marriage proposals, etc.

A brief disclaimer to anyone somewhat-frequently passing through our patch of internet domain: We do know that we've been slacking on pictures as of late, but the problem is that our current free internet connection is a 28.8 dial up modem, so loading pictures onto the internet right now is a laughable concept. We will get on the picture thing soon enough, but in the meantime, we invite you to enjoy our lovely writings (how humble!).

ANYWAY.

One of my favorite parts about Hohepa is dinner each night. For breakfast and lunch we eat food out of Hohepa's store, but for dinner, we each go to one of the houses to eat dinner with the residents each night. I'll let Ella tell you about her house if she is so inclined, but my house is pretty fantastic so I thought I'd share.

My house consists of six men, half over the age of 60. Up until tonight I thought the two different Roddys (yes, there is more than one person named Roddy in one small house!) were my favorites, and though I think they are both fantastic, at this point pretty much all of them have won places in my heart. Roddy #1, we'll call him, is in his 60s, though looks much more aged than that. He doesn't talk very much- actually, the other Roddy doesn't either- but he does wear a watch on each wrist (his explanation is "one for every six hours" but I still don't really understand what that means) and glasses that don't have lenses in them. He dresses like a grandpa might- slacks, a button-down, and some kind of sweater vest most days, even now that it's getting into summer. He really likes knitting and spends just about all of his time doing that, which is always fun to watch.

Roddy #2 comes to work on the farm each day, though he is kind of too old to do a lot so he "supervises." This means that he makes tea for everyone, washes dishes, and walks around taking pictures. He always has a smile on his face (the kind where your teeth aren't even touching because your mouth is open) and walks around in his gumboots (or galoshes, rainboots, whatever you are inclined to call them), a button-down shirt, and his sun hat. His sentences are always short and his answers to any question I could possibly ask consist of an average of three or so words, but he asks me every single day if I'm going to be there for dinner and seems excited when I tell him I will be.

The real reason I thought to write this post was because of tonight's dinner. David, another resident, was joking around with one of the workers before dinner-- "You're my mum! You're my grandpa! You're my grandson! You're my sweetie!" This persisted and after dinner he started in with me-- whispering something about a sweetie and then when I asked him to repeat himself, he'd start giggling and shove his face in a pillow. The night escalated into further giggly-ness when he insisted on reading the paper to us instead of the other way around- mind you, he can't read. It all started out innocently enough- he was describing a picture to us, but he is a real ham and the more he made us laugh, the goofier he got. He started pretending to read an article, talking about who took who to the doctor and talking about different events of the day, but that too devolved into sheer goofiness when he started talking about who was marrying who. Roddy is marrying the cat! Roddy is marrying John! Then he pointed to me and said, "You are marrying me! This is my husband and my wife!" I pointed out that he couldn't well marry someone whose name he didn't even know, so after prompting from a bunch of the workers he learned it, went outside, picked me flowers, and came back. The other residents were all pretty much beside themselves, laughing, shouting "Rubbish! Rubbish!" and so on. After re-informing everyone that I am apparently going to be both his husband and his wife, he informed one of the workers that he was going to wear a dress to the wedding, concluding the now beyond-absurd line of conversation.

movin' right along

Hello everyone!

Ella and I have moved on (well, sort of) to a new chapter in our time in New Zealand. We've moved from the west side of Napier, home of Branwyn, Brent, Bruno, and all the other B's, clear across to the east side (that's right next to the water, folks!), just south of Napier center. We're staying at a place called Hohepa which is, I believe, technically in the town of Clive.

Hohepa is a small village-type set up for people with developmental disabilities. There are tons of workshops that residents work in during the day- woodworking, silk and felt, weaving, etc- and there's also a farm, which is where we get to help out. Each day we do all sorts of high-end farming activities- weeding, transplanting, more weeding, planting, more weeding-- you get the idea. We get free food (which is excellent since our food is supplied by the farm and it is DELICIOUS!), a free place to crash each night, and we're close enough to the B's that we can still see them on weekends and they are only a local call away, though Bruno is not sophisticated enough to use the telephone. What's even cooler is that we've each been assigned (I don't really know a better word but it doesn't really feel like "assigned") to one of the residential houses where we have dinner each night, so it gives us an opportunity to get to know more people in a family-like setting.

Not a ton to report apart from the fact that we're here- I started yesterday, Ella showed up today (discrepancy in time due to Ella being temporarily ill). Everyone is really friendly, we have successfully relayed the fact that we do not know neither Michael Jackson nor Tom Petty, and we're having a blast getting covered in dirt all day. Hope wherever you are is as sunny as Napier usually is (but wasn't today- good thing, too, we need rain!)!

bruno

Ella is currently struggling with the internet cafe gods to get some pictures up here, but in the meantime, I would love to tell you all about my new best friend (sorry, Ella), Bruno.

Bruno the lamb is an orphan lamb that lives in the paddock next to Branwyn and Brent's house. Interests include grazing, bleating, staring vacantly, and frolicking. Ella and I were given the good fortune of bottle feeding him twice a day, which is always a fun and slobbery process. Bruno is seemingly incapable of getting all of the formula from the bottle into his mouth and rather gets it all over his face and usually on his body as well.

When Bruno sees us he stares vacantly for a moment and then gallops in our direction through the field. You can picture the wind blowing through his short wool while he does so, the sunlight hitting him in just the right way. Through our relationship with Bruno we have been fortunate enough to learn that sheep are actually the dumbest animals in creation, though Ella and I know that although Bruno is far too stupid to understand love, he loves us.

Bruno is also incredibly fat. Apparently when Brent first brought him to the nearby paddock to nurse him back to health, he was a scrawny, bony little lamb. This is clearly no longer the case. Bruno's stomach is so huge that you can see it looking from the front and, trust me, it never ceases to amaze how a little lamb like Bruno could be so fat and still move with such ease.

Another physical point of hilarity is Bruno's tail. As it turns out, sheep have their tails clipped in an effort to keep the tail from being absolutely covered in poop, so while we are all used to picturing sheep with little docked tails, they are actually kind of like dogs' tails and wag appropriately. Bruno's tail winds around and around and around like a propeller on a helicopter, providing no end of delight to us.

In short, what I am trying to say is this: Bruno, we love you, and even though you will be dinner some day, we know your vacant little soul will be frolicking in the big paddock in the sky.

For the image-oriented

So, technical difficulties - here's hoping this posts and that it doesn't completely reformat itself, but if it does, lets blame it on the internet situation in Napier, shall we?

Okay folks, here (finally) are some pictures to go along with posts--- yeah, it's time to get caught up! At this point we are back from a lovely four days spent in Wellington and are now enjoying lots of tea and family time at Branwyn's in Hawkes Bay. (This also means lots of Henry time, so prepare for an onslaught of cuteness as the photos follow!! :-)

But first, to back up a little and catch up some with Clare's last post, here are some pictures from our way down to Wellington, our stay there, and then on to the sheep!

A little slice of corrugated heaven from the town that knew no limits:

And then we went to the Zoo:

Monkey see, monkey do...

I had to sneeze...

This one's just ridiculous.

Neeeext:
We met some truly lovely folks in Wellington (Windy City shoutout) who welcomed us into their home for many a meal, cup of tea, discussion of politics, and excellent tours around town!

From left - Alex, Ella, Christiane, Alastair, Clare.
Missing are two key sibs Anna and Helen!

This one's for mom: New Zealands own, Tuatara. Lucky for us Anna and Alastair's university had some on display, otherwise it would have been quite a feat to find one.

Now, onto Branwyn's!

Branwyn's stomping ground at sunset.

Newly arrived, soaking up sun in Branwyn's backyard....sigh, that's right, sun in November!

BRUNO!!! (see Clare's last post)

The all-time favorite pick. How could you refuse a face like that? So full of gratitude...
Oh well, at least he lets us fawn over him. <3 href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNQb0kCVzUqflQ_agcTGT4_QKe0j4005ST55jplMDLt4oFlk95Pb_ngG50OcNoh-_9EHOaG3fsGfCqo2yLeZsRT96Bp_e093StIVaHka3YgwAC_I-F95QG-zodSWweEiYMbb1m8dpuiKU1/s1600-h/Clella+020.jpg">

So inquisitive...

...to a fault!

Baby Henry all grown up with a nice mustache/bearch combo like his daddy...


See?!

Shots of Henry with his newly found harem:

Weeeee..!! Who's having more fun in this picture? Hard to tell, I know.

Look at the camera Henry. Come on, I'll even point.

Happiest of all with mom (Branwyn, for those unknowing) - the harems just for show.

Question of the blog post: who's cutest - Henry or Bruno? (Let's just not tell Branwyn and Brent about this little question, eh? ;-)

some notes from the road

Now that Ella has gotten you all up-to-date on our pursuits (well, pre-Wellington anyway), I thought I'd share a few of the funnier highlights of our NZ trip thusfar. Our first big snag has come in with street signs-- Most things are, for the most part, pretty straightforward, whereas others warrant extensive conversation on our parts about what exactly they might be. Our favorite caution sign is simply an exclamation point, though our overall favorite sign is probably the "aged persons crossing." Ella and I have been having a hard time figuring out why it is that only older people cross the road at that particular junction, and why it's important to watch for older people crossing as opposed to people in general, but the people in charge of signs have deemed it important enough to warrant its own sign. Another sign we couldn't figure out is what I thought at first was a wing, while Ella thought it was a cup of coffee with steam coming off it. Ella finally realized that we were on the Thermal Highway, and that the weird squiggly lines were not a wing or a cup of coffee or tea but rather an indication of thermal waters. Good thing it wasn't anything important, since it took us a few hours on the highway to get that one straight.


Roundabouts are another New Zealand specialty. In the States, as many of you know, roundabouts (or rotaries or traffic circles, whatever you are inclined to call them) are not exactly a frequent occurrence- at first, the only one I could think of was the dreaded Sea Pines circle (we have now added a few outside of Boston to that list, but it's still quite short). This country has a love affair with roundabouts. Not only are they at practically every other intersection, they are oftentimes not justifiable in the slightest. Most of the time they are for two intersecting streets, creating four possible exits on the traffic circle, but sometimes they are only three exits. What's wrong with a stop sign? Maybe a traffic light in an extreme situation? Driving on the left side of the road was nervewracking at first, but now that we are experts, even anticipating all the oncoming traffic circle traffic from the right is not too terrifying (especially since we have had what seems like hundreds of times to practice).

Driving is not the only quirky aspect of New Zealand life. Lots of Kiwis (that's New Zealanders for those of you not hip to the lingo) we've met, while incredibly friendly, have been their own brand of quirky. Probably the best example of this is the entire town of Tirau, which we bumped into on our way to Rotorua. Tirau is a town obsessed with corrugated iron- I'm sure it is a gimmick, to some extent anyway, but it's EVERYWHERE in this town. Two of the buildings are shaped like corrugated iron animals (a sheep, no surprise there, and a dog), the "Welcome to Tirau" signs are made out of corrugated iron, most of the shops have corrugated iron signs, and almost as many of them have some kind of gigantic corrugated iron statue to go along with the store. The garden store has a giant corrugated iron sunflower, the teddy bear shop has a giant corrugated iron teddy bear, and outside of one store there's an entire corrugated iron "safari," complete with an elephant, two giraffes, a leopard, a gorilla, and a sign to tell you that it's a corrugated iron safari.

On a more personalized level, we met a particularly hilarious shopkeeper in Taupo, a tourist destination that we stopped at for lunch on our way to Napier for Ella's birthday. Our car is equipped with FM stations between 76.0 and 90.0, leaving us with very few radio options and a tape deck. We walked past a music store and, feeling a little desperate, popped in to see if they had any tapes for sale. Much to my delight we found a best of The Kinks tape, and decided to see if we couldn't scrounge up another gem. One of the guys working at the store pounced on this opportunity to show us the collection of mixed tapes he had made and was selling. After giggling at a few of the selections (which prompted him to say, "I got all the good ones, eh?"), we eventually settled on his mix titled "Old Skool," a compilation of hackneyed songs that should never be put on one mix together but was a better selection than any of the other abismal choices.

What I guess I'm trying to say here is that although we've done something beyond fascinating essentially every day since we landed in the country, it's all the in between things that are similarly fascinating and oftentimes hilarious (and what we continue to laugh about for days and days after it stops being funny). Ella is a good travel partner for that sort of thing. On that note, we need to get our things together to head out to Napier, so I hope everyone is doing well, and keep the comments and e-mails coming-- it makes us feel special/delighted when we hear from people!

Ella's favorites

Ok, so we've been pretty non-stop with the traveling around and day-tripping everywhere, but here are a few highlights:
1) Waitomo glowworm caves were one of the most amazing places we've been so far. New Zealand has these glowworms that apparently exist nowhere else in the world who attach themselves to the ceilings of cool dark places, and then glow to attract bugs into their webs; the hungrier they are the brighter the light. The result for the onlooker however is a cave roof covered in a sea of what appear to be tens of thousands of tiny glowing stars. Truly awe-inspiring.
2)Rotorua thermal waters. Sounds about as lovely and relaxing as it was (for all that it was rather touristy.) Here's the catch: lovely, warm, SULFURIC waters. Clare and I stank. A lot. We couldn't even bring ourselves to go to a museum after bathing - it seemed unfair to the staff. It was highly enjoyable while we were in the pools, but after the two hour drive back to Hamilton we had to thoroughly air out the car and immediately figure out how to use the washing machine.
3)Birthday fun abounded on the 28th between Brent and I who (we recently discovered) share a birthday! Clare and I drove down to Napier en route to Wellington for a highly enjoyable evening on the farm which included complete celebrations with a family BBQ - cake and all. :-) Also of particular note: I got to feed a baby lamb on my birthday! Now, as Clare and apparently both of my younger siblings will not let me forget, I am officially old - a whopping twenty three years of age.

Happily in Hamilton

Well, our road trip has landed us now in the city of Hamilton at the home of some mutual friends (thank you Joe and Judith) and we are quite excited and appreciative of the home environment! Hamilton it turns out is the perfect location to settle for a bit because it's pretty centrally located and there are quite a few exciting day trips within the radius of a few hours drive time. We showed up and our lovely hosts Julie and Quentin showed us around the extensive gardens they have here in Hamilton, with different sections in the style of different corners of the world - New Zealand it turns out is a places where almost anything grows and thrives which makes gardening fun and weeding overwhelming! Between home-cooked meals and a comfy bed, Clare and I love Hamilton - plus Julie and Quentin kindly offered us the use of their house while they were on vaca for the long weekend, so we've had our run of the place taking full advantage of a kitchen to cook in! :-)
One of the first day trips we took was to a small surf town on the west coast called Raglan, which is only about an hours drive (though it looks much closer on a map, the 'highways' here are tiny and run through many a town center - aka there are tractors driving down the highway.) Raglan was a great town to putz around in because it's a hub of artist cooperatives, so there were tons of artsy handicrafts to drool over and some cool black sand/rock beaches to watch surfers (who ranged from entirely mediocre to pretty impressive) ride some BIG waves. All in all, highly entertaining and relatively nervewracking (reminder: ROCK beaches.)