Anita’s site <3 ٩( ᐛ )و

Kaitiakitanga

Up to this day, iwi(tribes) and hapū(sub-tribes) are still practicing Kaitiakitanga to support our environment and Māori culture; even some schools in New Zealand focus on learning more about Kaitiakitanga!

What is Kaitiakitanga?

To begin, Kaitiakitanga is the New Zealand Māori term for guardianship or protection—it is to take responsibility for the land, waters, skies and nature of the world, to protect it for our future generations.

If we break down the words, Kaitiakitanga got its name from the prefix ‘kai’ meaning a person doing an action, ‘tiaki’ means to guard, therefore, ‘kai’ with ‘tiaki’ creates the word ‘kaitiaki’ which is defined as a person or a group that is a guardian. Along with kaitiaki, comes the suffix ‘tanga’ which means conservation; together, they become Kaitiakitanga.

Kaitiaki of the Environment

Speaking of kaitiaki, not only does this just apply to people but also animals and other beings that take care of the environment too. For instance, taniwha are guardians of the waters and other areas.

To be a Kaitiaki of the environment is to be a practitioner that takes mana, tapu, and mauri into consideration—they are the key concepts that support Kaitiakitanga.

Mana is a spiritual power, in the context of Kaitiakitanga, it can be shown in forests based on its nature, animals, and the fruit it bears; for example, if a forest’s overall environment is thriving, it has great mana.

Tapu on the other hand is a spiritual restriction; One type of tapu is rāhui, it can take roles in forests to create temporary/non-temporary restrictions or bans to food sources so you don’t take too much which would lead to the source going extinct or having a hefty reduction of it.

Lastly, we have mauri, a life force; mauri allows life to grow including fruit, birds, flowers, etc. Back then, forests were taken care of with great responsibility, so much so that sometimes a tohunga(priest) would do a ritual such as a karakia over a mauri stone in forests, which is believed to maintain the forest’s life force or to ‘revive’ a forest containing not much life. People especially protected its mauri for its forest mana to flourish.

How Māori practiced Kaitiakitanga

Practicing Kaitiakitanga involves harvesting in moderation by taking only what is needed—not hunting and fishing as a sport, but for food. There were other practices too, for example, using a maramataka(lunar calendar) to decide when the time is right to plant and harvest, not using bird snares when birds were breeding, using the proper baskets used for gathering food, rāhui on food sources, and more. Often, only once a year, tribes would fish with a large net strung between two canoes.

To conclude, Kaitiakitanga is an important practice that helps people maintain their relationship with the environment around them, to become kaitiaki, to look after Papatūānuku and her land.

Tōtora park

On the 30th of July I visited Tōtora Park for my launch project on Kaitiakitanga.

The whole morning and middle block I was dragging my legs through its tight muddy forest, sometimes hiking up and down steep stairs and hills throughout my agonising journey to find plants, birds, basically nature in general using an app called ‘Seek’ to scan all the stuff I was supposed to look for; the app instructs you to focus your camera on something of nature so that that it can identify the species and the name of the object you took a photo of to inform you of it.

The entire trip lasted a long time and it sure was boring since all the Kāhu students had to travel in a super long line whilst walking constantly resulting with my legs being sore. We made a few stops along the way to scan plants, however, for me the Seek app couldn’t fully recognise the all greenery I was trying to scan and I swear we would only stop to scan plants for 30 seconds before moving again; I totally agree that’s enough time to get a few photos but at the time I strictly only used the scanning feature which would usually force you to stand still with your camera pointing at the plants for eternity and then not be able to recognise the thing you’re taking a photo of, my mistake was that I didn’t know you could select pictures from your own photo album. What I could’ve done was to take a photo of the plant with my default camera and then select it in the Seek app for it to get scanned which is WAY faster!

Unfortunately in the end I got absolutely no photos from Tōtora Park…

 

The Botanical Gardens

A few days after, I went to the Botanical Gardens on the 6th of August.

The Botanical Gardens was a way better experience, all the Kāhu students were split into small groups with one guardian in each one so the groups don’t muck around or in case there’s an emergency which was a terrific idea because if we were to travel in a big humongous group it would be too crowded to scan your plants since other people would be trying to scan it too, second, strangers wouldn’t be able to walk through us if we were at a certain place taking pictures where there would be tons of kids standing in the middle of nowhere in summary, crowding the walkways.

This time I actually took photos, LOADS of photos in fact as my group stopped for a good while everytime we took our photos plus, that was then I realised the whole “Oh my gosh I can select already taken photos from my photo album!”. I found lots of plant species that day.

The Botanical Gardens resembles a park, it’s clean, tidy, beautiful and comforting but it still was one hell of a walking trip.

(Names according to the Seek app)

Leopard-plant

Chinese Fringe Flower

(.                                  Japanese Camellia
(.                                    Saucer Magnolia

What was different about the Botanical Gardens & Tōtora park?

Viewing it from a physical perspective I think Tōtora Park has a pretty nice scenery despite the fact it’s just nature itself just existing, they’re not plotted in specific places like the Botanical Gardens have their plants. Although, since Tōtora Park tries to make itself as natural as possible it doesn’t have railings for some of their tall stairs which without it I think you could slip easily especially when it’s pouring rain. Tōtora Park also has its walking paths entirely made of mud and dirt making it difficult to walk on when it’s sloppy and wet after or during rainfalls unlike the Botanical Gardens where it usually has concrete, cobblestone, etc for their pathways so you’ll be slip-free when exploring their gardens. Lastly, from what I’ve seen, Tōtora Park tends to have a few more bits of rubbish in their area even though they have plenty of trash cans around. On the other hand, the Botanical Gardens barely has rubbish lying around, maybe because they hire people to clean it up or because people care for it more.

What is Kaitiakitanga and how is this related to it?

Kaitiakitanga is the Māori term for guardians of the sky, sea, land, or to put it simply, the environment. The actions of protecting and caring for our environment is Kaitiakitanga itself. Tōtora Park and the Botanical gardens are both related to this subject because they both look after their natural surroundings very well and have an environment filled with plants, trees and flowers that they take care of.

 

 

J.R.R INFORMATION REPORT

Born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, 3rd of January 1892-1973, J.R.R Tolkein also known as John Ronald Reuel Tolkein is a famous and well known philologist and writer, author of many mythopoeia and high fantasy books including his most famous ones ‘The Hobbit’ along with ‘The Lord of The Rings’.

POPULARITY OF HIS BOOKS

Tolkein’s most popular books ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of The Rings’ share their connections through tales, poems, fictional history, made-up languages and literary essays about their fantasy worlds like ‘Arda’ and ‘Middle Earth’; ‘The Lord of The Rings’ is a sequel to ‘The Hobbit’.

The unexpected success of both of these books made a profound interest in the fantasy genre which deeply inspired many more new fantasy books authors. Because of that, up to this day J.R.R Tolkein is mainly identified as the “Father” of modern fantasy literature and regarded as one of the most influential authors of all time.

EARLY LIFE

To begin, J.R.R Tolkein’s parental ancestors were middle class craftsmen that made and sold clocks, watches and piano throughout London and Birmingham. As the years went by from 1925-1945 Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and was a Fellow(recognised privileged member) of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. Later on, he moved into the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language & Literature and a Fellow of Merton College. Held kept these positions from 1945 until in 1959 when he retired.

Surprisingly, as additional information, Tolkein was appointed commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth ll on the 28th of March 1972!

THE HOBBIT

J.R.R was 38 years old when he began writing ‘The Hobbit’ in 1930; it was in an effort to combine his two literary interests, a mythology of England and stories for his four children. As a philologist he was very familiar with the old northern myths and epics. After two and a half years, ‘The Hobbit’ was finally published in 1937 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for the best juvenile fiction.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Seeing the succession of ‘The Hobbit’, Tolkein’s publisher, Stanley Unwin asked for a sequel in which Tolkein offered a draft of the masterpiece that would later be ‘The Silmarillion’. Stanley refused the draft commenting it was obscure and “too Celtic” leading Tolkein to begin working on a new story that became ‘The Lord of The Rings’ written between 1937-1949 at age 45. ‘The Lord of The Rings’ was wrote with his friends in mind as it was intended to be a tribute to them as they had sadly passed away during WWl, especially to his closest friends, Robert Gilson and Geoffrey Smith. The sequel eventually developed into a series of three books that were all published between 1954 and 1955.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, J.R.R Tolkein is an excellent and inspiring English writer with many magnificent high fantasy novels he has written throughout his life since he was 30. Without him, ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of The Rings’ would’ve never existed, the same with the many authors and books that have took inspiration from him to this day.

Before we got on the bus to go to Polyfest the Kāhu students were split into groups with some Kāhu teachers and adult volunteers in charge of them. 

On the bus was not what I imagined; I thought it was going to be a smooth & lengthy ride. But instead, the teachers had the AUDACITY to say that each row of two seats needed to have 3 STUDENTS SITTING THERE… Obviously since each section of seats were made specifically for 2 people it was uncomfortably squishy; even worse was that I was legit hanging on for my life on the edge, as the bus switched directions I had to hold on to the handle on the left top corner of the seat in front of me.

At Polyfest we were first led to a stage sort of hiding in the back from all the food markets where we had to be separated by schools since we weren’t the only school visiting Polyfest. Then an adult announced we’d first have a tour around the markets whilst following a flag so that we don’t get lost; I swear to god they purposely made us walk around the stalls to make us hungry (the food smelled so damn delicious).

After, everyone came back to the stage to see a few police officers that came to select some people to play some activities (one student from each school) on the stage and then gave them a few prizes afterwards. There were also firemen that were there to inform us that if we didn’t have a fire detector in our house they would gladly be able to help us install one for free if we called them. Continuously, a few more people came on to the stage to sort of ‘advertise’ to all the students.

Later then I FINALLY got to see the actual concert stage that we had already passed like 3 times during our little walking trips which showcased dances from different cultures; the whole point of coming to Polyfest in the first place. All the students had to sit on the grass covered ground to admire the performances that included Chinese, Punjabi, Philippine, and etc dances I don’t quite remember.

Lastly, there was also a ‘Māori Stage’ we watched where I think it was high school students performing hakas and lots of Māori songs.

My visit to Polyfest wasn’t too bad because although all the shows were so amazing they gave me goosebumps, I had to sit, stand, and walk under the SCORCHING HOT SUN for maybe around 4-5 hours.

 

 

The wind tickled and blew on my ears as we flew across the skies.

I grabbed tight on their coat and sailed like a boat on the panda as it flies.

When I look down I can see the little town right below my feet.

 I wave hello to the birds that sing and chirp while some like to go TWEET!

The many balloons that carried our weight were red cherry tomatoes floating under the sun.

Surprisingly, the balloons held on even when the panda swinged and spun.

I’m not sure if the panda has noticed yet but truckloads of envelopes were falling out of their bag spreading like a wildfire.

I don’t want to sound rude but if the panda keeps this up they may have to retire.

Most noticeable of all, the panda’s body was super round, rounder than a big ball!

Moreover, the panda’s ears were the size of a pea compared to the rest of their body, oh no! It’s starting to get foggy!

Written by Anita.Z

I have a great friend who I call Billeh; they always refuse to tell me what their actual name was everytime I ask although we’ve been close friends for a while now so I had to make up a name for me to call them. 

 

Now, straight to the point, Billeh isn’t actually what you think they might be… and by that I mean they aren’t human, not an animal or an insect either but a potato. Yes, I do realise that I sound mentally insane and that you’re asking why I’m not in the mental hospital getting treatment but that isn’t what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to tell you about how to become friends with a potato; I see a lot of people have trouble with doing so, so I am willing to help the people that are inexperienced.

 

The first time I met Billeh was on the kitchen countertop right next to where my mum was making potato stew for dinner. Billeh looked pitifully sad with no friends left as they were all tossed into the jacuzzi having fun with Billeh left out. When my mum left to grab her phone from the living room I took Billeh with me upstairs to my room instead of the jacuzzi because to be honest it looked really hot and second, Billeh’s friends had sank to the bottom of the tub; not a safe jacuzzi in the slightest.

 

As I carried Billeh upstairs they didn’t say anything; I’ve learnt since then that Billeh is a very very very shy potato, maybe by chance they have selective mutism which is what I would tell myself whenever Billeh ignores me; that is, all the time. 

 

First tip that you’ll need to know is that, from my experience, potatoes are always very quiet and introverted so it’s best to not waste your time waiting for a reply from them for 2 hours and 12 minutes. Despite the fact that they don’t really ever reply, they are super good listeners and that’s what I love about Billeh. Billeh somehow unknowingly always has time for me to talk with them, I mean they are technically living in my room rent free so why would they have a job? So instead of spending their free time drawing or reading they kind of just SIT there on my window sill doing nothing except admiring the view outside like an actual couch potato; man if I had that much time I would be sooo overjoyed!

 

Lastly, potatoes always let you take them where you wanna go because that’s how chill they are all the time, and because they aren’t the type to care much about anything i think.

 

So yeah, Billeh is an amazing potato friend, genuinely.

 

 

During my first few days of being in the Kāhu space again this year I was exhausted almost all of the time because of the holiday jet lag.

I’ve also been moved to Kāhu 2 in Miss. Smith’s class which I’m really grateful for since she’s a very nice teacher, although, I still miss being in Kāhu 5, the number is just so iconic towards me.

So far the teachers have been teaching us basic intermediate expectations and stuff we will be doing regularly on a daily basis while in Kāhu. We’ve also been learning about how to complete SDL tasks and we’ve been filling in our Text Rubric related to our writing asstle.

I feel like all the other year 8 that were in Kāhu last year are probably tired from getting taught the same thing for the 2nd time in a row including me, but at least some parts of my memories are being put back together since obviously I don’t perfectly remember how to do some things.

It’s nice to have a fresh start again even if a rocky path will gradually appear throughout the year for me. ( ^ —- ^ ) ☆ !

 

My first visit to the Rainbow’s End amusement park was really scary yet super exciting, fun even. It was a decent experience with my friends I’ll never forget! 

 

Everything all started when one early morning Aeysha sent a text in the group chat suggesting we all go on a trip to Rainbow’s End. Although everyone was familiar with the place, yapping about how they went there as a child, I hadn’t a clue on what kind of place Rainbow’s End was; causing me to feel pretty awkward. I texted  Aeysha asking what that place was and she replied that it was an amusement park around the Manukau City Centre which was pretty close to where I live; weird I’d never heard of it before. We all then agreed to meet each other at 11am sharp, just me, Ayesha, Jaxon, and Leo.

 

At the designated time, everyone was there except for Leo. Obviously I didn’t think any of us would even expect him to come early knowing that he lives without a doubt way farer than any of us, plus traffic; In the end, Leo was only 10 minutes late so I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal.

 

After we got our tickets, we were all set to go and have fun! First, along the way we came across a large board that displayed the map of the amusement park. Jaxon implied that we would go to the ‘Gold Rush Mine Ride’, he said he loved to go there as a kid and, well, forgot how the ride felt like. Right after Jaxon had finished his sentence, instantly, Ayesha  excitedly said that once we had finished the ‘Gold Rush Mine Ride’ we should definitely try out the ‘Corkscrew Coaster’ as she pointed at the gigantic roller coaster I wanted to avoid going on with white rails that had several loops and different coloured carts hence creating a rainbow colour scheme. I don’t think making the rollercoaster give a fluffy unicorn and rainbow vibes would make it any less scary.

 

As we finished our discussion, we started heading to our first ride. I had no idea where this Gold Mine… Rush… ride thingy or whatever you call it was so I just instinctively followed my friends with Jaxon leading the bunch. When we got to the entrance of the ride I was blown away by the cowboy themed atmosphere inside the hut of where you que for your turn. All the walls were made of aged wooden planks for the aesthetic, same for the worn out lane ropes that everybody kept fidgeting with and hanging onto while they waited their turn. The queue was unbelievably long, thus, I thought we’d have to wait at least 20 minutes; we waited 30 minutes.

 

Finally, we reached the gate where you can actually go on the ride; it was like a miracle come true. The carts exactly captured the looks of a real mine cart, just like they came out of the Wild West; thank god each cart had two seats, otherwise I’d probably be scared to death with no one to sit next to.

 

I sat in the back cart beside Leo who also didn’t have the urge to sit in the cart in front of us, where Jaxon and Aeysha were. I was already nervous just sitting in the mine cart because right up front was a dark cave as if we were really gonna go mining. Suddenly, the Rainbow’s End staff told us to enjoy the ride before the carts gradually began to drive into the eerie cave. Inside the cave was totally pitch black, I closed my eyes while huddling with Leo as we both constantly squealed like eagles just when the ride had started. Whilst I had my eyes shut, in the silence, I could hear the cart’s loud rustling along with Aeysha’s and Jaxon’s snickering as we went further into the cave. I thought to myself, what if something jumpscared me from the ceiling? What if the roller coaster stopped in the middle of this darkness? Then, a bright light shone on my eyes causing me to open them. For a couple of seconds the cart had drove outside to display what seemed to be a backyard with trees and a small garden surrounded by nature including a coloured statue of a wise looking elderly person holding a lantern right before we went into another dark cave which to deference had signs at the entrance informing us that ahead was a dangerous and unstable mine. This time, I decided to open my eyes thinking “what could go wrong?”

 

Inside the second cave was also extremely dark but, it was also accompanied by colourful glowing crystals all around the tunnel. All of a sudden, an automated voice shouted “LOOK OUT!!!” right before the roller coaster took a sharp turn to the right, and you know who was on the right seat? Me. The sudden turn aggressively banged the side of my head and you know what the carts were made of? M-E-T-A-L. When I got hit, I let out a quick groan that none of them heard because the roller coaster was quite loud as mentioned before. With my hand, I covered the area of my head that now most likely had a bruise and tried to shrug it off. The cave’s path had ended and the rollercoaster drove outside again, blinding my eyes once more before the props outside greeted us with a skeleton in a cemetery which in my opinion, was a pretty random topic for a mine cave. As the ride continued, the carts swiftly followed the rails in many different directions until the most nerve-racking part was about to begin. 

 

The carts slowly crept up a tall ramp. That’s it. I’m really gonna die today was what I kept telling myself over and over and over repeatedly in shallow whispers that I think Leo might’ve heard from the extremely worried look on his face. As soon as we reached the top, I had my eyes completely shut, ready for the big drop. Then, surprisingly, this ‘big drop’ I was all worried about…didn’t exist? Instead, the rollercoaster was fastly guided down a straight path that very gradually descended throughout the rest of the  curves and turns this ride had to offer until we reached the end of that incredibly short ride.

 

While we got off the ride, Aeysha asked us how the ride was. Jaxon replied that it was a bit boring, but me and Leo were dazed and dumbfounded… on how exciting roller coasters were!!! Leo and I were really intrigued to try the Corkscrew Coaster next as could be seen with the reaction from the smile on our faces and how we kept asking the rest if we could go straight away. Though Aeysha was sorta confused at first, she was glad that we were now fond of rollercoasters; starting from then, at the same time we rushed to head to the second roller coaster, I could see Aeysha sneaking a genuine smile behind us.

 

Eventually, we got to the roller coaster and sadly for us it was closed because of some ‘technical difficulties’ as it said according to the sign on the top of the tall staircase. Aeysha was of course, a little upset that we didn’t get to try the ride, she told us it was the bestest ride she’d ever gone on during her trips to Rainbow’s End. I felt a bit bad that she didn’t get to go on her favourite rollercoaster.

 

Seeing that the ride was closed today, we then aimed to go get food from the ‘Hungry Miner Dining’ which was a food stall near the ‘Gold Rush Mine Ride’; I think it was pretty creative that both the buildings were related to each other. At the food stall, I ordered a hotdog that tasted better than average but, the cold sprinkled cheese on top of it was disappointing since the weather was chilly and so extremely windy that even our napkins started flying away.

 

Afterwards, we left the food stall to go on the ‘Stratosfear’, along with the ‘Bumper Boats’ ride. While we chased to go on another fun ride, Jaxon said he felt nauseous and needed to go to the restroom for a bit. During that time, the rest of us waited for him at the outside benches where we had a long interesting conversation making me almost forget why we were outside the restrooms in the first place. It had been well over maybe 15 minutes and everyone was really worried, so Leo suggested he go and check up on Jaxon. Turns out Jaxon had thrown up possibly because of an allergic reaction, he told us it might’ve been the coffee he drank earlier had dairy milk instead of soy milk. To end the day, Leo said he’d take Jaxon to the doctor’s in case anything gets worse because we all knew Jaxon was seriously allergic to dairy products. As Leo and Jaxon left, Ayesha and I decided to leave Rainbow’s End at this point so that we could finish some school assignments at her place.

 

Honestly, I had an enjoyable and amazing time at Rainbow’s End! I just really wished all those problems hadn’t occurred on my first visit there…

Welcome to your brand new blog at The Gardens School Sites.

To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.