Maori Culture

Reallly long day today.  Nan and I headed up to Kaitaia today for the tangi (funeral) of Uncle Frank. It isn't until tomorrow but we got up to the Marae around 10am and didn't leave until 1am the next morning. We were waiting for my Aunty's to arrive from both Australia and down the line.

It was a good day though.  Was good to meet a lot of Nan's family as the person who passed away was her cousin.  The funeral was held at Te Paatu Marae.  Nan isn't too keen on being welcomed onto the Marae on her/our own soo when we got there and waited a couple of minutes and we never saw someone come to welcome us in we walked in.  Phew. Poor Nan. Growing up for her it wasn't ever normal for them to go onto the Marae like that they were always in the kitchen were as for our generation and my cousins we are so use to being welcomed onto the Marae it's normal.

I'm so glad that we went today though as with it being the last night of the tangi we were able to listen and hear stories and jokes of Uncle Frank and also sing songs with everyone. One thing I love about being at a tangi is that there is always family there that you haven't seen in awhile so it's always nice to get together.

Nan thinks I should learn to speak Maori and also look at learning how to be a Kaikaranga as no one in our family does it.  I would totally love to learn how to speak Maori though I'm not too sure I am keen on being a Kaikaganga. It's a pretty crazy full on things to do but who knows we will see.  I could be living here in the wops for the rest of my life so might as well learn something with all of this free time that I have.

All in all even though the day was long it was a really great day and nice to see so many people there most of them I didn't know and only knew a handful of people if that but it was still nice to go with and support Nan.

Nan and I didn't end up staying at the Marae as with our family coming in late they didn't have anywhere to sleep so we gave them our beds so that they were able to spend time at the Marae with the family and then we went and stayed with an Aunty it was good as I was worried about sleeping with my humidifier at the Marae but luckily we were able to get to my Auntys place to sleep.

Oh and note to self: Remember to take the ugliest worst looking shoes to a Marae as the may just end up growing some legs and walking off lol!  I didn't even have fancy jandals and ended up with no shoes... luckily I had another pair of shoes with me!  Now i need another pair of jandals!