BIO

“I puāwai au i tētahi kākano i kawea mai ai e te tai tonga i taku tūrangawaewae, i Kotirana.  I heke mai te kākano rā i te rākau marumaru o tōku whakapapa Kereti. I rarau mai ōku tūpuna ki Ōtakou i Te Waipounamu. Ki reira manaakitia ai e Ngai Tahu e tau rānō ai te noho.E poipoia ana e au tōku whānau i raro i te korowai o Rangitāne me te tirohanga whānui o Ruahine. Nā ēnā pakiaka katoa e pakari nei taku tū i tēnei wā - it is these strong roots that make me who I am today.”  I’m so thrilled, with the help of Tūraukawa and the Manavation whānau, to have gained the confidence to weave a pepeha that brings to life my ancestral links back to Scotland and my indigenous forebears - the Celts. 

If I was to choose just a few words to describe my 25+ year journey with learning te reo rangatira - the beautiful first language of this land - it would be ‘lengthy’, ‘wandering’ and ‘at last taking shape’. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve tried almost all the learning options out there over the years - night school, on the job, online units with Te Wananga o Raukawa, Te Ataarangi, rumaki reo classes at Te Wananga o Aotearoa and now Manavation classes. Kāore e kore - without a doubt - the manaakitanga, the aroha and the wero we all find in our weekly Manavation Whanaungatanga Speakers Group was the missing ingredient I needed.

The safe space where I could slowly bring together the shining threads of learning that I had a kete full of, but that were not knitting together in any way. I’ve found with Manavation the cultural confidence I was missing. Tūraukawa often tells us, his tauira (students), “fire me e hoa mā!” and I hope to soon reach a point where I will (very sadly) detach my thread from the cloak of learning this special whānau offers and embark on my next challenge - some further study in Te Reo Māori at Massey. Yet another step closer to my goal of being able to work my trade as a copywriter in both Te Reo Māori and Te Reo Pākehā (before I turn 55!) - and, at the same time be a tangata tiriti role model for my 12-year-old son.  Kia hōhonu ai te puna kupu - let the pool of words run deep.