Posted: Aug.2010, Written: July 2010
It's been a while I think...funny that in this country I never seem to have any down time...ever! Just came off of a two week volunteer project in the Bay of Plenty region, and it was awesome!
We worked with an organization named Kuaka, a non-profit conservation organization that has its hands in nearly everything. There were 34 volunteers with me and we shared meals and a lodge, and worked all day together. The only time we split into our smaller project groups were when we did the group discussions and journaling sessions.
So...Kuaka. In the Bay of Plenty region in the northern island. We stayed in a lodge in the middle of NOWHERE. We had to keep a fire burning in the boiler room to keep the hot water running for us each day. We had bunk/dorm style accommodations since the lodge is usually a summer camp site for kids in NZ. We know why no one would ever choose to stay there in the winter...each morning it dropped down to 3-4 degrees! Even in my sleeping bag I still went to bed shivering each night. We were surrounded by bush, the nearest civilization was a 20 minute bus ride through farm land. No phone, no internet, only a little electricity--it was brilliant!
In New Zealand there's a huge problem with possums. They've overtaken the natural environment since they were introduced by the Aussies in the late 1800s and caused a chain reaction of terrible events---loss of habitat, vegetation and native bird species. New Zealand conservation programs are basically a system of killing raids: kill the possums, stoats, rats, rabbits, deer, pigs... you name it, if it was introduced and let wild by accident, it's being eliminated by the department of conservation. A few boisterous boys thought they'd go for a joy walk through the bush the first night and try to hunt possums. I had to arrange a search party with another leader and find them in the pitch dark of the bush. SCARY STUFF! It's so easy to get lost in there, there are no set tracks or paths. We eventually found them and I yelled at them. Pretty much the only way you could die in New Zealand is from getting lost in the bush with hypothermia killing you...and they tried to do that on the first night!
Talk about starting a project with a bang! The two weeks blew by so fast! We planted somewhere around 5,000 trees: tea trees (manuka), white pine (kahikatea), flax, cabbage trees...it was a massive tree planting project working in three different sites. We were trying to create an eco-corridor. There was a section of forest being logged, until a few years ago when they found evidence of a pair of highly endangered north island brown kiwis. Now it's been established a protected area, and they're trying to re-plant the bush, remove the invasive species and encourage the population growth this pair of kiwis might bring. We planted an eco-corridor between one national park and a section of the loggers' protected area now. It was awesome how efficient groups can be in getting the job done!
There was some nasty weeding that we tackled, blackberry bush, grouse and japanese honeysuckle. The blackberry and grouse bush thorns were nasty and they got everywhere! I kept falling into pockets of them and getting thorns in VERY awkward places. The honeysuckle was a nightmare to get rid of, since we had to hack away a forest of it with saws and shovels since it was so thick!
We also got to spend some time on a Maori marae. The marae is the most sacred "temple" of a Maori village. It's where all the ceremonies and meetings are held, and it's also a community centre. We had to initiate ourselves into the Maori village, the traditional way. The "powhiri" (pronounced po-firi) is when the village elders sing you welcome into the village and present you with a gift to determine if you are friend or foe. The "were" (challenge) is a weapon, if you grabbed it you would have been killed and eaten instantly (obviously this doesn't apply in practice today), but if you sing back and offer a fern instead it was understood that you came in peace.
Once welcomed on to the marae we had to memorize and sing some Maori songs and phrases in show of respect. Then stepping into the marae we learned about our village. The marae itself is shaped to represent their ancestors: the ribs, the spine, the face, and the belly which is where we sit inside to show respect. The last night we went back to the marae and did a cultural performance exchange: they sang and taught us songs and dances in Maori and we taught them the cha cha, line dancing, and sang songs like "Amazing Grace" and "At Last". It was heaps fun!
We did a lot of cool things as a group: climbing mountains, hiking in the bush, heading to beach towns for the weekend, horse back riding in the hills, and the weather was just perfect sunshine every day. The only time it rained was once when we were in the bush setting up rat tunnels laced with peanut butter. We placed ink pads inside, and we were tracking/targeting areas where we could identify rat prints. Later on the department of conservation will go in with poison and rat traps to take them out since they're destroying the vegetation. The turned into an epic day of adventure, slipping and sliding down muddy hill banks and getting lost in the dark for a while!
