Tag: Martha

Tech (Maori Class pt.2)

We learned about wharenui and the different kinds of patterns today in maori class. The patterns along the wharenui’s edge tell a variety of tales. Matua Harley went into great detail about his upbringing and activities at his wharenui. He kindly requested that Ngapera and Joshua distribute pencils, blank sheets of paper, and a wharenui where people could express themselves by making patterns of the things they loved. 

While we were drawing, we watched a different documentary, which was quite fascinating. The story concerned a Maori guy from New Zealand who sets out to explore the globe in order to find the whereabouts of his ancestors, which turned out to be a region called Hawaiki. In order to get to Africa, Hawaii, and Haiti, he first travels through New Zealand. When the bell rang, we packed up the felt-tip and pencils, signed our artwork, stored it for the following week, bid Matua Harley farewell and me and another girl made our way to the bus

Tech (Maori Class)

In Maori class today we went over what we previously learnt last week about the days of the week. We consulted about the days of the week and even the months. After that we were shown a phrase in Te Reo Maori. The phrase was  “ko te aha tenei ra” which translates to “what day is it today”, the response to that is “ko te (what day it was) tenei ra”, so we paired up into a group of 2 and I was paired with Lilly for this activity. We asked this question to each other and we soon got to say the phrase to each other without looking at the board. We moved onto a documentary which was called “no maoris allowed” , it was a documentary on how Maori people were treated in Pukekohe. There were a lot of hurtful things more than a person can explain that happened to Maori people back in those days. They lived in what people called the “slums” and sometimes they were even living in a shed that cows lived in too and all of the cows waste would go into the same house where they would be sleeping, so imagine having to sleep with that reek of smell always being there and the smell of cow waste including cow urine and cow droppings (poop). Some people in that document have been through a lot of trauma from having to be brown in pukekohe which was once a racist town. They had to go school knowing that they were not allowed to speak their native tongue and if they did they would get hit or whacked for it. Overall I learnt a lot of things in the documentary about the history the debate on who owns history and the permission people have to earn to tell the history of Pukekohe.