Maori Land Rights and Kale - November 11

Kia ora! Another rough night for Ken, another night of interrupted sleep for me. In the morning Ken felt much better and decided to join our late morning tour to Bastion Point.

There we were met by Dane, of Ngati Whatua Orakei, a Maori activist and tribal leader. Dane (rhymes with Jane) delivered a traditional Maori welcome to each of us, in the Maori language. We were standing in a park that had great significance to the Maori. 

Dane’s tribe had lived on this land for generations when, in 1951, the government tried to steal it. A protest camp sprang up on a hill on the property. It lasted 500+ days. At that point an army of police officers arrived and started removing the protestors. The Maori village was torn down on the pretext that it was an eyesore. Dane talked about the roles his family members played in this act of resistance. It was personal. There are those who see these events differently and take the government’s side. It remains controversial.

More recently, another tribe is claiming the land, although they did not historically use the land.That matter is now in litigation in a tribal court.

The land claims arise from the terms of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which is considered New Zealand’s foundational document. We will be talking about this later in the tour, so I will just give a short explanation. It is too much like actual work to try to digest this long-running controversy and regurgitate it here. Read the Wikipedia article I have linked to if you want to know more about it.

Dane discussed the treaty’s discriminatory impact on the country’s Maori population, the disproportionate poverty suffered by the Maori, and what some of the Maori leaders are trying to do about it, the complex issues surrounding the reparations that were paid to the tribes, and the social ills the Maori have suffered due to loss of language, loss of culture, loss of family, children being sent away to boarding schools, and more. In other words, all of the same issues we have in Alaska. The similarities were remarkable.

I thought Dane was very charismatic. He taught us about the Maori culture as well as their history - how they welcome strangers, how the tribe is the family, the connection the people have to the land, and more. It was a powerful experience. I don’t think many tourists get the chance to meet someone like Dane.

Lunch was arranged for us at a little seaside  cafe, where I ordered a vegan flash-fried kale salad - because I wanted to make a healthy choice. Hey, the cruise is over.

About 30 seconds after finishing lunch, I experienced a wave of nausea. Ken had not experienced any nausea or vomiting with his food poisoning. Maybe I just imagined it. Maybe I ate too much and I was just feeling full.

Nice view of Auckland on the way back

I made it back to the hotel. I made it up to the room. Ken went downstairs to get something, and I was suddenly overtaken by a violent episode of vomiting. 

Skip the next paragraph if you are queasy.

Most of it went into the toilet. There was definitely a lot of kale there. In addition, the violence of the vomiting gave me a nosebleed, and the toilet was starting to fill up with blood, too. At first, I didn’t know I had a nosebleed, so I was concerned by all the blood. Ken came back in the middle of all this and talked me down.

There was going to be a welcome dinner for the group in the evening. We decided we would see if any of the others who ordered the kale salad had symptoms. I took a two-hour nap, and I felt a lot better. I vacillated back and forth between going and not going. At the last minute I made the prescient decision not to go. Ken went to the dinner and texted me that no one else was sick from the kale. About 20 minutes later, the kale, or something, got me again. It was worse this time, in a number of ways. Use your imagination, if you dare.

When Ken came came back from the dinner, we had a long discussion about whether I had the same food poisoning he had, why it took longer to manifest, if not, what I had, and what our strategy should be going forward. 

Someone at the dinner suggested that I might have Covid. Ken and I both took Covid tests we had brought with us from home. Both of us were negative, thankfully.

This was Saturday. On Monday morning our group was scheduled to leave Auckland and go by “coach” to Rotorua. With stops along the way, it would be almost an eight-hour journey. This was not a trip for the Food Poisoning Club. When you gotta go, you gotta go. We needed to actively get well. Waiting for wellness was no longer a realistic option. As if there was any doubt, Ken had another episode very early Sunday morning.

To be continued . . . 

Today’s fabric is Kowhaiwhai, by New Zealand Fabrics and Yarn. The word “kowhaiwhai” is Maori for yellow. I probably would have named this fabric something else. There’s a very pale yellow there, but it doesn’t translate well into English.