Guest Post By Sam

Surfing is a strange and magical thing, being out in the deadly ocean and being pounded mercilessly for fun. I would never have thought that I would be a surfer when I was in Christchurch. I hated the ocean. It was cold and big and the fear of drowning was a constant worry. If you had told me I would not only end up surfing, but surfing everyday like an addiction, I would have given you the number for the mental institute.
I believe that people are drawn to the water in times of worry of distress. It may sound corny but it’s true. After we moved out of Sumner, I was nervous. I had a group of friends there and was a bit sad to leave. The stress was like a little monkey on my back and when we reached Ahipara, that monkey turned into a 500 pound gorilla. The first time we rolled into Kaitiai I was horrified. It was a dump, to put it nicely. School was even rougher, fights everyday, kids drinking and smoking weed. I felt utterly lost. What I needed was a way to distract my self, to find peace and tranquility, and I sure as hell found one. I remember the first day we were here we went to the sea. I ran out feeling the warm sand in between my toes. I felt the sea against me. It was amazing. We had a soft top surfboard. My dad and I took it out. I paddled out feeling the water rush past my hands. Even though it was only the white wash that I caught, it was still enough. I stood up, and I was hooked.
When you are down, I think you are drawn to the ocean. A lot of the great surfers, like Kelly Slater and Miki Doras, were in distress and they went to take sanctuary in the water. Same with me now. Even though I am feeling better, I am still surfing.
Here is a great surfing quote from famed Hawaiian surfer Gary Lopez, that sums up surfing in one sentence “Once the surfing bug bites you, you aint never leaving.” It is so true. So thank you ocean for giving me the strength to overcome difficult times, and when I get back to Maine, I will still surf through the freezing winter because it’s an addiction. I have been bitten by the surfing bug.

Have A Go

Kiwis have a wonderfully, refreshing attitude toward trying things. “Have a go.” It is a very freeing thought. You don’t have to be the best at a something to participate. You don’t have to even have a shot at succeeding. Just get out there and…”have a go.” I love to see this with the kids in the schools. In fact, I’d like to see Sam take it more to heart. He seems to think he has to be good as something before he can even try it.“Have a go” gives permission to try and fail, and try again, whether it is in sport or in something else. It allows everyone to play and be a part of the sporting culture that is rampant in New Zealand, child or adult, without having to get caught up in being part of a competitive culture that I have found to be more pervasive in the US.

“Have a go” is followed closely by another kiwi expression that embodies a related attitude:” Good on you.” This is the “good for you” pat on the back for not only doing the deed but for having the courage to take the risk to take it on in the first place, It is the encouragement to keep on going if you are in the middle of something hard. It is the affirmation that you are on the right track in your attitude. Both sayings are swirling around in my head today as I gaze around Kai Iwi Lakes in Dargaville and contemplate the fact that I’ve completed my first short course triathlon. The course was a 350 meters swim, a ten km bike ride and a five km run. This is a big deal for me. I am not a fit woman.

I came with a group from the Te Hauora o Te Hiku Te Ika health trust. The trust is charged with providing general practice and overall health services to Maori people of Northland. I got involved with them through working in the community garden in Kaitaia, one of their projects to get people involved in making healthy nutrition choices and supporting local culture which is closely tied to the land. They are a generous, loving, giving group of people. When one of the women, Rikki, who both heads up the garden program and the program promoting involvement in physical activity heard I had cycled 30 km from Kaitai to Ahipara for fun, she wiggled her fingers at me and beckoned me into her sticky web of plans. She signed me up for the triathlon, gave me a bright yellow, high visibility biking shirt and said welcome to the team.

I caught a ride to Dargaville on Friday night in a caravan of cars and vans carting scores of bikes. We camped for the night at Taharoa Domain. I wish I could say it was beautiful, but this year the campground cut down all of the pine trees which surrounded the lake, due to disease, and the area looked like a barren, naked wasteland that had been raped. There were stumps everywhere, and deep orange gashes ripped into the mountain side where trucks had hauled off logs. Those who had come to the event last year were aghast when we drove in, even though they knew the trees had been cut. To see it was to see the bloody carnage of an accident you had only heard about previously.

It didn’t stop us though from setting up camp and having a good feed though. The rain that night didn’t stop us either (or at least me) from having a good sleep. Anytime my kids can’t wake me up in the middle of the night, it is a good thing.

In the morning, the kids’ event started first at 8:30. I had felt torn since we arrived. A lot of participant had come with their families. Mine wanted to come to support me, and part of me wanted them to come along and part of me didn’t. The boys would have had a great time playing with the other kids and swimming in the lake. Sam and Ethan would have easily competed in the kids’ event. Steve would have had a good time schmoozing with the men and talking bicycle gears and parts, but that would have left me to be Mom, not Suzanne. I would have been consumed with feeding, cooking, caring. I would have had to balance them with me, no matter how much Steve might say he would take it on. The kids would turn to me, because I was there. Alone, I was free to do my own socializing, and focus on the challenge I had set myself. I could think about what I needed to do to prepare myself. I could think. It was a luxury.

The short course went off at 9:00. The lake itself was absolutely stunning. It has a long shallow shelf with water only up to mid-calf then it drops off suddenly into a crystal clear deep blue. I was warned by an Ironman finisher who was with our group not to get caught up in rushing out through the shallows at top speed with the other swimmers as this is the part that is hardest and winds you the easiest.

“Just take it at an easy trot,” he said.

So I did. I had gone with the group twice to a local lake to practice the swim and so it was not as hard as it had been a couple of weeks prior when I was pretty sure I was going to drown mid-way into the lake, either from sheer exhaustion or from shame when the group of woman aged sixty plus, large in the hip blew by me in the water and left me for eel bait.

The one issue I had at Kai Iwi during the swim was after the first buoy 150 meters out, we had to turn and swim parallel to the shore for fifty meters then around a second buoy and back in. Thankfully, I wasn’t wearing a bathing cap, so I could hear the man shouting at me,

“Hey, lady. You’re going the wrong way.”

I thought I was swimming parallel to the shore. In fact I was sure of it. But I looked up and sure enough I was heading back in toward the beach. The rest of the swimmers were headed off en masse in a different direction. I corrected and started my freestyle again for a few strokes, picked my head up to check my course and found myself headed back toward the beach again. I corrected again and saw two other swimmers in the water near me. One was doing the breast stroke. I knew she could see where she was going so I tracked her for the rest of the way back to shore.

I don’t know how they do it at real competitive triathlons, but I suspect their transition to the bike is a bit more rushed than mine was. The long course competitors in our group were there to cheer me on and that helped a bit, but I was wobbly as I made my way…slowly…up the beach stripping off my wetsuit as I went. I changed and hopped on to my non-souped up mountain bike that I share with Sam and was off to the hills.

The ten km of biking was tough. There were no flat parts to the course, only ups and downs and though it is physically impossible, I would say it was mostly, if not exclusively up, both ways. The saving grace for me goes back to a bike ride I did with Steve when we were living in Christchurch. One day, when all the planets were aligned and Steve didn’t work till the evening and all the kids were at school and I hadn’t scheduled any appointments or errands to be done, Steve and I were able to actually spend the day together as we had planned to do throughout our whole trip, but only managed once or twice. We chose to ride our bikes from our little town of Sumner over the Port Hills to Lyttleton, take the ferry to Diamond Harbor, ride around there and then return in time to pick the kids up from school. In order to do this, we had to ride up from Sumner to the top of the Port Hills on a road called Evan’s Pass. Now our car had a hard time going up Evan’s Pass. Which is not saying too much given the state of our car, but lots of cars have a hard time going up Evan’s Pass. And there are always loads of bikers riding up or flying down Evan’s Pass. Whenever I would see them, as I passed in our car, chugging its little heart our, I would think,

What is wrong with you? Get a new hobby for crying out loud.

It is a steep, long and steep. Oh, did I mention steep? In order to do it, I had to stop four times and Steve had to encourage me not to throw myself from the precipice or into oncoming traffic just to stop the burn in my thighs, but I did it and went on the ride the hills into and out of Lyttleton, no mean feat in and of itself. In comparison, the hills while long and moderately steep at Kai Iwi did not require carabineers and climbing rope and so were no Evan’s Pass. As I pedaled slowly in the lowest gear up the hills, I simple kept repeating in my head,

“I climbed Evan’s Pass. I climbed Evan’s Pass.”

And I passed others either pedaling or pushing their bikes up the hills. It was a great personal victory, but only a personal one. I am a great wimp when it comes to speed and I break unmercilessly, creeping down the descents where others shoot like rockets. I didn’t make up any ground competitively on the bike portion and even lost some.

Everyone else when they returned to transition ran straight for the gash in the mountain which was the start of the five km run. I ran for the loo. After three children, and two pelvic floor reconstruction surgeries, I don’t run on anything but an empty bladder. After my pit stop, I headed up into the mountains, but who are we kidding? It was called a five km run/walk for a good reason. I walked, clawed my way up the mountain and again up the next incline, got behind a cistern where my high visibility shirt couldn’t be seen by the crowd below and stopped to get my breathing under control. Once that was steady and regular, I set off running. The great thing about the high visibility shirts our group was wearing was it was a wonderful way to provide and receive support from others as the race went by. The “good on you” called out even if you didn’t know the other person’s name. Their shirt identified them or me as one of the team. I got the silent hand slap as I ran out from Carlos, a gentle giant of a man in our group on his way back in from the run to winded to say anything, but offering his support with his enormous extended paw. The run/walk , aptly named in my case for the monstrous up-hills that had to be climbed, went by quickly and soon I was scrabbling back down the ripped wound of a path back into the finish line. The earlier short course finishers were there to cheer me on. I heard my name shouted and cheered with “Good on you’s” wafting through the air as I crossed the line one hour and thirty-six minutes later.

My first triathlon. I had a go. Good on me.

On the Marae

Last weekend, we were invited to a Marae for the celebration of a 21st birthday.

A marae is a communal center which occupies both a sacred and a social place in Maori cultural life. It is where important events such as weddings, funerals, meetings and welcoming visitors occurs. There is a great deal of custom and ritual associated with the marae and it is where the expression of Maori culture and language is still alive and expressed most freely. A marae consists of a cleared space in front of a central hall or "big house" - wharenui. Before entering into the marae formally, everyone must be called to come. This is done with a ceremony called a porwhiri. So far when I have seen and heard a porwhiri, it has been a woman who calls in Maori song - "Come, Come... Harae mai, Harae mai..." It is quite stirring, this lone voice, high pitched, calling out into the silence.

We went to the Manukau Marae which is a family marae of Ginny Shortland, a teacher at Ahipara Primary school where Ethan and Reuben attend and the mother of one of Reuben's classmates. It was her cousin's son who was turning twenty-one, and the party illustrates the nature of the Maori concept of whanau or extended family. Family is family, no matter if related by marriage on your mother's cousin's father's side. It's family. The invitation also reflects another Maori custom of open and generous hospitality. I met Ginny only for the first time earlier in the day at a very traditionally suburban five year old's birthday party. When she heard about our year long travel, she insisted that we come to the marae to experience a cultural evening and a hangi.

A hangi is a traditional way of cooking in which fires are kindled in great pits dug into the ground. Round river rocks are put in on top of the fires until they are glowing red. Then food wrapped in cabbage leaves, (I think these are leaves from cabbage trees not cabbage the vegetable, but I'm not sure.) is put in baskets and lowered into the pits. Then the whole thing is covered with dirt and left overnight. It is dug up the next day and voila...dinner is served.

So we went to the marae, and the porwhiri which was called for 6:00. We felt very comfortable, because at around 6:45 is when it really started. Steve said he has never lived in a place which runs so much on his time as Northland. He is never late here. We were all welcomed in as a group (about a 100 people were there) and one of the elders said a karakia in Maori, a opening blessing. All Maori gatherings, including my Maori language class, start and end with karakia. They are incredibly spiritual and non-denominational. Then the elder began by welcoming the family and the boy and acknowledging all of the elders and the dead who came before and everyone present and all the guests. He spoke in both Maori and English. Then someone from the audience got up and responded in both Maori and English and acknowledged the family and the birthday boy and all the elders and the dead and the guest and everyone present and the hospitality of the marae and the community. Ginny later told us that anyone could have answered. It is a matter of who feels moved to respond and that multiple people can respond to the greeting which can sometimes make the welcome go on for a very long time.

Then it was time to eat. The spread was in the dining area. This marae was diffent than most in that they had tables set up in the main hall. Ginny said, generally, the main hall is reserved only for more sacred uses, but not in their marae. The food was fabulous. Cooked chicken and pork from the ground, mussels in cream sauce, cold fish stew, roasted kumara. Some of it, I had no idea what it was. There was something that looked like a split, roasted bird, but I was told was some kind of fish head. I sadly admit, I didn't try it. I did get a chance to finally try paua, which is a specialty around here. It is abalone which locals dive for. Supposedly you have to know how to cook it. It was chewy, but good in a cream sauce. It is green. Can't say I am dying to have it again, but glad I tried it.

We stayed and chatted with folks for a while, but left when it got dark as did most of the other families with young kids. After that the party was turning into a young adult disco and we made our way through the darkened gorge road and back home; fuller both in our tummies and in our cultural lives.

Special Appeal for Christchurch

It is very odd to be safe and sound in the far North when absolutely everyone we know in New Zealand is centered in Christchurch and going through such a horrific time. Every single person with whom we've formed bonds of friendship and love right now is stuggling in some way and but for the quirks of fate, it would have been us too. Thankfully, all of our friends are physically safe, though nearly all are grappling a level of displacement, whether outright homelessness because their house is unlivable or serious camping hardship as they are doing with trucked in water and porta-loo's. But the New Zealand government is on top of things and people are resourceful and stalwart. They are going to be okay, if the earth would only stop moving. However, there is one friend and one group of friends that are facing a longer term challenge, and I am trying to see if I can do some small thing to help.




I don't know how much I really shared in my blogs and emails about the place in Christchurch and Sumner that is most special to our family. There is a wonderfully quirky and outrageous woman named Lisa Hadfield who owns and runs the Sumner Riding School. It is located on the Sumnervale Reserve tucked in the back of the town at the hollow of the cliffs (at least where the cliffs met when I left. They may have moved some since then.) It is a beautiful spot with rising green hills covered in waving tufts of grass leading into high gorse. The horses roam on the hills, or on the flat paddock in front of the two barns, not flash, but serviceable. There are about twenty horses and ponies, many only hip to shoulder high so that they are just the right size for the littlest riders. A couple are rescued ponies, taken in not because they can be ridden, but because they needed a home. Lisa has groups of kids who ride at the paddock, many who have started with her in the Tuesday morning toddler group. They now are in their early teens, ride in shows and help to run the place.



Ethan rode at Lisa's school at least one day a week, and more frequently during holidays. Reuben went to Tuesday toddler road rides. Sam rode with all the teenage girls a couple of weeks during the holidays. For me, Lisa was extra special. She not only reminded me that I was once a 12 year old who knew how to ride a horse, she also was my friend and the paddock was a place of comfort those few monthss when nothing else seemed to be going right in town. All the boys spent our last few days in Sumner at the paddock full-time while school was in, but they were not and we were packing our trailer.



The truly beautiful thing about Lisa and her paddock is that the kids don't come for their lessons and leave. They come to be with the horses, work and learn about life. The kids show up at 3:30 after school and stay till 6:30 or 7:00 until the work is done. On holidays and weekends they show up at 10:00 and stay till 5:00. They learn to love and more importantly, care for the horses from picking stones out of hooves, feeding hay, grooming, to picking up s__t in the paddock. Riding is only a small part of the responsibility of taking care of horses. And Lisa is not easy on them. She demands that they think and use the brains they were given. As a parent, it is a delight to see - and it is all for a $25 fee.



But now, Sumner is a "ghost town." Many of the houses have been evacuated because the cliffs are unstable. Others are simply destroyed. It will be weeks before the schools can reopen and so families have moved their children away to other towns. Riding is very low on peoples priorities as can be understood. But horses still eat hay and drink water. So I am trying to do something small for this group of friends, the four legged variety. Lisa is recieving help, but it is going to be a long haul for her and her horses.



If you are interested in helping out the school with the expense of upkeep, please email me: suzannenemeroff@gmail.com and we'll figure out the best way to get some extra support to Lisa and the horses.



On behalf of Merc, Spud, Rose, Phantom, Danny, Star, Luke, Daniel, Tilly, Smokey, Travis, Dotty, Eve, Smokey, Gamel, Thomas, Toffee, Louie and Barney, thank you.

Update from Paradise

Me and Star on 90 Mile Beach

The view from our back porch in the new house in Ahipara.

Finally our life is exactly the kind of adventure I was hoping for. Laid back, beautiful, warm, with nothing much in a small town but little things to explore. I have been horse back riding, surfing, gardening. I am taking a Maori language course. and I got roped into doing a half triathelon with a Maori health group in a month - 350 m swim, 10 km bike and 4.5 km walk/run. A bunch of people are going camping the night before then doing the triathelon. Everyone is out of shape and the point is to finish. As long as I don't die, it'll be great. I already can ride 30 km easy and walk lots farther. Its the swimming and doing it altogether that might be tough.

A couple of days ago I took a surf lesson yesterday with Steve. He can already surf, but after six months of boogie boarding, I decided to try it. I suck. But at the end of two hours, I did stand up and ride a couple of waves. It is hard though, but fun.

In other news, Sam made the senior cricket tournament team on the strength of his batting. His is totally psyched. He is in high school here so is with guys up to 18 and is so tiny compared to them. They are going to Whangerei for two days in a couple of weeks. Reuben has started soccer and Ethan is starting rugby in two weeks (the skinny little kid is going to get flattened.)

The only tiny bit of bitter sweetness is that Sam will be a Bar Mitzvah in five days and we are the only Jews we know. We are not doing anything formal to mark the occasion. We will do something later when we return to Portland, but he is growing up in so many fabulous ways. He is truly on his way to becoming a man.

Anyway, that's the news from Northland.

The Vagries of Fate

There was a another massive earthquake in Christchurch today. This one, though smaller on the richter scale than the one in September, has wreaked much more death and destruction. We; however, are not there. Though we were supposed to be.

Originally, Dad and Rosalind (my father and stepmother) were coming to visit. They had planned an Australian/New Zealand trip to see us and see the region from even before we left the states. Though Steve had decided to make a change in job and move to the far north, we were going to go in shifts to accomodate their visit and plans. Steve was going to start February 1st in Kaitaia. The kids and I were going to stay in Christchurch until at least February 28th, possibly even March 7th until after they had gone.

If all had gone according to plan, Steve would be on the tip of the north island. I would have been in Sumner. The two younger kids would have been in school. Sam would have been halfway in toward the central city at high school. I shudder to think of it. But sadly, Rosalind's mother began to do poorly and Rosalind needed to stay in Florida to help her transition to different housing. Dad moved his trip forward and changed all his plans to be with us in Kaitaia so we could move together on Feb 4th.

So we are safe because of circumstance. But our heads and hearts are aching for friends who we haven't been able to contact. Amazing how strings of unrelated events occur to bring us to any single point in time and space.

G-d be with all of those struggling in Christchurch tonight.

Grooving in the Boonies

Dad arriving at the thriving metropolis of Kaitaia international airport. Did he or didn't he hit the waves?

The view at Mongonui.

Dad took the kids out for Valentines Day dinner and Steve and I went to the beach.

On the ferry in the Hokianga Harbour on the way to lunch in Rawene.

The view from the hills in Ahipara looking down onto 90 Mile Beach.

The Bay of Islands just past Russell.

On the boat in the Bay of Islands.

The Hole in the Rock at the top of Cape Brett in the Bay of Islands.

Another shot of the Bay of Islands.

With the performers at the cultural performance at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.

E catching dinner for the family. He landed the two Kowai all by himself. They were delish.

I am surprising myself here in the boonies of Kaitaia. Not because I freaked out when we arrived here, seeing only a hick town with one main street filled with run-down store fronts and long empty spaces to anywhere else. No. That was to be expected. If I have learned anything about myself on this journey, it is that I am terrible at transitioning. No. I am surprising myself, because I like it here. The store fronts may be run down a bit, but when you walk inside, they are lovely. And there is everything you might need in the town: a couple of good book stores, a couple of good restaurants, a café or two, a few nice clothing stores, a health food store, the ubiquitous Warehouse (the NZ equivalent of Walmart) and most importantly a great library. The space to elsewhere is growing on me too. It is beginning to look less scrubby to my eye. I can now see the beauty in the rolling green pastures. And of course the “elsewhere” has turned out to be stunning, long white sandy beaches empty but for the Tasman or Pacific lapping at their shores.

My father has been here for the last six days and that of course has helped me make the move from flash Sumner to laid-back Kaitaia. We’ve been travelling all over the far north region. As a family, we took a tour of Cape Reinga and Ninety Mile Beach stopping to tobbogan down the giant sand dunes in Te Paki. One day Dad and I drove down to Hokianga Harbour through the Herikino Forest and took the ferry across to Rawene for lunch. Another day, we drove to Mongonui via Cable Bay and Cooper’s Beach and explored the old town there. Dad had his first and very greasy experience of NZ fish and chips at the “famous” local fish and chips shop.

The second weekend of his visit the whole family took a road trip in a rental van (they only had a ten seater available at the one rental place in town, so plenty of room - what a hoot to drive) down to Paihia. There we took a half day cruise in the Bay of Islands to see the bottle nose dolphins and the Hole in the Rock at the top of Cape Brett. We stopped at Urupukapuka Island to swim and hike and then headed back. In the afternoon we went to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds to see where the treaty that created the modern state between the Maori and the Pakeha (Europeans) was signed. Then on to Haruru Falls.

It was quite a week of travelling and visiting and getting to know the place. Now Dad’s gone home, Ethan’s caught fish for the family dinne,r and tomorrow I’m starting a Maori language class. I think I’m going to like it here.