Orientation Part II

The rest of orientation week flew by with visits to the Peninsula during which students examined seals (from the suggested viewing distance of 10 meters), looked out for Hutton’s Shearwaters, an endangered bird that is being reintroduced to Kaikoura, and planted some cabbage trees and flax plants for the local DOC (Department of Conservation).

The following afternoon everyone went to visit the Marae that is located in Kaikoura. Students remembered all of the instructions for their entry onto the Marae, Marcel gave a great speech and everyone sang a song in Maori. We were able to hear part of the history of the people of this Marae, an oral tradition that has been passed down for generations.Students also enjoyed an evening filled with an introduction to Maori culture. The origins of the Haka were explained, along with the fact that the Haka that most westerners know from it’s performance at the beginning of each All Blacks rugby game, is actually a North Island Maori Haka, and is not performed by South Island Maori. Instead we learned a Haka that may or may not have had something to do with oranges and apples? The translation was a bit obscure.

Other highlights of the week included;

• Visits to the Resource Recovery Centre where all of the recycling goes. In Kaikoura recycling is free, getting rid of trash or “Rubbish” as it is known here costs money.
• Several students and staff went to see a showing of The Cove in the little Kaikoura theatre, the Mayfair, home to one of the oldest movie projectors in New Zealand. The projector only broke down once, as the audience learned about the annual slaughter of 23,000 dolphins in the small Japanese fishing village of Taiji. The dolphin meat which contains approximately 500 times the amount of mercury that the Japanese government stipulates is acceptable to sell to consumers is used in mandatory school lunches and is mislabeled and sold in supermarkets as whale meat.

The weekend at the Old Convent was quiet as all 24 students left on their “Student Trip Weekend.” A number of them took the bus to Christchurch and spent the weekend exploring the city which another group ventured into the Seaward Kaikoura Mountains to go “Tramping.”