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Dolphin!

noob

* I wrote this shortly after we arrived in Christchurch.*

I am a newcomer to this barefoot city
The hotel housekeeper brushes over the low shag carpet
With a canister vacuum trailing behind her
Black leggings beneath a salmon print sundress
Her brown hair tied back reveals a youthful white face
Pleasantly occupied, meditative
I feel guilty puzzling over why she isn’t Mexican
She’s trudging over the carpet with splayed toes
Can she feel when the floor is clean?

In this barefoot city
I am walking through the shopping mall
Looking for cold medicine
All I really want is pseudoephedrine
But it’s hell trying to decipher the labels
I am a hacking and wheezing American
Frightened at sudden cold turned to sunshine
I don’t know what it means that the wind can blow
From the south over glaciers
Or that the northerly winds bring a different climate altogether
My lungs are heavy with confusion
The automatic doors of the mall slide open
And up walk two local young men
Slender and tan, their feet bare to the elements
The weather is incidental to them
Somehow they are healthy and going on about beer and the good times
I know only that I am in a strange place
That is at once cold and bright
I wonder how long it is before
My lungs and eyes will clear up
And I can bare my feet here

Beating the winter

Sorry that I haven’t been posting lately. It got cold and rainy and I just kind of gave up on having a fun time here. So sad, I know. But not to fear, sometimes we just have to let ourselves slump down a bit to find our way again. We got an electric blanket and I strung up the rafters in our apartment so that we’d have a place to dry our clothes. I’m promising myself that the beautiful summer here will more than make up for a short period of dreary weather.

On the upside, I finally got over myself and decided to start really facing the weather here and figure out a plan or an attitude so that it was more enjoyable for me. I put on my running shoes and run even if it’s cold. I quit smoking again because I can’t smoke my brand here and it just wasn’t helping.

Last but not least, I have joined the gym. I must make a special point here to recommend this because it’s one of the things that New Zealand does right and does well. There’s no need to go to an expensive private gym here because the Christchurch City Council puts a ton of money and staff into providing for the recreational needs of the city. I paid $180 bucks for three months and I can go to any of several gyms or pools, soak for hours in the hot tubs– it’s really quite luxurious and far exceeded my expectations. Now if I feel the slightest bit blue, it’s off to the gym, and if I feel like taking a yoga or lifting class, it’s included in the price of the membership.

Spa at Jellie Park ~ Christchurch City Council

So now rugby has started and I’m pleased to say that I’m developing some feeling that this is really an awesome national sport. The way it’s presented here, with almost no commercials, you can really watch the game from start to finish and I understand now that it doesn’t matter that the All Blacks aren’t the best of the best. It’s enough that they try really hard and they are a solid team. I never thought I would be sentimental about sports but if you get a chance to watch, there’s something about it that will connect you with the people here.

We also went to Wanaka this past weekend. It was kind of our last chance to get some pics before we go on vacation to San Francisco. The lake was very peaceful and I found evidence of a rabbit warren. Hope you enjoy!

Wanaka Trip 06 2009

Bailey agrees: it’s frackin’ cold

Bailey keeping warm beneath the heat pump.

It’s 7 degress Celsius with 92% humidity in Christchurch this morning. That’s about 44 degrees Fahrenheit and 100% Frackin’ Cold.. I’ve gone from moping around the house in country plaid to wearing an alpaca button-up that Kenny got in Germany. He won’t wear it because it looks a lot like a blouse and is a lot feminine, but who cares? When the weather gets rough, we’ll do anything to stay warm. Even Bailey, who has a built in sweater has taken to laying beneath the heat pump. I have it set to about 74 degrees Fahrenheit so as to not go overboard, but I’m sure I’ll be turning it up higher than that as the winter progresses. I’m afraid that by the end of the season, Bailey may turn out to be a slow-cooked rabbit.

In other news, I’ve placed an ad out to get a writing group going in Christchurch. I’m not sure what happens to writers here. I know that everyone reads. The posts on TradeMe testify to that, but I’ve followed all the links at the NZBookCouncil and other sorts of resources and the links or either dead or these writing sites just don’t get much traffic. Still, I’m getting a few bites. So hopefully, I’ll be writing soon about how Christchurch writers have braved the weather and now huddle together weekly to facilitate our neurotic love of story.

One other note, Allied Movers got our furniture and clothing here in record time, less than two months. They said it couldn’t be done, but the guys dropped by and unloaded everything, were coy to ask me how on earth to assemble the bed. These were big guys, so I shouldn’t be surprised that they didn’t want to ask me for help outright, but in the end I showed them, “Look, it’s just like a little puzzle,” and I slipped the brace onto one rail, then fitted the joining rail and slipped the brace down like a sleeve. They watched me do in seconds what they’d been working at for half an hour, then they burst into laughter. I didn’t laugh as I thought it would be a mockery. They were sweet guys and seemed to want to help me unpack everything, but I shooed them out the door and told them that they’d done enough. In fact, I was just a little overwhelmed and didn’t want to unpack everything at once. Kenny came home later, and we acted like it was Christmas, fawning over little trinkets and much loved books.

One more last thing, and then I’ll get back to my busy schedule. We were able to get out to New Brighton Beach last weekend. We heard that it was the place to go for Sunday shopping from someone that lives out there. That’s a cultural tidbit for those of you from the States, shops close early here and on Sunday many places don’t open at all. This is all par for the course in New Zealand’s laid-back lifestyle. Sadly, when we got there, there was no mall to be seen. There were shops, yes, but nothing near the bustle and hype that we’d anticipated. If anything, it was more of a ghost town with a nice library. It was something like Ocean Beach in San Francisco, not the tourist side by the Golden Gate, but out a ways in the avenues. I got a couple of shots just to give you an idea.

Volunteer work in NZ

A pessimist, they say, sees a glass of water as being half empty;
an optimist sees the same glass as half full.
But a giving person sees a glass of water
and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty.
–G. Donald Gale

One of my goals prior to arriving in NZ was to find some volunteer work here. In order to justify this I told myself that volunteering would allow me to branch out and see what other fields interest me. In hindsight I can see that this is the American, resume polishing, utilitarian side of me saying, “Well, you’d better get something out of it if you aren’t going to make any money!”

I haven’t done any real volunteer work since the end of high school. Even then volunteering was something that we were told to do by our teachers because this was looked upon favorably by college admissions and would help us win scholarships. So I did some tutoring to underprivileged kids and worked on a hotline for troubled teens. This was fairly easy stuff, filling in the “needs extra attention” part of societal lack. Some kids were having a hard time bonding with other kids or they needed help with their homework or they were otherwise troubled and didn’t have anyone that they could confide in. But I reached a point towards the end of my junior year of high school where I felt that enough was enough. I didn’t want to hear anymore sad stories and I wanted to have fun.

Once I was on the path through college, I learned that people didn’t really care about volunteer work. That was something that we were supposed to do before college to show that we’d built character. When I was in the college admissions office I was met with a puzzled look when I asked if they did any outreach to the community, expecting that this “character building” exercise would continue. To my surprise their form of outreach, if any, was publicizing open lectures. I attended a few of these lectures and saw that it was attended by the college community and others from the surrounding leisure class. Why had I tried so hard to impress others with volunteer work if this was what people of character did once they had established said character?

Eventually, I stopped asking the question about volunteering. I gave in to the studies set before me and to the social discourse that buzzed on and on. When September 11th happened, I was surrounded by students that asked, “What can we do? We shouldn’t just be here doing nothing while people are dying. We can help.” Their eyes were wet with sorrow and upset. A response came out of me that I hadn’t anticipated, “I know how you feel, but trust me, we are doing it. This is our role in a needful world- to learn as much as we can, to complete our studies. What we do contributes to the peace of the world.”

And now, with the college years behind me, I’ve moved to New Zealand with my partner. The commitment of 9 to 5 work is gone temporarily and I find myself asking, “Where am I needed? What is needed here?” All it took was a little bit of searching through the Volunteering Canterbury website, a couple of email inquiries, a phone interview, an interview in person, a couple more weeks, and finally I am back in the seat of volunteering again.

This time I am helping adult students work on their conversational English. So far, I have met students from China and Russia, some elderly with grandchildren and some just beginning their families. They were very inquisitive about me. They wanted to know where I’ve lived, where my parents are, if I like the food here, and what my hobbies are. Of themselves, they are still a bit shy. They offer me warnings about not carrying too much cash, advice on what cities are beautiful to visit, what vegetables can be grown in this climate, and where I can take waltz classes.

There were smiles across the table when I told the students that I get confused between the “a” and the “e” sounds and then between the “i” and the “u” sounds and that altogether I am terrible with foreign languages. I told them about my frequent upset at unexpected differences in expressions, such as hearing someone say in a Kiwi accent “take away” instead of “to go.” I was surprised to hear one student echo me in a Chinese accent, “To go. Take away. To go. Take away.” We all found this to be very funny, I suspect for different reasons.

At most this sort of volunteer work takes two hours out of one day a week and the students are very appreciative of the time spent. I can see on their faces that they start to get tired after an hour. It takes a lot out of you to bridge a communication gap for that long. I know how that feels, especially on days when I just want to turn on an American movie and close the blinds and pretend that I am in America doing American things.

In working with these students, I am finding some compassion for myself. I chose to hold off on looking for a paying job. I told myself there was something to gain by choosing another path. To be a stranger here and to come to terms with the complexities of a new culture, to learn its use of language, to find one’s place whilst being foreign– these things are work, the sort of work where one feels vulnerable and oftentimes foolish. Yet it is work that can be embraced joyfully and communally. Perhaps in a few months I will tell you how I distilled this into my CV, but for now I am just enjoying the experience.

Easter Weekend

Here’s the link to our Easter weekend pics. We went to the West Coast via the Lewis Pass to Punakaiki, then south to Franz Glacier, then back home via Arthur’s pass. Word to the wise: Arthur’s Pass is steep at times and there are stretches of unfinished road. We drove it at night which added to the scariness of it, but overall it was fairly safe and is the quickest route back to Christchurch from the West Coast.

Easter Weekend

Adjusting to our new life in Christchurch

Here are some tips for trailing spouses like me.

Leave room for the experience to be what it is. I’m finally reaching a stage where I can admit that despite reading extensively and tuning into podcasts of all sorts, there’s more to being in a foreign country than confirming one’s intellectual apprehension of it. For instance, I was sorely disappointed that instead of being stampeded by sheep, I only see them if we drive for at least forty five minutes into the hills and then they are only a few dozen at a time and they are fenced in. I have not strolled through the hills with a parasol and nestled beneath some towering oak to catch up on my Dave Eggers.

Where's the sheep?

In contrast, I have spent some afternoons sweeping acorns from the driveway or pulling weeds from the flowerbeds. On the upside, there is a field across from our flat that is often filled with scores of handsome young men engaged in field exercises or otherwise in tournament rugby matches. Who could be let down by short shorts and knee high socks?

When the counter clerk doesn’t laugh at your joke, she really just doesn’t get it. Really, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to “go native.” When I first landed, I wanted to do everything I could to imitate the accent and test out the new banter. In reality, the banter is more like “what did you say… how’s that, again… I’m really sorry, but could you say that just one more time?” It’s easy to feel hopeless in these situations and also to think that the locals despise you for coming in and trying to make conversation when you can’t even have an intelligible exchange. But really, don’t take it personally. It’s nobody’s fault that two English speakers can’t understand each other. Just keep trying because there are many NZ’ers that are very good at bridging the gap and those conversations are quite fun.

Get a pet and spoil it rotten because there’s going to be a lot of downtime. I thought there wouldn’t be. I thought I would be in every pub and every bookstore and every hiking trail at every moment. But the sun is quite glaring here and you have to wear sunblock that is at least SPF 30. Otherwise, it can get very cold and overcast. So get a pet to liven your home and to pick you up when you’re blue or stir-crazy.

Bailey

We got a pet rabbit this weekend. This came after a long discussion about the slew of pet options and admitting finally that we’re “rabbit people.” For our friends, this would probably come as no surprise, but for me it’s funny just to see that this is on the list of essentials for a balanced life. But rabbits are nuanced little critters that are very amusing when they go about on their “runs” and find new ways to get into trouble. Cats are really favored here as the pet of choice. We’ve had a couple come into the yard, on the hunt I think. I would probably go for a cat, but I hate cleaning their litterboxes and I think getting a cat just wouldn’t be amusing for me in my downtime.

Go to the Warehouse and buy some additional laundry line not just an indoor dryer– get a big rope and maybe some screw-in hooks. I say this because there will more than likely not be a dryer in your new home. Unlike San Francisco, Christchurch does not have a launderette on every corner. Instead, you may find a place to hang dry clothes in the back yard, but I find that there is just enough room to hang all the laundry. I have yet to string clothesline up inside the house, but I have seen people doing this and have been warned to keep an eye out for black mold if this becomes necessary.

Get a wind chime. This is a nice way to decorate the back yard or deck, but more importantly it tells you to hang the laundry. As you’ll quickly learn, it doesn’t matter if it’s sunny enough to dry laundry outside. What really matters is if it’s windy enough.

Take the time to learn about Asian foods and ingredients. You will get bored of the Pak’nSave, Countdown, Woolworth’s triad. There’s a card called the Onecard which is like any other supermarket card with points benefits, but it works in all three stores which are frequently right beside each other. Using said card makes it seem as if the triad is the only way to shop, but when you’re tired of looking at bangers, sausage rolls, lamb and mint chips, any of the multitude of the Asian markets will soothe you. Maybe it’s because you can’t read the packaging but you know it will taste good when you stir fry it or roll the sushi. Maybe it’s just a nice little break from New Zealand culture. I can’t really say why it works, but going to the Asian Market is high on my list of curatives.

Learn how to season and cook fish. Unlike launderettes, fish markets are everywhere in Christchurch. All I have to say is that it’s damn good. Fish and vegetables here are tasty and fresh. Even courgettes (zuchinni) are aromatic and flavorful, currently my favorite veggie.

This list isn’t comprehensive, as I can’t really say that I’ve totally adjusted to living here. I guess that means that there’s more to come. Feel free to ask questions. I will post replies promptly.

Cheers!

Supa Sweet As

Hi all, this is Kenny. People been leaving comments asking how I’m doing. Been doing really well. I miss everyone in SF, DC/VA, etc., but everything here has been going well. I’m really into this backyard we have now. We barbequed tonight, oh yeah.

Also, we’ve been busy setting up the house. I love our little apartment. The rooms are a bit small, as is Kiwi style, but they are really nice. I had the idea of putting a little office in the closet of the guest room. If you come visit, this may be your office space. Carlo thinks I’m crazy. Unfortunately, the desk we got is just a tiny bit too big. It still fits, but you can’t close the closet doors.

What else? We’re definitely into trying out Kiwi products. Hokey pokey candy bars and ice cream are good. It’s hard to describe what hokey pokey is, but it’s sweet and tastes a bit like butter + honey.

They also have great baked goods here. Everything is advertised as being gluten free, not sure what that’s about. So here’s a gluten free orange & almond tart next to a berry friand (?).

I’m getting really sick of the sausages here. They are served everywhere and kinda nasty, English style food. Here’s some Carlo picked up that I am afraid to try.

I started like sweetened condensed milk in my tea and coffee before we left SF, and that’s supa easy here. They even sell the stuff in sqeeze tubes.

What else? My job has been just about perfect so far. The head of the department is really kind and I really respect him as a researcher. There are a lot of very talented young people here, full of energy. A lot of them went to school in the UK / Europe, and it’s neat to see a different perspective on things. I don’t have to teach for a few weeks, so there isn’t so much pressure there. A few people have come to me with good research ideas, which is exciting (and basically never happened at NASA =p). I am given the freedom to study what I want, and the teaching bit will be really meaningful I’m sure. The students are funny, all little surfer types with skateboards, sandals, etc., or asian kids with super stylish hair, etc.. Carlo and I got some furniture and cable tv coming on Monday, and that will make us feel that much more at home. I’m still amazed at how there are parks EVERYWHERE. I walk across a park to get to work, to go downtown, to do anything. And in every direction outside of the city, there is stunningly beautiful scenery. In summary, this place is perfect except for our friends and family not being here.