Letter to Students 12 January 2009

Dear Reader

I had hoped to write to you last night, but when I arrived home after a long drive from Queenstown, it was important that I get back in touch with Han, and this I did.  He had been feeling so ill before I left, and since this was so unusual for him, I was a little worried about leaving him for the weekend. However, it had been his idea for me to drive our Brazilian group to Queenstown after Claudia, their guide for the trip, confessed that she felt too hesitant about driving through the winding gorges which had to be navigated on the way to their destination.  I understood how she felt, as I too, would not have felt confident driving a van load of students on the wrong side of the road!! As it was, I am sure we would have managed brilliantly as the van was easy to drive and the roads were so dry, but one never knows.  If she had had an accident, she would never have been able to forgive herself, and neither would I have been!  It turned out to be a very successful weekend, with all the students doing as many extreme sports as they felt they could cope with, and done under the most beautiful clear blue skies.  The Clutha river and LakeWakatipu were a brilliant blue, and as a drove along the road to Glenorchy, where I was staying with my dear friend Mary Lou, I wondered how I could possibly describe the scene in words.  They say a picture tells a thousand words, and a photograph of the stark rocky mountains dipping into vivid blue water would clearly show the magnificent scenery which bathed my eyes for the 45 kilometre stretch to this magical part of the country.  The Clutha river, which we followed to Cromwell, invited us for a swim, but I couldn’t help remembering how this invitation was accepted by a former student of Logan Park High School in November last year, and the river never gave him back. The sixteen year old boy must have dived into the deep, fast running water and become caught under a submerged rock, his strength no match for the torrents of water which march quickly on to the sea. 

I do not want to focus on the negative, however, but it has been a time when the forces of nature have conspired to end the lives of so many people. A famous rugby league player lost his life in the sea, trying to save his brother, an innocent nine year old was killed when a jet boat failed to see her as she was skiing, an inexperienced hiker seems to have been swept away to her death in the mountains, and two Indian Australian brothers’ attempt to stand under an iceshelf lost their bet that this was safe.  All these, and many more thrill seekers, have lost their battle against much mightier forces then theirs.

I will write more about my weekend, and also about my Christmas which I realise I hadn’t mentioned in my last letter, but for now I would like to share with you a letter I found as I was looking through my old letters.  At this time of year, we often think of those who have gone before us, and my father is a person who was pivotal in my life, and who I still miss terribly. However, I know he lived his life in the best way he could have, and in the end, he left with the knowledge that he had influenced many and had lived his life as a true gentleman.  What more could one want?

23^rd October, 2004

“Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.”  So said Forrest Gump, and how right he was!  This time last week, I was sitting at a table, having dinner with my father and sister at the Dansey’s Pass Coach Inn in Central Otago, the same hotel to which we took our Japanese guests a few weeks ago.  Tonight, I am sitting on the couch between Han and our two young Japanese Homestay girls, watching the final of the NPC, the rugby union National Provincial Championships, between Canterbury and Wellington.  As a mainlander, I want Canterbury to win, and it is interesting to note that most of the players are Pakeha.  However, my favourite player is Tana Umaga, and he plays for Wellington, and most of this team are Maori or Pacific Islanders. It is interesting that there is a popular view that the Pacific Islanders are taking over rugby as their superior strength overshadows the weaker Pakeha players.  It is reassuring, for me as a Pakeha, to note that Canterbury is well ahead of Wellington, and that we are able to hold our own against such awesome rivals.  In terms of the game which is on at the moment, at the end of the day, as a parochial Otagoite, I prefer to stay neutral and grieve the fact that Otago is not in the final!  Otago was the first province to be settled, and Dunedin was the richest city in New Zealand, with the Scots choosing the mouth of the Otago harbour as their settlement.  Fiercely Presbyterian, they didn’t have any time for the English who were Anglican, and this English stock soon moved north to establish Christchurch.  Apparently they had wanted to use First Church in Moray Place, but the Presbyterians weren’t having any of it, so they moved away to establish their own church!  Although Christchurch is a bigger city due to successive progressive city councils, I still think Dunedin has more going for it.  A true Dunedinite!

Having touched on the history of Dunedin, I must say that I enjoyed talking about the history of various countries last week. We learn so much from each other, and I only wish I was more widely read.  History is written by each country, and interpretations of historical events vary according to whether countries are the winners or the vanquished.  I remember learning a very different history of early New Zealand history from the one my children are now taught.

I apologise for not writing to you last week.  It is the first time I have failed to write in the three years that I have had the school, and I can’t think of a week I missed writing in the eleven years I taught at the Otago Polytechnic. 

Looking back over last weekend, the highlight has to be the look of delight on my father’s face as I took him back to the area in which he had spent his early childhood.  I treated my father and sister to a special journey back to the past, and we spent the whole weekend reminiscing. Remembering from my childhood the house which my father had pointed out as his favourite childhood memory, I stopped to enable my father to take photos and talk about the corrugated iron house which held so many happy memories for him.

(Jan is cool:  so writes Jan as he reached over and typed beside me with his rabbit on his knee!)

………

It is now Monday evening, and our family have had a relaxing weekend.  On Saturday night, I made “temakizushi,” Japanese sushi which you roll at the table, adding those ingredients you want to your rice and “nori.”  I had splashed out and bought very expensive fresh tuna which I hadn’t ever seen in the shops here, but which was on sale at New World.  It was melt in your mouth delicious, and I hoped that our Japanese girls would appreciate it as a reminder of home.  I was blown away when it was obvious the girls had never had “temakizushi” at home, and one of the girls talked about the fact that she never ate with her family, buying her dinner at the local shop and eating on her own.  She said that her mother found cooking a hassle, and returned home too late to cook.  Today we all went to the movie called “Super Size Me” and what was obvious was that families don’t sit around the table any more and eat.  This means that families do not talk as we do, and I looked at the girls as our family talked about the meaning of adjectives and the difference between Buddhism and Christianity.  Such discussion is critical in the building of children’s knowledge and the sense of who they are.  Obesity in the USA is rife, and as I watched, I thought that obese children are no different from the starving Africans who are deprived of food and have a life expectancy twenty years less than the average.  Such American children are also as disadvantaged, with twenty years shaved off their lives, so deprived of vitamins needed to provide a balanced diet.

I have so wanted to write of last weekend, and I will take a little time to take a trip down memory lane.  Usually, memory lane is a time a long time ago, but somehow the memories I have are so significant, and so much seems to have happened since that time, that I feel that this idiom is appropriate.

After we stopped at the house in Kyeburn and I took photos of the hills which Dad thought of as mountains as a child, we carried on to the Kyeburn cemetery where we walked around the old graves and read the headstones.  One of them had fallen over, and I took a photo as it said that it had been erected in the memory of a man who had died due to “a fall of earth.”  Life was hard in that harsh climate as prospectors eked a living off the land.  Some made their fortunes, but many never left this inhospitable land, succumbing to the cold and vagaries of this unpredictable landscape.   We travelled on to Dansey’s Pass, a valley in which only a handful of people now work the land, but which was home to two thousand people in its heyday who were seeking their fortune through finding gold.  The hotel that still exists is a haven away from the rat race of the city, and Dad had never been to this amazing part of the world, as much as he had spent time close to this special place as a child.  After checking in, my father who had been unable to walk more than a few paces, wanted to walk down to the swinging bridge and explore the area.  I felt so delighted that he had been given such a surge of strength, and enjoyed the special walk with my sister, who also walked well in spite of the stick which she also carried. My sister has been plagued with back problems, and I never take my good health for granted.  Returning to the hotel, my father wanted to watch the rugby, and as we sat in the small guest lounge, a man walked in who turned out to be my father’s classmate at high school!  The world is so small and the two stately men reliving their history filled me with delight.  Dad and his two daughters had a special dinner together, and we talked till late.  My sister, Vicki, and I shared glasses of wine, and later we went through to the bar and talked till late.  We laughed and joked in front of the huge fire till the early hours, and I can’t believe how easily I awoke in the morning.  I awoke to now, having opened the curtains and found snow covering the road and trees outside. I wondered how easily it was going to be to get home, but I managed to use the hotel phone to contact Han, and he said they had had no snow in Dunedin.  As it was, there was no snow five minutes down the road, but Dansey’s Pass is at high altitude, not that you feel it as you approach the area.

Today was Labour Day, and the day which workers in New Zealand celebrated the fact that Samuel Parnell lobbied for the 40 hour working week which finally became law in 1940.  Kiwis enjoy this special holiday, and if you have a house, it is a good time to work in the garden, and the garden retailers do a roaring trade.

This weekend, Han and I have enjoyed good food, good wine, and have enjoyed being with our family.  Tonight, we lit the brazier and have toasted marshmallows after eating homemade pizzas which we made together.  I feel very blessed that I have worked hard with Han to have created the environment in which our memories are rich, and which others can enjoy.  However, I must admit that having strangers in the house can have its advantages and disadvantages.  Over the last few months we have had the most amazing Homestay students who have become our daughters, and whom we miss as they celebrate the wedding of their sister.  However, these two very young junior high school students are a different kettle of fish.  They have no sense of pride in their culture, and no awareness of who they are or where they are going.  When I compare them with our children, they seem lacking in an awareness of foreign affairs, and lacking in motivation.  They are continually tired, and when I watched Supersize Me today, I thought how important nutrition was in our sense of wellbeing.  Our children eat homemade meals almost every day, and most of the food is organic.  We have treats of eating out, but they are real treats and not something we do as a matter of course.

The brazier has now died down, and the children are now asleep.  My sister stayed in Dansey’s Pass this past weekend, and no doubt she relived the atmosphere that we enjoyed.  After Dad went to bed, we drank brandy and lime, and when they ran out, I had them on and commented about their lack in the Visitor’s Book.  This was said tongue in cheek as we had such an amazing night, and limes were but a squeeze in an amazingly special evening.  My sister and I talked until late in front of the roaring fire, and I felt blessed to be part of this magical place.

This weekend, Han and I have worked hard in the garden, weeding the garden and stacking wood which we ordered from Suny’s horse riding teacher’s son.  Over the winter, we had neglected the garden, and I again feel proud of it.  We can now move on and develop the structure of the garden, and this weekend, Han and I could relax in the beauty of the garden which we had created.  Relationships are not easy, and I feel that Han and I have worked hard to create our haven.  I hope that you are able to find, or have found, the person in which to share your future, and can rejoice in all success which you have achieved.

Tonight, at the end of a very hard week, I feel very contented, if not a little tired. I have been reading Buddhist texts written by the Dalai Lama and he encourages us to take happiness into our own hands. I agree entirely!  I look forward to a peaceful week, although I am not so naïve as to think that life is a bed of roses!

Love

Sharron