What have I been doing?

Training, training and more training. Project Management (3 days), Health & Safety (2 days), our document management system and performance review system. In between all that I've been jamming in the usual round of meetings with all and sundry. On the weekends I collapse and try to give my brain time to process it all.

I have, however finally gone for a drive. Admittedly it was work related but I have left New Plymouth under my own steam! I also managed to get back although I should confess that I only went to Inglewood which is 20mins away and there is only one road between there and here. If you leave town any other way you end up in Hamilton or Wellington.

Oh and I have tickets so the festivals continue! Womad (not in Adelaide for all those that were worried I was coming over and not visiting) is 3 days of world music 13-15 March here in NP. I got a 3 day pass so I can pick and choose or just go to the whole thing. And I'm off to the rugby on the 7th, Hurricanes v Cheetahs, also here in town and through careful examination of the map I've worked out I can walk to the ground - bargain!

Fog

Yesterday while Victoria was suffering from the fires we had fog. These were taken when I got home, about 5.30pm. It was sea fog so it was kind of swirly and tasted salty. As you can see Duff wasn't too sure about it either.

Waitangi Day

Last Friday was a public holiday for Waitangi Day, a loose equivalent of Australia Day but without the cricket and BBQs. There was however a lot of sunshine and some celebrations in town.

As my special tribute to my new national day I bought a Hokey Pokey ice cream so I could take a photo for you. It's a bit drippy but this is a single scoop from my local dairy, two minutes walk down the street.

Weaving and shoes

I spent last weekend and most of this week at the International Indigenous Librarians Forum (IILF) down at Otaki, on the coast just north of Wellington. The conference was fantastic with delegates from Australia, Canada, mainland US and Hawaii plus a huge local contingent. We had a local association meeting first and then 4 days of speakers and workshops.

One of the really interesting things from me was the cultural aspect. It's the first time I've been to something with such a strong cultural focus. A lot of the formal bits (welcome, introductions, thank you's) were in Maori and other traditions were also adhered to; no shoes worn inside, every day started with a prayer or blessing. Although my Maori language skills can best be described as 'basic tourist' I coped ok and lots of people also gave a translation for our international guests which was a big help. I learn how to say thank you in 5 languages; Maori, Cree; Squamish; Anishinabe and Hawaiian.

The place were the conference was held was a Maori university/Marai where they run classes but also residential schools. We slept marai style on campus - all in together on matresses on the floor. Luckily someone had thought about how prepared people might be for this and we got ear plugs in our registration package along with programme, name tag and all the usual stuff.

As you can see from the title of this post one of the courses taught is the traditional craft of weaving and there are examples of the student's work all over campus. Below are 2 cloaks (one with Pukeko feathers and the other with flax ends), part of a mat and a basket.

I also got quite fixated on the whole shoe thing (no big suprise) so I have a lovely collection of photos like this...

As you can see we started out really neat, then we started to spread out a bit and by the end of 5 days any old corner would do.