem with the sense of security of its residents. Lyttelton is a unique and colorful mix of characters, where fishermen and port workers share the same streets, cafes and bars as bright young things from the city who would rather live over the Port Hills from Christchurch’s more sedate, English-style streets. Indonesian fishermen and Russian sailors are constant visitors, ship-girls vie for trade from historic hotel bars and the township attracts artists, writers and hippies of all ages.

At least, that’s how it was prior to Feb. 22.

The Saturday of that week, Feb. 26, Lyttelton had a summer street festival planned in its main street. London St was a miniature of the community, with historic buildings containing cafes, art galleries and bars interspersed with banks, the town supermarket and a well-used library. I’d been there in January and sipped coffee while watching the passing parade, where few seemed in any hurry and stopping for a chat was a constant occurrence. Much of London St was badly damaged in the quake but the community, seeking a bright spot among the rubble, decided on the day before the planned party to relocate the festival to the school yard. I was staying across the water at Diamond Harbour and, when told of the festival the night before by the wife of one of the ferry skippers, stayed one more day to attend.

The strongest impressions I came away with were of the rawness of people’s grief,  a strong unfocused anger (an earthquake is a very abstract thing to hate) and a coming together of the community. Lyttelton is joined to Christchurch by a tunnel under the Port Hills or longer roads that go up and over passes. The tunnel was closed by the quake and Lyttelton, like most of the Banks Peninsula, seemed to have been forgotten by the powers-that-be as they concentrated on the city’s higher population areas and the bodies still to be recovered in the Central Business District.

In some ways, Lyttelton was fortunate. The only life lost was a well-respected local man who’d been working at his joinery business in the city when the quake occurred, and had been hit by falling rocks in an aftershock as he walked home across the hills to get to his family and ensure they were safe. The joiner's family and friends gathered together in his workshop a few days later to build him a coffin of native wood left over from the family home he had built.

The town was also fortunate to have the HMNZS Canterbury in port when the quake occurred, and the sailors and soldiers aboard reacted quickly and decisively to offer help.

But local residents, like those throughout Christchurch, knew they faced long waits until they knew what might happen with their damaged homes, businesses, lives and livelihoods. Since the first Christchurch quake in September, many residents had waited to get damage assessments, insurance payouts, repairwork or sufficient information on when any of that might happen. Aftershocks had been felt constantly since September and there was a sense among many of those affected that the Government and insurance companies were waiting for things to be over before making decisions. Each subsequent shake, and I experienced a strong one myself while there in January, reminded residents that there was no clear end date for this event. A death, however tragic, is an ending and those left behind can begin the grieving process. I would compare the constant upheavals in Christchurch, as tectonic plates abrade each other, as more akin to a long, lingering illness with no end in sight.

The aftershocks create their own trauma, more so after Feb. 22, as none can know until they’re over just how bad this one might be.

Kiwis are renowned as being strong, resilient folk, although many of us have lost that trait as we become progressively more urbanized. Lyttelton, being a small, more rural community, retains that “No. 8 fencing wire” mentality (a belief that you can fix almost anything with judicious application of a piece of fencing wire, or perhaps a coathanger). I saw that the week of the quake in the way the community was rallying around its own, but the rawness of their grief and the shock meant they often excluded outsiders in doing so.

I returned to Lyttelton this past weekend, and the streets are still a scene of carnage. Buildings are opened at the front, as if hinged dolls' houses, the frontage's framing, lining and bricks lying on crushed cars in the street below while chandeliers still hang above. The lower street, that nearest the port, was home to the hotels and bars, and all have been closed due to damage. Some will never reopen. The Time Ball above the port, a chronometer for the benefit of ocean-bound navigators built in 1876 by the makers of London's Big Ben is damaged beyond repair. Most of London St remains fenced off.

But there is a stronger sense of positivity than that I observed on my February visit. A group of local women has been making cloth hearts embroidered with messages of support and aroha (“Live Life Love” was one example) and pinning them to the cold steel fencing. They have now started making smaller heart brooches to give to individuals. When I tried to decline one, saying I wasn’t from Lyttelton, they laughed and told me everyone needs a heart. I was invited to join them to make more at the Saturday Market the following day. I did, then took my hearts to another community further around the harbor.

The Lyttelton Coffee Company, a popular meeting place in London St, was so badly harmed it seemed likely to be demolished, but staff had set up under an awning outside the damaged library and the conversations and care among residents was more focused than before the quake. People talked of how to help each other, and how others could also help.

With all the other bars damaged, Fisherman’s Wharf, overlooking the damaged but working port, had become the social center of the town, with great food, caring service and an air of possibility rather than loss. Regular Saturday night parties were also beginning at the Naval Point Club, offering bands, beer and fun for no cover charge and giving locals a chance to blow off steam.

BNZ, the Bank of New Zealand, had responded to all the town’s cash machines being inside the cordons by bringing a mobile teller machine to allow people access to cash. They came and went each day, but people were more than willing to help out if anyone was temporarily short. I asked the server at the Coffee Company if there was anywhere else I could get cash as I was hoping to have a coffee before catching the next ferry, he said I could have one anyway. I had $2.10 in coins so got the $2.10 "Special of the Day."

Lyttelton, like all of Christchurch, is still hurting and is likely to be for some time. An older woman I walked to the ferry with told me her house above the port was badly damaged, and the apartment block she’d just bought into in Christchurch and had been about to move to had been demolished. One home gone, one uncertain, but she was happy to be alive. As Lyttelton’s residents pick themselves up and shake themselves off, I salute their courage, their spirit and their strong sense of community.

Kia ora, kia kaha.

Maori Gods

Unfortunately for me, I was not raised in tikanga Maori (the culture) or Te Reo Maori (the language). Fortunately for me, I have wonderful friends and whanaungatanga (extended family) who were, and who gift me the taonga (treasure) of their knowledge.

One such is my sis, Mars, who I first heard of when I returned to Jeju Island and another beautiful wahine, Marama, asked if I lived near her. "I don't know Mars," I answered. An hour or so later, my phone rang.

"Kia ora, this is Mars," I heard, "I hear you need a motorcycle."

It turned out Mars lived a few blocks from where I was camping (thanks Sherrin, your heart has always been in the right place) and had a bike she didn't know how to ride. I looked after it for the year I was back on the Island, and Mars and I recognized each other as sisters.

When I arrived in Christchurch the day after the quake, P told me he had been unable to sleep the previous night because of the violent aftershocks. I asked Mars for a karakia (prayer) to soothe Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother. This was her response:

Kia Ora Sis

Ruaumoko is the atua of earthquakes. Here is a karakia for you.

E te atua Ruaumoko, kua oho koe i te koopuu whenua o to matou whaea Papatuanuku, kua ruu te whenua. Hoki atu ki te moe, e moe, e moe kia pai ai te ao hurihuri.

E Rauamoko, you have awakened in the womb of our mother Papatuanuku and have shaken the land, return to rest, rest, rest so the changing world above can be well.

Hope that suits, just made it up for you. Thinking of you and your friends in Chch and hope you are all managing okay.

Big Maori hugs from Jeju
Mars

I googled Rauamoko, learned a lot, and posted the karakia as my facebook status. Rauamoko rested that night, as did we.

How do I best say thank you in te reo, e kare? (my treasured friend)

Leaving the Zone

What one does not realize . . .

When I asked my friend if she would feel better if I went to Christchurch to personally check on her 85-year-old father (also my friend), she said there were continuous aftershocks. I was nonchalant. I arrived and everybody here was tired because the night after the damaging quake, the earth kept moving. Not gentle, rolling tremors, people told me, but violent, “what might this become” shocks.

It means nothing until you experience it.

Five days here and I am an old hand and the violence of Ruaumoko (unborn god of volcanoes and seasons in Maori lore) is like living at sea – one adapts to the conditions. Significant shakes are barely commented on, if at all, and life continues. But sleep can be difficult when you are continually being rudely awakened (ask my exes) and the total unpredictability wears on people. Especially when you remember that it has been like this for the past six months, and repairs/insurance payouts/lives have been put on hold until it stops. It has not stopped and shows no indication of doing so.

Technical note: Aotearoa/New Zealand is where the Atlantic and Pacific tectonic plates meet, interact and occasionally argue with each other. The Southern Alps are a result of these guys brushing up against each other. Christchurch residents keep telling me they were not on a fault line, but Aotearoa, by definition, IS a fault line.

Anyway, the plan Friday was to head back to Dunedin Saturday morning. P is fine, I’d done all at Civil Defence that they would allow me and, no longer being a help, became just another mouth to be fed, watered and toileted in a system where food, water and toilet facilities were at a premium. (Although the sewage system servicing Diamond Harbour was operational, just needed gray water to flush, and there’s a harbor at the foot of the hill with lots of that. There was also a Portaloo at the Medical Centre mere minutes away, flown in by an Air Force chopper in what was one of the most amusing scenes of my stay. It was so astonishing I didn’t think about my camera before it was too late. Wait for separate post for that story)

But plans change, especially in The Adventures of Tracie, and yesterday morning the wife of one of the ferry skippers e-mailed me that the ferry would be running to take people to Lyttelton, above the quake epicenter, for a street party that had been relocated to the school as the main street was totaled. I’m a sucker for parties so was on the first ferry across and didn’t bother taking the last one back. Knew I’d find somewhere to sleep.

I need to apologize to my many US friends if the “ugly American” image many other countries have of them is partly my fault. I definitely put some noses out of joint in Lyttelton (“You’re not from here, you don’t have any right offering help!”) but also made new friends and had a great conversation with a group of kids about how they felt, tectonic plates and Ruaumoko. (“Is this a lesson?” one asked.) Shared my cider, drank other people’s beer, invited a group of Indonesian sailors from the edge into the thick of things and set them up with good people and drinks (one of the things a local told me I had no right to do.)

“Whatever,” was my response. I found out the next morning when taking the ferry back home that those who didn't like me assumed I was American - sorry dudes. Those who I actually talked with knew I am tangata whenua.

Later in the evening, I was talking to a local Maori man who asked where I lived.

T: “Nowhere.”

Rewi: “Where are you sleeping tonight?”

T: “I don’t know yet.”

R: “I have a caravan beside my house, tho I don’t guarantee its safety.”

T: “Outstanding!”

Woke this morning to find sculptures everywhere and found he’s a carver, and met his daughter while we drank tea and she ate baked beans from the pot (less dishes to wash). Gorgeous young lady, a stunning mix of Maori wahine and Cree Indian from her Canadian mother and with a really interesting Canadian accent from living there half the year. I now have contacts in Rapaki! 

On the way to Lyttelton for the ferry back to DH, Rewi showed me his cousin’s and uncle’s homes, which were both hit by boulders he and a friend watched bound and barrel down the hill. Check out the photos above. The second house, to the left, had two rocks bounce off the road and through the roof in the kitchen and a bedroom.

Back to DH and P, who delivered me to the Main South Road to head back to Dunedin.

Ride 1: Christchurch to Timaru, with a guy from Christchurch who was taking one of his daughter’s friends through to stay with her. He lives in the Christchurch suburb of Shirley and had lots of liquefaction on his property and there was raw sewerage in the streets. No power or water but he had a sturdy home with no structural damage so wasn’t complaining. Had gas to cook and was going to pick up a generator to take home with him.

Ride 2: Timaru to Dunedin, with a lovely woman with whom I exchanged contact details and will keep in touch. She would have driven me out to the Peninsula but had clients to entertain at the Winery Tour concert, and I very nearly stayed in town to go along. Tickets were $65 tho and I would then have had to find my way back to the Peninsula so decided to keep moving.

Ride 3: Portobello Rd to Broad Bay, where the road heads up to Larnach Castle, with a lovely elderly woman with whom I discussed lifestyle choices, the difference between religiosity and spirituality, and an article she had read, “In Defence of Hypocrisy.” Was a shame to have to part ways.

Ride 4: Halfway up (steep) Castlewood Rd to castle turnoff – a Kiwi guy who now lives in Perth who was home to visit his mother and show his girlfriend around Aotearoa. Short ride, not much more info except a little on Christchurch.

Ride 5: Last bit of Camp Rd to church, wasn’t really worth getting in and out of the car for but they’d already stopped and rearranged themselves by the time I worked out they needed to turn there. Four young students just arriving to start university and familiarizing themselves with the area – I assured them they would love their time at Otago.

Ride 6: Remainder of Highcliff Rd to Sandymount Rd, with a chef at 1908 who was heading to work in a shiny red BMW.

Walked down Sandymount Rd to Ridge Rd, stopped at Gerald’s farm gate for chat with Ingrid and a hug, stopped at bottom of home driveway for chat with two women heading to Sandfly Bay, one of whom was a harpist with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra (it said so on her car). We discussed Christchurch, how lucky I was to stay where I do and I told them they needed more clothing for Sandfly Bay.

Made it home, ate dinner with mountains of fresh vegetables, gulping down vitamin C for a cold I seem to have picked up, can’t soak in bath because of blister beetle blister that got infected while living in less than optimum hygienic conditions (wait for the Medical Centre visit tale), so deathly tired but don’t want to go to bed too early or I’ll be wide awake at 0300.