Day 12

I'm very proud of my New Zealand roots, especially since arriving in Australia.  I miss all the wonderful multicultural, pacifica kind of feel that seems to permeate throughout almost everything in New Zealand.  It's not as if I understood it or appreciated it when I lived in NZ for the first 40 years of my life, in fact it's only since I've been gone that I even realise it really existed. 
I once went to a haircutting ceremony of a little boy from Rafe's pre-school in Sydney.  He was from the Cook Islands, and their tradition is to not their son's hair until they turn 5.  So along with a school hall full of guests, we turned up to this massive celebration of this little boy's important milestone - his first hair cut.  I'm in the hall, I'm squished up, my kids are asking for food, it's hot, Smith is clambouring to get down and really it was a stressful'ish wait.  But then the music started and the singers and the dancers and in he came, carried by his uncles with his Dad ready with the scissors.  And my tears started. 
I've always loved kiwis who use maori expressions freely.  In Duendin where I was raised, there seemed to be such a small minority of maoris in our very Scottish city, and in fact our school never really taught any maori.   Unlike The Husband who grew up in Auckland, who can speak more than I can.  I never really felt entitled to speak maori.  That was until when I left and realised, it's not how much you know or the colour of your skin, but where your heart feels truly at home.

Kia Kaha - Be strong