Orchards!

So, my last post got you through last weekend, this one will get you to this weekend!

This past week we were out at three different schools planting orchards. These orchards are designed to provide a sustainable resource of food for the children at the schools. The first two days we were at intermediate (middle) schools and the last day we were at a primary (elementary) school. The project Orchards in Schools. The orchards were made up of apple, orange, mandarin, pear, and the native feijoa trees.

A Feijoa  fruit

The first school was Bruce McLaren Intermediate. This middle school was built on clay and was very difficult to dig. We also did not have many volunteers. Our working crew was made up of about 15 children that rotated in shifts between classes and helping us, 4 boys from the local high school, and two grandparents who owned a farm. With this little crew we dug through the clay and finished planting a total of 35 trees.

 It was hard, hot, dirty, laborious work, but the excitement and pride on the faces of the students when they saw their accomplishment, and knowing that this would provide these children with something to eat was worth it!

The next day was very similar. We were at a middle school called Henderson Intermediate. The school was mostly Maori, so before we could start digging we were honored by participating in a traditional Maori planting ceremony and blessing. They sung a few hymns in te reo Māori, the Maori’s native language, preformed a Haka, which is a traditional Maori dance of honor, and then processed out to the plot of land where we would be planting. Once out to the plot the Tohunga, or high priest, went to each corner and said a prayer of blessing over the land, and after a few more hymns we were ready to plant.

 On this day we had roughly 15 students from Henderson, another 10 from the local high school, the principal, and 5 volunteers from Constellation Brands, which had donated the money for the trees, who helped us plant. We were digging on an old rubbish heap on a hill. While this was easier than the clay, it was still hard to work with. We were supposed to plant 40 trees, but due to the difficulty of the digging ground and a run in with inclement weather, we only finished 30. The school continued the next day, and all 40 were planted.

The third day was my personal favorite. On this day we were working at Sunnyvale Primary School, which is an elementary school. We had no children working with us, instead we had about 15 parents, and 3 employees from Constellation Brands turn out to help. One father worked in construction and brought a construction digger.

Most of our holes were done before noon. Since the children were not working with us, the teachers would take turns bringing their classes out to observe what we were doing. With the manual labor covered the teacher in me came out, and my job quickly turned to instructor. I stood in a corner out of the way of the shovels, wheelbarrows, and power tools, and the teachers would bring their classes over and I would give a short talk about what we were doing, ask them a few questions, and answer any questions they had.

Though I was not as involved in the manual labor this day, I felt like I had an equally important impact on the children and their understanding of what was going on. This week was by far my favorite yet, and I cannot wait for what's to come! 

A good mix of fun and serious

So, obviously my “I’m gonna try to frequently update this blog” was just wishful thinking. Sorry. Get ready, because here comes more squishing!

Anyway, the weekend after my last post I joined the Mott family for a day at Muriwai beach. Muriwai is a really cool beach and is very different from any of our Florida beaches.

It’s a black sand beach and it has rocky cliffs that come out over the water, and it’s at the foot of a mountain.

 It’s an absolutely gorgeous place! Nicole spared no time in getting completely soaked. She was very cute splashing around in the waves, even if she was fully clothed and not supposed to be in the water.

 Jess and I walked around and took pictures. We then hiked up the cliff. It was very cool, and very dangerous , because the waves were high enough to come over the rocks. You had to watch the water to see when a big wave was coming so you did not get hit and drug over the edge.

The view from the top was beautiful!!!!

Since Sarah couldn't join us at the beach on Saturday she and I spent the day in Downtown Auckland Sunday afternoon. After a little bit of wandering around we stopped and had delicious gelato!

While we were out walking around I found the new "What Bizarre thing has Emma Seen?" This time I found a Possum fur thong. I think this one will be hard to beat, at least, I hope it will!!!

I then had a pretty calm start to my week, with no exploding dishwashers! I spent most of my Monday picking up more magazine donations, and most of my Tuesday down in the warehouse, counting and organizing the donations. In total we had roughly 7,444!!

 I spent most of my Wednesday doing odd jobs around the office. I spent a good bit of the day doing research for survey on what percent of native Maori children were in each individual classroom. It was interesting to see how generally poorer neighbourhoods had higher percentages of Maori, and wealthier neighbourhoods had lower percentages. This surprised me. Though the Maori have historically been oppressed, they are now a very honoured group. It was surprising to me that though the Maori and their culture are honoured and embraced, they are still the poorer people.

Thursday was by far my favourite day! I woke up at 5am, and was in Downtown Auckland by 7:30 to meet a school and take them hiking up Mt. Rangetoto. Mt. Rangetoto is an inactive volcano out in the Auckland harbour. The children were so excited!

 Most of them had never been on a boat, much less hiked a volcano!

I was in charge of four, eleven year old girls and I picked up another on the way up. These are my girls!

They were fascinated with the volcanic rock, and I gave them a small science lesson on how the rock, and rock formations were made from cooled lava.

 My girls were very slow (We had to take breaks every five minutes) and the hike was very long (Seven Kilometres), so we did not make it to the top of the volcano.

 We stopped about half way up and sat down for lunch. It was heart-breaking for me to see what the girls pulled out to eat. Only three of the girls had brought lunch, and their lunch was mostly a gathering of cheap junk food. One of the girls had nothing. I split my lunch with this girl. It was heart-breaking for me to see these sweet girls with nothing. After finishing lunch and hiking back down the volcano the children gathered around us and sang to thank us. It was beautiful! Being able to interact in this way with the children was so precious!

On our boat ride back there was a rainbow! 

I'll finish up with this past Saturday. This Saturday was Jess's ball, which is the equivalent of an American Prom. It's a very big, very special day for New Zealand teens. 

Our day started out at the hairdresser. After great consideration, Jess decided to wear her hair up in a gorgeous half-back style.

After we finished at the hair salon, we headed over to get makeup. Jess picked a silvery blue style. Jess and her friend Hannah looked beautiful!

After going home and putting on her dress, Jess looked absolutely stunning!!!

I was allowed to join them for the Pre-Ball before they left for the ball.

This past week has been blessed with fun and eye-opening experiences!

The Squished edition!

So obviously I'm me, and anyone who knows me knows that I'm generally a little bit behind. So, in order to make up for it I'm going to try and squish the highlights of the past few days into one post. So, here goes! :)

Monday was Queen's day, which is the queen's birthday and a national holiday, so we did not have work. Instead, we spent the day at the mall I got a working New Zealand cell phone number, and was familiarized with many New Zealand shops and a couple snack foods and treats. In the mall I found a pair of cow hide heels. 

These actually still had fur on them! I found them quite amusing.

Further along in our mall explorations I found a large pink bunny onesie. It looked like something right out of A Christmas Story!

 

After shopping we spent the evening at Julie, the founder of Kidscan's, house. Julie is a really kind sole. Not only did she start a charity for children in need, she also rescues animals from her home. Julie is the proud mama of 7 cats 3 dogs and a hedgehog, all of which she herself found and took in, and which I had the great pleasure of meeting. The evening with Julie was fun and relaxing and a wonderful way to meet my new boss!  

Yesterday was my first day at work. After a tour of the office and warehouse I was given the job of decorating the welcome wall. I spent about an hour gathering different awards, recognitions, and letters from the children. I then went about trying to attach these things to the wall. My first attempt was double sided tape. Unfortunately  most of the objects were too heavy to stay up with tape. I then moved on to thumbtacks, and when that failed, nails and screws. After about an hour of trying to push, hammer, and screw things into the wall, it was decided that the wall was cement and nothing I could do would penetrate the wall. Finally, a fellow employee found a box of Velcro wall sticks. These worked quite well for holding things to the wall. Here is the product of my labor.

I finished the wall faster than expected, and after reporting this to David, my supervisor, I went out in search of something else I could do. I decided on doing the dishes in the kitchen. I loaded the dish washer, poured in the soap, and started it up. About 10 minutes later I heard a scream from the kitchen and came in to find that the dish washer was vomiting bubbles all over the floor. I had apparently used the wrong soap and the dish washer was going crazy.

I then spent 30 minutes cleaning up the mess I had made. Here's the dish washer half way through cleaning it. How else was I supposed to make a lasting impression, right?

After work I got the honor of going to Jess's dress fitting for the ball a few weeks from now. Here in New Zealand they call their Prom a Ball; I love that, it sounds so proper. Jess looked absolutely stunning!!! She's just as beautiful on the outside as she is within.

Today I did more office style work, I called nearly 30 schools and spoke with them about the possibility of planting fruit trees, I created a floor plan of the office, and when I surprised David by finishing all the work he had planned for me two hours ahead of schedule, I sorted through children’s letters.

My desk was covered in the sweet scribblings of grateful children! All the papers are letters, and the box is full to the brim. I could not think of a sweeter job to do!   :)

New Zealand, The first few days

My adventures were supposed to start on Wednesday the 27th, but life is full of surprises. After days packed full of the insanity that is packing, last minute checks and a thousand trips to the store a day, I was finally at the airport. After emotional goodbyes and last pictures and a sluggishly slow line through security I was off and running. As I made it to the terminal (15 min early) they were closing the gate. When I approached the counter I was told that the flight was leaving early and because they were leaving early, I had missed the flight by 1 minute. After roughly an hour we worked out arrangements for me to fly out the next day and I went home for a peaceful final night with my family.
Twenty four hours came and went and I was off! My first stop was in La. The view out my window was beautiful, the clouds were an endless sea of fluff. 

I then had the amazing opportunity to watch the sunset from above the clouds. 

I love flying at night because the cities look like they are on fire from the lights! The lights in LA seemed to stretch on as far as I could see, even from the air. 

After landing in LA I got off the plane and ran onto my next flight right as they called my ticket number. The 16 hour flight that followed was mostly uneventful, until we were about five hours off the coast of Australia. Because it's not one of my trips until you feel like you're about to die! As we were flying over a patch of islands we hit a bad storm. The plane started falling then would rise, and 

bounced and rattled its way around the sky. It was so rough my nose started to bleed. After thirty minutes that felt like a lifetime, we made our way to the other side of the storm and were shortly greeted by a beautiful sunrise.

Sydney was beautiful and busy. I had a five hour layover and quickly set about to explore the airport and people watch. 

On my way out of Sydney I had the opportunity to briefly see the Sydney Opera house!!! If you look closely you can see it inside the red circle.

On my flight over to New Zealand I watched the Hobbit. I could not think of a more fitting movie to watch on my way to this beautiful land than one of the movies that made me fall in love with it. Finally, I could see the New Zealand shore!!! 

It was so gorgeous, I could not believe I was finally here! I got off the plane absolutely beaming with excite and made my way through customs to find three beautiful smiling faces waiting for me. 

I'm so happy and excited to finally be here!!!