This next entry is coming a lot sooner then I thought it would.
Thursday morning, instead of having my regularly scheduled Indigenous Language class, we took a trip to visit a Kura Kaupapa a.k.a. a Maori school. There were only six of us from the class that went, and I’m the only non-Kiwi so I was a little nervous just becuase I had never really been around the culture before. When we got there, they did this whole Maori welcoming ceremony. They sang a song, and we sang a song. Other than that I had no idea what was going on because the whole thing was in Maori. After the welcoming ceremony, we went to the staff office for a late morning tea. While you were not allowed to speak English in earlier, here we could and were able to ask the teachers questions. Then we went around and visited the classrooms. The school goes from Kindergarten up until high school. One interesting thing was that you had to take your shoes off before you walked into any building or classroom. Which wasn’t fun because it was raining that day and all the class rooms are in separate small buildings. It was actually pretty similar to a regualr school except for the fact that everything was taught in Maori. As the students get to high school though, some subjects are too difficult to teach in Maori and are taught in English. I was really happy that my professor arranged this visit because it was a great experience that I can’t get anywhere else except in New Zealand.
On Saturday, I decided to go down to Cathedral Square to climb up the Cathedral Tower. It was a pretty short trip to the top, but you had to climb up a very windy narrow staircase. I would not recommend it to anyone who is claustraphobic. But once you got to the top you got a clear view of Christchurch.
View of Cathedral Square from the Cathedral tower
Today I decided to take a trip to the beach. I took the bus to Sumner, which was about a 40 minute bus ride from Christchurch. It was a little chilly, but sunny. And it was perfect weather to just lay out and catch up on some of my reading for my classes. The beach was stunning. The Pacific Ocean with the Southern Alps in the distance. Beach and mountains all in one place! AMAZING! I took a bit of a walk around the beach, collected some seashells, grabbed some fish and chips and headed home.
Pacific Ocean with the the Southern Alps in the distance
View more pictures from Sumner here
So, I’d say I had a pretty decent weekend. Tomorrow it’s back to class, and on October 2nd Leslie is coming!
Cheers