By Seth Hoffman
I’ve been a busy fella here in Wellington. I’m going to try and sum up the past few weeks in this entry. The focus of today’s blog entry is “connections.” You never know where, what, or who one connection will lead to. When I first arrived in Wellington, I was lucky enough to stay in the apartment of Fulbright Alumni Malcolm McKinnon.
Through Malcolm, I met his wonderful friend Keith. After telling Keith that I am seeking out musical outlets and community, he connected me with his friend Patricia, who is part of a ukulele club. Here is a little clip of the magic that happens here.
This group is facilitated by the talented, hardworking, encouraging, and inspirational Shane McAlister. He is a musical soul brother of mine. He spreads joy through teaching and performing music to the world.
Check out his sweet ride.
Now that’s what I call arriving to the gig in style.One day I was walking down the road to find a nice place to do some busking (playing music on the street).
I found a nice place to play by the water. This lady approached me and told me I could not play there. She pointed to some places not far away that I was allowed to play music. I thanked her, and we got to talking. She detected my accent (yes I have an accent, I was quite excited to learn this) and asked what I was doing here in New Zealand. I explained that I am here to look at the role of music and the arts in education. She told me about her son and his work with teaching Maori and Kapa Haka.
Kapa Haka
Kapa Haka is the term for Māori performing arts and literally means to form a line (kapa) and dance (haka). Kapa haka is an avenue for Maori people to express and showcase their heritage and cultural Polynesian identity through song and dance. So, I connected with her son Matiu. I contacted Matiu over Facebook and explained who I am and what I’m doing (and that I met his mother).
I asked if I might sit in on some of his classes. He told me to meet him outside the Paekakariki train station a few days later, and I could accompany on a full day of teaching.
Ticket to Ride
I got my train ticket to Paekakariki (about an hour ride north of Central Wellington). As you may know or remember about the “hongi” from my earlier blog entry: A hongi is a traditional Māori greeting in New Zealand. It is done by pressing one’s nose and forehead (at the same time) to another person at an encounter.It is used at traditional meetings among Māori people and on major ceremonies and serves a similar purpose to a formal handshake in modern western culture, and indeed a hongi is often used in conjunction with one.
In the hongi, the ha (or breath of life), is exchanged and intermingled. The breath of life can also be interpreted as the sharing of both party’s souls.
He taught hongi to some students. The students are very respectful and the connection they have with each other is beautiful. It was powerful to see these kids doing Kapa Haka.
Between classes, I met the school principal who told me to feel free to walk around and check out the campus. He encouraged me to look at the school garden. I was curious to see how it compared with our lovely garden at Mountain Mahogany Community School.
I met these great kids who gave me a tour of the garden. They snacked on various plants (just like the kids at MMCS). After a full day of teaching students,
Matiu was asked to present at the staff meeting to teach some Maori to the teachers. The teachers and principal really wanted to improve their Maori pronunciation and understanding.
This man is a hard worker, a talented musician and teacher, and he is really passionate about what he does.
These schools are truly fortunate to have him working with their community.
Connecting Opportunities
My Fulbright host family is the couple Bill and Sally Barrett. Sally happens to be the wonderful principal at Wadestown School. She welcomed me to do some musical activities with some classes here.
Another connection I made is with the advisor or my fellow Fulbrighter, Shahnaz. His name is Bruce Carey. He’s not only a great professor, but he’s also a great songwriter and performer.
Through Bruce, I met this other talented singer/songwriter/guitarist Chris Moses.
Bruce is the person who told me about the great open mic at The Fringe Bar, which led to my first New Zealand gig. Both Bruce and Chris opened for me at the Fringe Bar on Friday March 13th 2015.
I’ll end this entry here for now. Stay tuned for some more photos and video clips of the culture here in Welllington, New Zealand. I’ll be visiting several more schools these next couple weeks.For now, won’t you join me in some delicious gelato?
*****
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Seth Hoffman
Community Publishing will be publishing a Multimedia Book written and Illustrated by Seth Hoffman titled, Janie and the Hummingbird. Seth is a musician, artist and educator based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Follow his adventures here every Tuesday.
Community Publishing brings local artists of all mediums together in creative collaborations for distribution as multimedia eBooks while promoting literacy in our communities.
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After about a week working and helping Gustavo, Leigh and I left our big bags and headed for El Bolsón for a few days of couch surfing near the town and weekend of hiking.
stands, you can by artisanal beer, chocolate, paintings, toys, and the list goes on. It’s not an overwhelming amount of vendors and the crowd of locals and tourists mingle to the beat of the drum circle playing near the pond. It’s a good way to spend the morning.
price of a bundle of fruit, I have picked up something’s that I will certainly take with me on future travels. Budgeting included. All that aside, now it’s time to take advantage of all the great opportunities for shoestring travelers. We have recently received word from several hosts and families south in Argentina inviting us to do some work in exchange for food and lodging. Food and lodging, our two main expenses. Really, the only things you really have to worry about while traveling. And, if done right, two things that could always be cheaper or free.
dinner are huge portions of steamy white rice and vegetables, many grown on the farm. The company is a mishmash of volunteers from around the world, the US , France, Italy, England yet we all have something in common in the way that we have found ourselves here, in a post dinner trance, hot tea in hand playing a card game called 
got out and walked in the direction I knew the beach would be. But, after about a half a mile of scrambling over boulders while dodging a questionable smelling stream of black goo all with my big backpack on, it occurred to me that this might be wrong. I feel like an idiot now that I even walked that far knowing somewhere, in the back of mind, that there should be a dirt road or something. There was no way the volunteers were making this walk multiple times a week. Turns out, no one was making this walk, ever. I was nowhere. I confess, when I realized I was truly far from my real destination,there were tears, but only a few panicked ones that barely left my eyes. 
I made it back to the road just as the sun dropped behind some misty, green slopes near the pavement and I stuck out my thumb. It was nearly night and I was not at jihuay. In fact, I had not even begun the 30 minute walk to the farm yet. I had only had a very real detour. I was picked up by a nice couple who looked at me with a mixture of concern and fear as they asked where I was going and where I was from. I could barely answer there questions I was so relieved to be in a car for a moment. They dropped me at the Santa Rosa stop about 3 hundred yards up the road. I could have walked. I was so close and yet had gotten so very much off track. So close and yet, still at the top of a hill at night with the fact that my destination was down somewhere at the bottom. So I took out my light and walked. My feet were killing me and it was chilly. At this point I had already thanked my friend who gave me the bright orange, down coat I had been wearing that evening a dozen times. But it was still cold, probably from the thin veil of sweat that had appeared all over my body when I had to hustle back to the road and hitchhike, for the first time mind you. 
leveled off at the bottom and rounded a bend to find a large wooden gate off to the right. I had made it. “Fundo Jihuay” was written on the white plaster wall so I reached up and pulled the rope for the bell. I was quickly greeted by 2 huge ride guan ridgeback dogs and a smaller, silver mastiff puppy. These dogs would eventually be my friends but right now I was a stranger in the dark. At that point though, nothing could scare me, I was so numb with relief at arriving.
middle but that does not deter tourists from paying 10 
It was at this hostel called Corola del Sur that I met Jason who just completed his first year of travel. He saved for 5 years so that he could travel the world for 3 and here I am itching to call my parents after 72 hours. His story was inspiring to me that he could spend so much time alone. I pride myself on being able to converse with strangers and it can be easy to make friends in the environment of a hostel. People come and go and it’s easy to begin a conversation: hey, you traveling alone? No? Oh how many people? Where you from? Where you going? And it usually takes off from there. However, it is just as easy to find yourself very alone yet surrounded by people. It’s difficult if these people have already decided on their friend groups for the day. You must establish yourself quickly in this setting and I refuse to be alone all the time. If I want company I will find it.
