A Week in Lower Hutt

SoPac: 

Well, we're back from a week-long field trip to Wellington and Lower Hutt.  We spent the week in the city region as part of Sustainable Community Development in an attempt to apply the theoretical to the practical and see how community development plays out in a New Zealand context.  

The week was spent hearing various speakers and visiting sites relating to community development in the Wellington region.  

A mural of famous All-Blacks Piri Weepu and Tana Umaga who came out of Wainuiomata, a small town in the city limits of Lower Hutt

We were able to meet with the council community development team, various employees from Housing New Zealand, and even motivational speaker Billy Graham of the Nae Nae Boxing Club.  We were even invited, to our surprise, to the Hutt City Community Awards Banquet where we were inspired by stories of different outstanding citizens in the community.

The group with Hutt City mayor Ray Wallace. Ray's in red.

The whirlwind week concluded with the USA vs. Australia World Cup Rugby game.  Unfortunately, our boys in blue did not come out on top but lucky for us, America is a resilient nation.  Boys, as Aaliyah so wisely advises "if at first you don't succeed, you dust yourself off and try again."  Also, see Chumbawamba's "I Get Knocked Down"

Don't worry folks, Amy knows

Just a bunch of Yankees.  Kudos to Darin, the bald eagle in the back right

And that was the week.  It was no doubt a learning experience as this was our first trip to the Wellington region, but we got to meet some cool people, hear some good stories, and see a little bit more of the world.  

A special thanks to our brothers and sisters at Te Kakano o te Aroha Marae for hosting us, sharing with us, and preparing a hangi for us!  We thank God for you and hope to see you soon. 

Reading Week

So Pac: 

This past week was reading week, a week devoted to reading in preparation for the coming courses. Some of our readings included The River Why, Holy the Firm, and Sand County Almanac.

The week was, therefore, pretty laid back and wide open. One of the neat opportunities we had was to help with Trees For Travelers, an organization that sells and plants native trees to tourists in an attempt to offset the carbon footprint of their travels to Kaikoura.

Laura (Waynesburg) clears some weeds. 

Paige (Westmont) doing her part. 

Friday was Courtnay's big birthday bash.  Courtnay is our beloved program director, so we thought we'd go all out to give her a great party.  The party was a St. John's themed one, as Court is a volunteer for the Kaikoura St. John's Ambulance Core.  It was originally planned for Thursday night, but Court was ironically, and fittingly, called out just before the party and it had to be postponed to Friday after the All-Blacks game.

The party was a production, to say the least.  Half of the students were actors, either diagnosed patients or doctors with the cure, and half of the students were St. John's trainees.  Our patients were cured of such maladies as lovesickness, tone-deafness, technology-deprivation, and the black plague. 

Chimene the Director (Messiah) cures Halle (Messiah) of her technology-deprivation.

Paige (Westmont) as Lady Gaga in her compost-skirt shows Court the cure for tone deafness. 

til next time...

Of Wasps and Waterfalls

SoPac: This entry is written by Jennie (Trinity Christian College)

It is the tradition of CCSP to orient their students for a little over a week and then set them loose in the country. Everyone made it back alive despite having been here less than two weeks, and New Zealand itself seems relatively unscathed, so I'm marking it up as a success. Many adventures were had over student trip weekend, but this is the story of mine.

I went to Nelson Lakes National Park with a few friends (Amy, Darin, Jonny, and Kaitlyn H.) We considered cities and towns and coasts and hostels, but eventually realized that we wanted to see mountains. We originally wanted to hike up into the mountains, but found out a few days before our trip that unless we had ice hiking equipment and quite a bit of experience, it was seriously inadvisable for this time of year. So instead, we made a meandering loop of Lake Rotoiti, which is fantastically hemmed in on all sides by snow capped peaks.

Some highlights:

Just as we started walking from the carpark (note the correct kiwi term!) to the trailhead, it started to flurry! It was hardly anything, and obviously nothing stuck, and it lasted about three minutes and then the sun came out, but it still counts! It snowed while we were tramping in NZ! Then we came to this dock from which we had an amazing view of the mountains all around Lake Rotoiti, and Darin realized that he had seen it before in one of those default wallpapers that computers come with. We didn't really believe him, but he took a picture and we put them side by side when we got back, and sure enough - it was exactly the same. There was more snow in ours, but it was taken from that very dock. Cool.

Anyway, once we actually started tramping (hiking to those not fluent in kiwi) we stopped almost immediately to taste all of the trees along the trail. Yes, you read correctly. Here in this wonderful country, there are these crazy wasps that live just under the bark of certain trees (where we were tramping, beech trees) and they suck out the juicy, sugary phloem. Then, the digested sugary stuff has to go somewhere, so they essentially squirt it out the other end and it collects in these tiny droplets on the ends of little strings on the bark. Isn't nature fun? Anyway, then, a bee or bird or uninhibited college student comes along and collects the little droplets to snack on! It is so sweet and syrupy and you only get a tiny amount at a time, so it sort of reminded me of honeysuckle. Also, if bees are the ones to collect it, they can make honey out of it, and it turns into a thick dark kind of honey that's lovely on english muffins. For the record.

Moving on, we got about halfway around the lake that day and stayed in our very first (hopefully of many) NZ huts, Lakehead Hut. It was quite cozy with a wood stove and four other people to talk to while we made dinner and ate it by candlelight. Never in my whole life have I seen as many stars as were shining that night. It was absolutely freezing outside, and it made the air so clear. I'm trying to learn some southern hemisphere constellations, but until such time as we know the real ones, Jonny and I made some up. So now there is a mythical tortoise that rides the milky way.

The next morning everything was covered in a sparkly layer of frost, and we cut across about eight small rivers (one deep enough for us to shed our shoes and roll up our pants to cross) to take a "shortcut" to the next hut: the aptly named Coldwater Hut. Then we dumped all but our lunch and cameras and headed off to the swing bridge. Ok, I admit it, I had my New Zealand forest guide with me as well. Don't make fun. It's really cool. And so was the swing bridge! We played on it for a long time, and then found the tree roots that the hobbits hid under when they were trying to escape the black riders. That's another thing that is so fun about tramping in this place. We know that nothing was filmed in this particular spot, but that doesn't stop anyone from pointing out probable locations every two minutes. So fun.

That night we were all tucked away in our sleeping bags by about 6:30 when the sun went down, but we stayed up talking for a long time after that. We talked about first memories, important and shaping events in our lives, and the best superpowers. So all the important stuff. The next morning we got up in time to be off by the time it started getting light. We made it to Whiskey Falls a little before 7:30 and climbed up all of the freezing and slippery rocks toward the top. Kaitlyn and I climbed the whole way up to stand next to the pool of water at its base and got completely drenched from the spray. The wind that a 40m waterfall generates is also incredible. We had to be careful that our feet were firmly on those hazardous stones so we weren't knocked backward. When we climbed back down, we hung out for a while to take pictures and dry out a little, and just at that moment the sun's first light crept over the tops of the eastern mountains and *poof* turned us all to stone! (Guess that movie.) Ok, not really, but it did light up the entire crown of the forest, and the top of the falls itself with this incredible golden light. What a way to spend a Sunday morning. So we sang some songs and continued on our way.

We stopped to eat small mountains of fish and chips and ice cream on the way home, and stopped again to chase some waves and watch a baby sea lion do the same, but other than that, the way back was fairly uneventful. It was a completely smashing trip. Except for one thing.

Low Lights:

Sand flies. If you do not know what a sand fly is, consider yourself lucky. Very lucky. Mosquitoes don't really bother me, and even if I do get bites, they aren't that bad. Sand flies are different. They have a special taste for ankles. My ankles. I had 24 sand fly bites on my ankles. And they itch about a thousand times more than your average mosquito bite. Ick. But they are completely better now, and were seriously the only downside to a really amazing weekend. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be.

Sustainable Community Development (Part I)

SoPac:

We just finished our first week of class, Sustainable Community Development with Mick Duncan. Mick is a wonderful Kiwi professor with memorable stories and valuable insight.  The week was spent covering introductions to the economic, political and social factors behind effective community development.  

We look forward to the upcoming Wellington-area trip which is the field study for the course, and the second week of SCD with Mick in the classroom. 

May we, as Mick always says, learn to be about people, places, and the planet.