Talking Dirty

We’ve been talking some serious shit around the dinner/breakfast table recently.

At the weekend, herself cleaned out under the chookhouse and added it to the compost heap, I cut comfrey (oh, for a scythe) for the next layer. One of my tasks today is to gather cowpats from the top paddock to be added. Everything is a cycle, and good gardens require great compost. It’s all about putting food on the table, and shit from chickens and cows is a boon there.

Whanau members visited for a few days with a health scare that required coming to the big city hospital for a colonoscopy. The daughter, a fae  sprite, was phobic about the bucket toilet out back. She elected to stay and entertain the pups and I yesterday while her parents went to the city and toileting would be needed. We walked the dogs, talked about how dogs  needed to be exercised and toileted, and discussed why she was afraid of the outhouse. She was afraid she would fall in, which is a horrible thought, I tell you. I asked if she had ever fallen in her flush toilet at home (“Of course not, silly!”), explained that the seat here is smaller than on a flush toilet and all was well again with her world. When she needed to go, I offered a peg for her nose if needed and she came back proudly to tell me she didn’t even need to block her nose.

The health scare appears to be just an irritable bowel problem, (blessedly) and the person concerned asked the IB nurse what foods she should avoid or eat. The nurse told her that what she ate was irrelevant. Excuse me?!? A quick Google gave patient reams of information that the medical profession here seems to view as irrelevant. Not a very holistic view of health, and certainly not a promising one for the nurse’s patients. 

Aforementioned bucket toilet is precisely that, a bucket that gets emptied into a hole and covered with dirt. It’s not a pleasant task and one I’ve managed to avoid every time but one, but when I had to do it, I ladied up and did so. It means you deal with the fact that human animals, if they’re fortunate, consume food and liquid and it gets expelled. Most people in the world don’t have flush toilets and how they deal with their waste is, in my mind, a better indicator of civilization than the size of their cities. In Jakarta, many thousands of people live on the edge of reservoirs and waterways and use the water to bathe, toilet and wash clothes. (Check out http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/waterworries ) A new house is being built where I am that has to have a flush toilet included, but I'm confident the bucket will be here to greet me when I next visit.

There’s a conversation that’s been going on in Aotearoa of late about “freedom” camping and the fact that many campers defecate wherever they are and leave it. There’s a carpark at the bottom of the hill for a beautiful track and often, when himself takes the dogs for a walk, there is human excrement and toilet tissue strewn there. It incenses me that anyone would come all the way here to one of the most beautiful spots in the world and treat it as their toilet. The mindset to do that must view it as not their home, as I doubt they shit in their own front yards, but isn’t Papatuanuku, the earth mother, the only home we have?

In Christchurch at present, there is a severe toilet problem and it’s not being handled well. Thousands of chemical toilets have arrived from as far away as the U.S. but no provisions have been made for emptying them and people are trying to empty them into Portaloos. Thanks for sending them folks, and thank you everyone else who has come to the aid of Christchurch BUT many people are simply using chemical toilets, which add chemicals but leave waste PLUS chemicals to be disposed of, which creates its own health issues..

The Otago Daily Times yesterday had this quote: 

“I live near a woman in her 70s who broke down crying, too embarrassed to go to the toilet in a bucket.”

I’m sorry lady, toughen up. (And while we're talking dirty, ladies, find a pleasant place to squat, the bucket is for solid matter - my favorite here has a view worth millions and an inquisitive pup to hold away, Take your tissues away with you, or use mallow leaves which are soft and silky.) 

I understand that the toilet problem is just one more straw added to the many that Christchurch has suffered since September and I don’t deny or attempt to belittle the magnitude of the trauma that all are experiencing. And, aware as I am of NOT being part of the immediate community, I'll quote Joe Bennett, a brilliant Lyttleton writer who experienced the quake and the recovery first-hand. In his most recent column, he wrote about how whanau and tribe responded. The entire column is worth reading (can't find a link sorry), but two sentences summed it up for me:

“On the second day power was restored. We were then better off than most people in the world.”

To paraphrase  him (kia ora Joe, great party you guys and the Navy put on last week), if we have a bucket and a spade, we’re better off than most people in the world.

For inspiration, http://www.showusyourlongdrop.co.nz/

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)

Notes on an Earthquake

I pondered a lot before uploading my quake posts, as there's more than a little venting going on in them. They are what I wrote while there and part of the process, so I decided to post them regardless but will add some notes with the benefit of hindsight.

• ALL of the people I dealt with, at Civil Defence and elsewhere, were doing their best in a bad situation. My frustration was not with any of them personally. However, having worked as a volunteer American Red Cross Emergency Services Caseworker and having been involved with the US military monster in other capacities, I understand what it means to be prepared for any eventuality. CD, at least what I saw of it in Diamond Harbor, was not. I created templates for information simply because none existed in the CD master book. 

• I have also been harsh on the ivb and want to state that she seems a lovely woman but was unwilling to delegate and unable to make a decision and stick with it. In my view, once that became obvious, as it did, she should have been replaced by someone perhaps not as nice but more efficient. The help I saw offered was wonderful and many people came offering whatever they had - water, hot showers, food, accommodation, labor and equipment. Enabling them to help others is a large part of the recovery process and those people I enlisted to help me were grateful to have a job to do. Giving people a sense of control in a natural disaster, where there is such a sense of no control, is part of the healing process.

• The NZ Navy was amazing. Lyttelton, the epicenter of the quake, was fortunate that the HMNZS Canterbury was docked there when the quake happened and the soldiers and sailors onboard helped  immediately. The navy (Canterbury was replaced by HMNZS Otago while she went to Wellington for supplies) also provided meals for residents of Lyttelton and Diamond Harbour. A community meal is a chance for the community to come together, talk about their experiences and connect with each other. It seemed to me, a trained observer, that some at the Diamond Harbour Civil Defence Sector Post were discouraging people from attending these meals. Proof, if that sounds harsh: I was asked to create and print a sign advising "Community Dinner Provided by NZ Navy at Church Hall 6 p.m." I watched it get taped to the hall door and it was removed within five minutes. I do not know who removed it. I also heard CD volunteers telling people who asked about the dinners that they were primarily for the elderly, ill or disadvantaged. The family next door to where I stayed, new arrivals to the community after the September quake damaged their Lyttelton home, were never informed by CD of the meals. 

• The Diamond Harbour CD response had the feel, and this is a comment from a community member, but one I agree with, of a church hall meeting. If you were part of the group, you got the information. Examples:

1. Shortly after I arrived on Wednesday evening, a lady who had just been at the sector post came to tell P (my friend and host) that the water reservoir was empty. I later went next door for other reasons and mentioned it to them. They did not know. The next morning, while at CD myself, I told the shift supervisor that people in the community were unaware the reservoir was empty. Her response: "They'll work it out." I explained that all the older houses had header tanks, as was required when they were built, so residents would not be aware of the urgency of water conservation. The supervisor was distracted by another matter she apparently thought more urgent than water conservation. 
2. I offered to print fliers with contact information (physical address, phone, e-mail and website) and urgent advice (water, toileting, food, petrol, sewage) for distribution and asked who had the phone tree/neighborhood support information. Unfortunately, NS was in the process of an upgrade, which was merely bad timing. People offered to distribute fliers in their immediate community but offers were mostly rebuffed as it needed to go through proper channels. All good IF proper channels exist but they did not. Some people took it upon themselves to distribute information anyway, well done!
3. Information was consciously withdrawn (i.e. toileting info) "just in case" it was wrong. In emergency response situations, decisions are needed. They may provide less than the optimum result but 95%, or even 80%, is better than zero.
4. Well-established members of the community were well looked after, as I witnessed with the stream of calls and visits to my host, who has lived there for 57 years. Newer members (the neighbors) and visitors were overlooked. A neighborhood watch man did visit the neighbors on Friday afternoon, three days after the quake, he did not tell them a meal was available that night provided by the Navy, he did not visit the store (the owner said), an obvious communication point.

• Last point. I can be forceful in trying to get things done and that is not the "Kiwi way." I know that upset some of those I abraded with while in DH and Lyttelton and am sorry, most of all, that they assumed ("accused" was the term the ferry driver used) I was a "loud American." I offer no apology for upsetting them and it was probably a great thing that they had someone physical to be angry at - anger is therapeutic. I do apologize to my American friends for (unintentionally) adding to the "ugly American" stereotype (but at least I didn't give Maori a bad name, hehe).

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.