Ki te ingoa o te Matua

One of the nice things about being Catholic is that you can walk into any Catholic Church in the world and know what is going on, no matter what language is being spoken or what the church itself looks like. Bryan and Jane had been to many Catholic churches in their lives and did not expect to be too surprised by anything they would find in Auckland. After all, this was an English-speaking country with ancestral ties to Britain, just like the US. They figured that there would be some differences, but no more than you would get in the US going from parish to parish. Some people like rock-influenced music and some think that any instrument besides an organ has no place in a church; some priests use their homily time to perform deft acts of literary criticism on biblical passages while others like to start and end with a joke; and, of course, there are churches where it's so quite you can hear the little kids fidgeting under the pews and others where the you fear that the stained-glass windows are going to shatter with the force of the congregation's participation. This was the spectrum along which Bryan and Jane anticipated finding the Catholic Church in New Zealand. What they actually found, however, was quite unexpected.

By law, there are two official languages in New Zealand: English and Maori. Maori are the native peoples who sailed from the Polynesian Islands to New Zealand sometime in the fourteenth century. Today they make up about 18% of the total population of the country, outnumbered as a minority group by both Asians and Polynesians. Still, as the original New Zealanders their culture and their language are protected by the government in Wellington. Instructions and some signs are printed in both English and Maori, much like Spanish in the US, except that in the US, there are a lot of people who actually speak Spanish.

With this in mind, it should not have surprised Bryan and Jane to be standing in St. Patrick's Cathedral in central Auckland and be greeted with Ki te ingoa o te Matua, o te Tamaiti, o te Wairua Tapu. Amene. Confused at first as to what was going on, they soon realized that the priest was leading the congregation in the sign of the cross in Maori. The priest, of South African origin, was leading a congregation that was 80% Asian and 20% European (with 2 Americans), in the Irish-immigrant built St. Patrick's in Maori prayers. Talk about your multiculturalism. This must be the face of the new Church.

The rest of the service continued on in English, and Bryan and Jane were comforted to see that Auckland churches pulled their musical repertoire from the same Glory and Praise book that many US churches use: plenty of Marty Haugen and David Haas. Much of the service, in fact, was familiar to Bryan and Jane, living up to the Catholic claims of uniform universality. That is until they got to the Nicene Creed. The Kiwis, it turns out, use the same translation of the ancient Latin text as do their British cousins. Jesus is not born of the Virgin Mary, but made became incarnate; and he did not suffer, die, and was buried, but suffered death and was buried. Small changes that don't change the meaning of the Creed, but it is enough to throw off the rhythm of something you've been intoning for over 25 years. The Our Father they found to be different as well. Kiwis ask God the Father to save them from the time of trial instead of asking Him to lead us not into temptation. Again, not really a significant change in terms of meaning, but enough to make Bryan and Jane feel like poinsettia-lily Catholics. It looked like going to church was something else they were going to have to adapt to.

Sorry for the delay . . .

We've been experiencing some technical difficulties out here in Auckland that have prevented regular postings to this blog. My computer has decided to stop accepting a charge, and so, to conserve the tiny bit of battery power left, I have been unable to access anything on my computer, including the pictures that are so essential to maintaining this blog. As I've now been about two weeks without my computer, and with little hope of getting it fixed soon, I will continue to put up posts, and the pictures will just have to come later. Sorry to all of our regular readers who have been without an update in quite a while; we're glad you enjoy reading about our adventures and misadventures!

What It Means to Live on an Island

As every graduate of elementary-school science classes can tell you, islands are created when the shifting of Earth's plates cause underwater volcanoes to shoot liquid rock to the surface of the sea where it cools and hardens. Volcanoes, thus, are a vital part of island life - the whole island's reason for being, so to speak. Volcanoes also, however, can be a destructive part of island life because they don't just skulk back to their watery homes after giving birth, but they stick around to shake things up a bit every now and then. On an island, you never know when a long-dormant volcano will reawaken or when a previously unknown spewer of lava and ash will arise to surprise us all.

Bryan and Jane had known all of this when they arrived in Auckland, but it was not until they took a trip to the Auckland War Memorial Museum that they realized just how much a part of their lives volcanoes now were. The Auckland War Memorial Museum is located in the center of the Auckland Domain, a large park situated between the center of town and the suburb of Parnell. It hosts exhibits on both the natural and human history of New Zealand, including a film strip that explains how the Age of Reptiles ended due to a giant asteroid, ushering in the Age of Birds. Yes, that's right - the Age of Mammals did not follow the Age of Reptiles in New Zealand; it was not man who inherited the Earth, but birds: lots and lots of birds.

Besides the surprising overlordship of the birds, the Auckland Museum also runs an exhibit detailing Auckland's special relationship with volcanoes. The Auckland region is home to 48 known volcanoes; the most recent eruption being Rangitoto 600 years ago (the ash from this eruption could be seen as far away as Rome). But, as the cruel exhibition repeatedly pointed out, you never know when the next one will be or where it will happen. One corner of the room housed a television with an imaginative news alert announcing that a volcano had erupted covering downtown Auckland in ash and taking the homes of Parnell and Mission Bay on a lava-ride. "That's my office, right there where that bubbling lava is," Bryan said, pointing to the images in the alarmist TV program. "You better hope we're at home when that volcano blows."

After learning about the awesome power of volcanoes to shape Auckland's history, Bryan and Jane decided they needed to see one of these monoliths in person. They chose to check out Mt. Eden, Auckland's largest volcano at 196 meters high or 643 feet. The trek up to the top began with a steep staircase, which appeared daunting at first but paled in comparison to the open road that actually lead to the top.

Close to the top of the volcano were a series of craters, the biggest one dipping down 50 meters or 164 feet. Due to erosion concerns, people are not allowed to walk down into the crater, but you are allowed to peer in from the top.

Upon reaching the top, Bryan and Jane were greeted by hordes of Japanese and British tourists who had taken the easy way up: buses. Views from the top were exquisite, taking in the surrounding suburbs, other volcanoes, and the bay.

Going down the volcano, Bryan and Jane stumbled upon a small herd of cows. "Are those wild cows?" Jane asked, confused as to why and how there came to be cows living freely on the side of a volcano. It seems that there are in fact 15-20 cows, left to graze on the volcano by the city. They wondered if the cows knew just how much danger they could potentially be in, living on the side of a volcano. The cows, however, didn't seem to mind.

Beer and Bowlers

Auckland is a diverse and friendly place - the kind of city where you can go from towering buildings to secluded beach in a matter of minutes with people giving you directions and pointing out interesting points along the way. Bryan and Jane took some time in their first week in New Zealand to explore the variety of Auckland.

They began their explorations by walking to the University of Auckland, where Jane was hoping to make some connections with their history department. To get to the University from the center of town, you first have to walk up a steep hill and then cross through a park filled with trees that look somewhat like giant spiders. In the center of the park stands a statue of Queen Victoria, for whom, it seems, the students have very little respect. The University itself is what anyone coming from the US would expect: some neo-classical architecture intermixed with awful, awful buildings from the 1970s. Why they allowed architects near universities in the 70s, we may never know.

After touring the university, Bryan and Jane traveled a little further afield to see what was going on in the suburbs. The suburb of Ponsonby is known for its arty yuppies and personal trainers. Bryan and Jane were drawn here because Bryan had read of a Belgian beer bar there, and with his love of beer, they had to check it out. The bar was not difficult to find as it was located at the very top of Ponsonby Rd, the place, supposedly, to be seen in Auckland. The bar itself did not disappoint either, especially when Bryan and Jane ended up with free beer. A fire, it seems, had broken out in the office space above the bar as Bryan and Jane sipped their Belgians, and when the bar had to be evacuated, the staff told them that there would be no charge. Bryan was very glad that he had opened a tab instead of paying when he picked up the beer.

Bryan and Jane's journey through Ponsonby took them by the Ponsonby Bowling Club. Now, Bryan and Jane are avid, though not necessarily skilled, bowlers as many people will attest, and so they found this "Bowling Club" intriguing. Was it indeed a place where people came to roll balls down an alley, knocking down as many as 10 pins at the end? Luckily, there was a slit in the green-tarp covered fence, and Bryan and Jane were able to peer into the club. What they saw was not what they had expected. There was a wide expanse of green lawn with small white squares laying on the ground on either end. As they watched, a largish croquet ball rolled gently into view. "Ha, ha, beat that!" crowed out a remarkably posh British accent. A woman in her early 70s came into view, and when she saw Bryan and Jane standing at the fence, she called out to them, "Do come in and have a look."
So Bryan and Jane walked around the side of the building and entered through a small door that led them into what looked with a hall where people go to play bingo and chain smoke. This room gave out onto the lawn they had seen from the street, and when they reemerged into the sunshine, they could now see that there were two women in white holding balls while a bevy of older men looked on. Bryan and Jane took up posts sitting next to the largest of these men, and through puffs on the butt of his cigarette, he tried to explain to them what was going on. "Ye' see, they roll the balls down the pitch, trying to get as close as they can to that one out there but not so close as it makes it possible for the other one to squeeze in." Bryan and Jane nodded sagely, though neither one really understood what he was talking about.
The two women seemed to know the rules of the game, though, as they skillfully launched their balls down the lawn to the jeers and cheers of the men sitting behind them. It was a "battle of the sisters" Bryan and Jane were told - a very civil affair with an undercurrent of sibling rivalry. After many minutes of watching, Bryan and Jane thanked the British retirees for allowing them to witness bowling close up, and they left just a little more wiser than they had gone in.

Keep Left

With their apartment hunt at an end, Bryan and Jane decided to dedicate the remainder of their time before Bryan started work with some sightseeing. Their first order of business was to get a rental car. Bryan and Jane intended to buy a car of their own soon, but in the meantime they needed a way to get around - and a car that was not theirs to attempt driving on the left side of the road with first. Like much of the rest of the former British Empire (as well as Japan for some reason), Kiwis drive on the left, or the wrong, side of the road. A danger to visiting pedestrians and a confusion for American and European drivers, driving on the left is an art unto itself. Left turns are the easy ones, and right turns hard; roundabouts take the place of four-way stops, and there is a whole lot more car to your left than you're used to in the US.

Jane was actually looking forward to the mirror-effect driving because she hoped that it would tame Bryan's driving, at least for a bit. Bryan was always a much more cautious driver when he felt slightly uncomfortable, and driving on the other side of the road should make him uncomfortable. Or so Jane thought. Bryan eased into the left side of the car and, like a fish swimming along with the current, Bryan flowed along seamlessly with the native left-hand drivers. After only a few days of sunning his right arm instead of his left, Bryan was back to his old driving habits: weaving in and out of traffic and setting his own "reasonable" pace. Bryan and Jane's friend Amy had told them that she was glad to see them leave the country if only because it would make the streets of Chicago safer.

Bryan told Jane that he couldn't wait to get their own car. The automatic they rented just didn't give him as much control as the manual that he wanted would. Keep left indeed.

So Very Far Away

The night Bryan learned that he had been offered a job with the IRL in Auckland, he and Jane went out to celebrate at Nevin's Pub. Over burgers and Guinnesses, they discussed the pros and cons of moving halfway around the world. Jane had a two-week-old Sheil bulletin in her bag, and on the bag of this pink leaflet, they plotted out their thoughts. On the pro side was an exotic location, an interesting job, a chance to have an in depth experience of a foreign culture but one in which English was still spoken, and a good time to try something new: they didn't have children yet and both careers were pretty flexible. The con side consisted of adapting to a new place and dealing with immigration, living in a more expensive place, Jane's potential difficulties with getting a job, and, of course, the distance from family, friends, and everything they knew. When they boiled down their lists to the essential points that were of most importance to them, it was a battle between a cool place to discover and being so very far away. It took them a little over a week to decide that, though it would be difficult to be so far away, they wanted to see something new.

In making this decision, Bryan and Jane both acknowledged that there would be moments when being far away would seem like an overwhelming burden, when they could feel, in the very depths of their beings, the vast ocean that separated them from the world they had always known and those they loved. What they didn't suspect at the time was just how quickly this sense of distance would visit them.

They were almost through their first full week in New Zealand, when Bryan and Jane called home to update their families on their progress with finding a place to live and getting settled in. Jane took her shower while Bryan typed his family's phone number into their Skype homepage and connected with the phone lines in the US. Freshly cleaned for the day, Jane emerged from the bathroom to find Bryan sitting on the bed in the hotel room staring at his computer with a stony expression on his face.

"Is everything alright?" asked Jane fearing that something terrible had happened.

"My family was just getting back from Pop's funeral. He died a few days ago," Bryan said flatly. "We are so very far away, aren't we?"

Bryan's grandfather had not been doing well for a while, and when Jane and Bryan had talked about moving to Auckland, the possibility that they would miss the funerals of family members had come up, but they had thought that that particular situation would not arise for some time. Now they were confronted with the true reality of the downside to moving to New Zealand: missing the chance to say goodbye to those they loved and to support their loved ones who were left behind.

Bryan and Jane held each other and cried. "He's in a better place," Bryan remarked, "but it is still sad." Bryan understood why his family had delayed in telling him about his grandfather's death, and though he wished he could have been there with them to say goodbye to his Pop, he knew that he was still connected to them all despite the distance and was with them in spirit if not in person. Bryan knew that his family was excited for him to be in Auckland and that they were proud of him for setting off on such an adventure, but at that moment he knew what it meant to be so far away.

Bryan and Jane request that those who read this blog take a moment to say a prayer for the soul of Cyril Kuhl, that he is rejoicing in heaven.