13.07 Te Awamutu: Psychiatric Practice in NZ & USA

Tuesday of next week, 5 March, is Census Day in New Zealand. New Zealand conducts a census once every five years. A worker from Statistics New Zealand dropped off forms this past weekend. She encouraged me to submit responses via the Internet. There were three forms to complete: a ‘Dwelling Form’ and one ‘Individual Form’ for Jean and one for me. All of this official business served to remind me that we’re in New Zealand because of Jean’s profession. Jean’s a psychiatrist and if you’re not interested in reading my impressions of differences of Kiwi and American psychiatric medicine, you’d be well advised to skip this post, or just check out the unrelated photos following this post.

In the USA most people who seek psychiatric or psychological help are normal and ordinary—not crazy or bizarre. Of all psychiatric patients, 90% present primarily one of three issues: depressive disorders (30% of all psychiatry patients), anxiety disorders (30%), and substance abuse disorders (30%). People in these three major cohorts can present more than one issue, of course, but by and large 90% of the ‘psychiatric population pie’ embraces ordinary people who have mind-related issues requiring treatment. This isn’t to suggest that ordinary people shouldn’t be seeing psychiatrists or psychologists. A mild depression, for example, may become severe and a severe one may have crippling or even lethal consequences. I merely suggest that, despite the stigma of seeking psychiatric help, the vast majority of people who need such help are quite normal. Only about 10% of American psychiatric patients fall outside the normal, exhibiting extreme disorders—psychoses, schizophrenia, severe dementia, catatonia, and so forth. People are people everywhere (How refute that?) and I suspect that in New Zealand you’d find a ‘psychiatric population pie’ comparable to that in the USA.

Jean for a number of years worked for a county government behavioral health service in Wisconsin. She also worked in private practice. Now in New Zealand she works again in governmental service. She works for an entity called the Waikato District Health Board, albeit the Waikato DHB’s reach is veritably the entire Waikato Region (not just one or two districts within the region). The Waikato DHB provides a full range of medical services throughout the Waikato Region. The board does this through hospitals and numerous clinics scattered across the region. The largest hospital—the mother ship, as it were—is Waikato Hospital, located in Hamilton.

In both governmental venues (in Wisconsin and in the Waikato) the psychiatric service bias, as one might imagine, is to serve people in the outlying 10% cohort, mentioned above. People in this cohort generally present the neediest cases, the ones most warranting the expenditure of public funds. It’s in this ‘10% cohort’, if you will, that you’re likely to encounter someone under a compulsory treatment order (‘CTO’ in medical lingo). In both Wisconsin and Waikato governmental service, the majority of Jean’s patients have been CTO patients. In her private practice, CTO patients were a much smaller percentage of her patients.

In New Zealand, patients with any of the issues of the main cohorts–depression, anxiety, substance abuse–are expected to present those issues to their general practitioner (‘GP’) or to a private-practice psychiatrist (or psychologist), not to a DHB psychiatrist. Outside the 10% cohort those Kiwis who want psychiatric or psychological services must seek and pay for such services outside the DHB network, generally starting with their GP.

One especially notable characteristic of district health board psychiatric practice is the common employment of electroconvulsive therapy (or ‘ECT’). Who would want a convulsion, especially an electroconvulsion? American media—not least in movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—have done their part in stigmatizing a procedure that admittedly by its very name seems like something out of Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory. But ECT— let’s stick with the initials—is a therapy shown often to be effective when no drug has been effective or where no drug dare be used (as with psychotic pregnant mothers). To this day in the States, ECT is used for severe depression (unresponsive to drugs), severe catatonia, severe psychosis, severe schizophrenia, and so forth. It is usually quite effective, but numerous hurdles (lack of facilities, lack of trained personnel, cultural bias, etc.) must be overcome before it can be employed in any one case.

In New Zealand, on the other hand, ECT is an accepted and widely used practice. Institutional and educational resources are dedicated to ECT’s widespread use, at least among the 10% cohort. ECT training for medical professionals is widespread (not narrowly addressed to a small percentage of psychiatrists and nurses). And, for example, Waikato Hospital has a room set aside for ECT and a nurse whose sole occupation is to assist physicians administering the procedure.

ECT’s wider use in New Zealand isn’t merely a product of greater receptivity. It’s also the product of necessity. The governmental system must rely on ECT because the system has such a constricted ‘formulary’ of allowable psychiatric drugs. The wide formulary of psychiatric drugs generally available in the States (even cheap ones available thru Walmart) isn't present within the DHB system. Drugs outside the formulary are allowed to be used only upon prior authorization from bureaucrats at the national level. The national authorities—as the third party hovering over the patient and the physicians—act like third party payers elsewhere. They must strike a balance between cost containment and service provision. And when they do so, they don’t want to do so on a case-by-case basis. Perforce, they make rules, when the patient and practitioner might want something otherwise. This reality, alas, seems to be a characteristic of modern bureaucratized medicine everywhere.

Few people aspire to be mentally ill. ‘Mental illness’, all things considered, is a rather loaded term, connoting a long-term condition in which the patient is mentally off-kilter, maybe even crazy. The people who fall into those 30% cohorts—afflicted with depression, anxiety, or substance abuse disorders—rightly take offense at being labeled mentally ill. Yet that is a key term of the American legal system for placing people in CTO status. Proving a persistent mental illness places a considerable burden on agents of the American public, in part (rightly) to avoid assaulting individual liberty. But among other things it also leads to convolutions of reality when, say, persons with drug-induced psychoses present themselves. Such persons aren’t mentally ill, but their minds are off balance. Left to themselves in severe cases they may kill themselves or others.

New Zealand has lifted the burden of proving that someone is mentally ill when making a case for CTO before the legal system. Instead, it is enough to prove someone’s mind is aberrant, that disordered cognition, perception, mood, or volition is somehow impairing a person from acting in a mentally balanced fashion. It isn’t necessary to come up with a diagnosis, after all (as in the case of drug- or alcohol-induced impairment) mentally impaired persons may not be mentally ill. But they may be in a state of mind that prompts them to hurt themselves or others. While this makes it easier to confine certain individuals who are regarded as dangerous (if, perhaps, only to themselves), New Zealand, as in the US, has an independent judiciary that issues CTOs. The judiciary acts as a check and balance against high-handed governmental incursions against personal liberty, at least presumably in most cases. By focusing on mental impairment rather than mental illness, New Zealand may have struck a better balance in CTO cases than the USA in protecting the rights of individuals and of society. Of course, no system of justice is perfect.

Nor is any living arrangement. But arrangements can be bettered. When we originally came to New Zealand, Jean and I envisioned living in Hamilton. But we soon learned that all the outlying clinics Jean would work at were at points south of Hamilton, starting with Te Awamutu (30 minutes south), Te Kuiti (more than an hour south), and Taumarunui (more than 2 hours south).  Learning this and finding Te Awamutu ('TA') attractive, we asked whether we could live in TA, thereby removing 5 hours of commuting each week from Jean’s schedule. The request was granted. We’re grateful that the local, TA clinic leadership was able to find a furnished place in which to live in Te Awamutu. Jean’s appearance at the three clinics is part of the Waikato DHB’s efforts to bring a higher level of psychiatric care to patients (many of them CTO patients) living some distance from Waikato Hospital.

Perhaps in a future post I’ll be able to provide a perspective on this outreach effort. In any event, the perspectives shared above are mine and mine alone. I hope they are insightful. Whether or not they are, I’ve decided to include with this post some (unrelated) photos of public art of various kinds that caught my eye in travels around the North Island. They are included below.

Warm regards,

Tim

Trawlermen Sculpture [by Alan Strathern], National Aquarium Of New Zealand, Napier

Corrugated Fence Art Facing Police Station, Raglan 

Napier Library Forecourt, Napier

i-Site & Bus Stop at Tirau



13.06 Rotorua: Recreation & Re-Creation

When Jean and I recently visited Rotorua , we were told by some Kiwis that it had acquired a nickname, ‘Roto-Vegas’. Perhaps, but ‘Roto-Dells’ would be a better imported moniker. Kiwis, of course, haven’t heard of Wisconsin Dells or Cedar Point (in Ohio) or their likes -- family-oriented vacation destinations -- so they can hardly be blamed for the moniker some have chosen. For Kiwis ‘Las Vegas’ designates a destination city that has nothing to do, say, with commerce or government and everything to do with entertainment and adventure, both licit and illicit. As for Rotorua’s illicit traffic, I suspect it’s no worse than elsewhere. And, incidentally, if there are any casinos, they’re well hidden in Rotorua.

This big town or small city of about 60,000 people is geared to providing recreational opportunities to people of all ages. Click here for more info from the official website. In Rotorua you'll find a range of venues offering family fun, adventures & thrills, spas, Māori cultural excursions, and so forth. There seem to be scores of motels, numerous hotels, and the requisite youth hostel to accommodate visitors, many from abroad but even more from New Zealand. Rotorua is somewhat off-center in the North Island and by some accounts it is the single most popular vacation and holiday destination for Kiwis. The proliferation of motels is an index of Rotorua’s role as a family-friendly destination. In Kiwiese a lodge called a ‘motel’ provides a kitchenette in every room (whereas a hotel is unlikely to provide kitchenettes). Frugal travelers flock to the motels.

Rotorua (meaning ‘second lake’) sits on the edge of Lake Rotorua, which is the flooded caldera of an old volcano. The lake was the second lake discovered by a Māori chief, whose people established a settlement on the lake's edge. This thermally active area affords a range of hot mud pools, geysers, steam vents, highly mineralized waters, and so forth. The area continues to witness occasional volcanic eruptions, the last major one being in 1886, when three villages were buried. The geothermal activity has drawn the curious and the health-seekers for many years. In the early 20^th Century New Zealand's government decided to make its first investment in a tourist destination anywhere in New Zealand. A bathhouse was erected in 1908 at Rotorua to a design that wouldn’t be out of place in a Harry Potter movie (See here).  While the bathhouse has become Rotorua's municipal museum, spas have proliferated. In certain parts of the city, motels offer their guests access to private bathing rooms where pools of rather warm mineralized waters provide respite from aches and pains. These waters can have a soporific effect, which is perhaps one reason why I saw a sign advising people against remaining alone in a pool (lest they be lulled asleep and then drown).

While we enter certain recreations for comfort and rejuvenation (like the baths or walks in the wood), it seems — as elsewhere in the world — more often Kiwis are seeking amusement (games and diversions), personal growth (I can climb that mountain, overcome my fear of X, Y, or Z), or communal participation (dancing, group singing, cultural enrichment, team sports). Recreational goals, of course, can overlap. Someone playing rugby football can do it for diversion, for personal growth, and to more fully participate in a community. By the way, I hope to devote a blog post to New Zealand team sports, but only after attending at least a rugby match (rugby being New Zealand’s preeminent team sport). Except perhaps for competitive biking or waterskiing, folks flocking to Rotorua don’t do so to view or participate in team sports. They come because of the wide availability of recreations concentrated in a small area. There’s something for everyone, as it were, and it’s readily accessible to North Islanders and (less readily) to South Islanders. Rotorua has prospered as a ‘fun-for-everyone city’, not as ‘you-name-your-sin city’.

Why did Jean and I travel to Rotorua? Well, as it turns out the Māori calendar is a lunar calendar and the Māori observe the Lunar New Year in February (as do others). Rotorua has a number of establishments run by different Māori iwi (iwi  = tribe, kinship group, etc.). Jean figured that there might be a number of special Māori events associated with the New Year’s observance. And because so many Māori iwi run culturally-focused establishments in Rotorua, it seemed like a good place and a good time to head there.

There may have been special events, but by God’s providence we signed up for what turned out to be a wonderful evening at Te Puia (in Rotorua). We signed up for something called the Te Pō Combo. The combo included participation in a Māori welcoming ceremony and associated activities, participating in a Māori feast, and visiting the geothermal activities in the valley behind the main establishment.

The welcoming ceremony was addressed to the fictive ‘tribe’ of the 70 to 90 people from all over the world who’d decided to participate in the Te Pō Combo that day. Incidentally there were large numbers of East Asians, especially Koreans, who had come to New Zealand for their Lunar New Year holidays. One of the bunch, an Italian, was designated by our Māori guide as our ‘chief’. On our behalf the ‘chief’ reciprocated the welcome offered to us by the Māori ‘chief’ who welcomed us. Of course the Māori who welcomed us were Māori performers (presumably mostly from the iwi that conceived, owned, and runs the Te Puia establishment). Following the welcome, our ‘tribe’ entered the iwi’s wharenui (wharenui = community house), with its elaborate carvings. In the wharenui we watched and participated in the iwi’s kapa haka (kapa haka = performing arts). If you’ve ever seen the New Zealand All Blacks (the national rugby team) prepare for a game (See here), you’ve seen a pre-combat haka. Other kapa haka are more invocatory, others are celebratory, and all (apparently) have spiritual significance.

But the iwi didn’t let things rest there. Our visiting ‘tribe’ was escorted to another building, where everyone sat down at assigned tables and subsequently partook of a superb Māori meal. As it happens our table included a couple from North Carolina, a young Swedish lady, and the Korean-Kiwi tour guides of the Korean tourists. We had a delightful conversation over delightful food. What more could we have asked for — other than a prayer. And a prayer was offered at the onset of our meal, a practice which the Māori (overwhelmingly Christian) are able to do in a way that is otherwise not found at Kiwi public events. Perhaps the Māori are such great hosts (as they were this evening) precisely because they openly welcome and thank God.

The evening’s finale was a visit to Te Whakarewarewa Valley, where the Pohutu Geyser spouted off. By the time our ‘tribe’ arrived, it was twilight and considerably cooler, cool enough to warrant long sleeves and sweaters. As a waxing crescent moon hung overhead and the stars began to glimmer, we were served hot chocolate. The chocolate helped keep us warm but in its small way it mimicked the thermal activity we were witnessing. More than being entertained, our hosts had allowed us to be enriched and enveloped, looking skyward and earthwards to a Power greater than any or all of us. This was a delight. This was a gift. Recreation can be sought. But re-creation happens when we are found and found not wanting, but made anew. We had a small taste of that in this evening of engagement, delectation, and inspiration, all that could be humanly provided and then some -- provided elsewise and from beyond. Thanks be to our hosts. And thanks be to God.

We had a blessed stay in Rotorua.

Warm regards,
Tim & Jean

PS. Jean and I hope to rectify the communications shortcomings that effectively prevent our uploading photos into this blog. Standby... but don't hold your breath.

13.05 Te Awamutu: Dairying & the Fonterra Fleet

Fountain in Public Rose Garden, Te Awamutu

Last Saturday (February 9) we moved to the town of Te Awamutu. Some locals sometimes refer to the town as ‘TA’ or ‘Te A’. Most commonly Kiwis elide the town’s name (as they do other place names), speaking of ‘Te Amutu’. However pronounced, the town is about thirty minutes south of Hamilton on NZ Route 3. Along with the adjacent town of Kihikihi, the population of Te Awamutu  is between 12,000 and 14,000, depending on sources consulted. Te Awamutu means ‘the river’s end’. As it happens, New Zealand is experiencing a bone-dry summer, but life goes on. And here in the Waikato Region farming is pre-eminent and Te Awamutu is one of the more prominent ‘agricultural and pastoral’ towns (as they say).

In TA you’ll find many national and international retail outlets. On the international side, you’ll find the usual suspects: Burger King, KFC, McDonalds (which has wi-fi), Subway, and local franchises of international auto manufacturers. There are even some unlikely suspects, like Century 21 and Bed Bath & Beyond. As for national chains, New Zealand’s two most prominent supermarket chains, Countdown and Pak ’N Save, have large and beautiful brand-new stores. Among their local competition you’ll find the Fruit Monster, reputed for its excellent fruits and vegetables at good prices. Among national retailers in downtown TA, you’ll see a big red Warehouse store, Warehouse being the Kiwi version of Walmart (minus the in-store supermarket). And there are numerous other retail outlets, including a swarm of bakeries, pie shops, cafes, and restaurants (More about that, probably, in another post).

Te Awamutu hosts primary and secondary schools, including ones run by churches (St Patrick’s and Waipa Christian). And because TA is district seat for the WaipaDistrict of the Waikato Region, there are a number of governmental offices, including a courthouse. The town is graced by sporting facilities (even a velodrome!) and a number of parks and parklands. Foremost among the parks, if not in size, is the town’s Rose Garden, immediately adjacent to the town’s i-Site center. ‘i-Site’ is the moniker used throughout New Zealand for visitor and information centers. Te Awamutu bills itself as ‘The Rose Town of New Zealand’.

Jean and I attended St John’s Anglican Church last Sunday. It’s more or less across the road from the i-Site and Rose Garden. At St John’s we were told that most New Zealand towns were established for one of four reasons: to serve as a military post, to house lumber folk, to house railway people, or to serve as a missionary post to the Māori people. Te Awamutu was established for the last reason. Indeed, St John’s was the mission around which the town grew. The Hamilton/TA bus bears graphics purporting that Te Awamutu has the second oldest church in New Zealand. Presumably that’s St John’s.

Te Awamutu’s pre-eminence now lies in farming (as might be expected in most of the Waikato Region). There are numerous businesses in TA serving the agricultural and pastoral sector. The landmark structure of TA is a huge Fonterra milk-processing plant straddling the North Island Main Trunk Railway.

Fonterra is a New Zealand dairy cooperative owned by somewhat over 10,000 dairy farmers (from throughout New Zealand). It is New Zealand’s largest company. Fonterra alone accounts for 30 percent of the world’s dairy exports. Australia is New Zealand’s No. 1 trading partner, consuming about 19% of Kiwi exports (as measured by dollars). China is No. 2. China may well be the primary recipient of New Zealand’s dairy exports (from Fonterra and another New Zealand cooperative). Reportedly ninety-five percent of the milk solids produced by Fonterra farmers is exported in one form or another. Fonterra’s annual export income (in US dollars) is somewhere between $16 billion and $17 billion.

At least twice a day a fleet of semis, each semi hauling two large tanks, heads out of TA to dairy farms to fetch fresh milk. A majority of the fleet runs along Alexandra Street, the town’s main street, to a roundabout where some semis go one way and others go another. Right at this roundabout is the town’s Subway outlet, which Jean and I patronized while moving in. I wasn’t the only one counting semis as they came by in quick succession in a half hour’s time. I got to thirty-five before we left for home (just a few blocks from downtown).

The procession impressed those of us who saw it, but my new TA barber told me some locals—just a few—have complained about the truck traffic and noise. In a paper mill town in Wisconsin I once heard an outsider complain about the (sulfur) smell of the paper mills. A local responded, ‘It’s the smell of money and we can live with it.’ Indeed. No trucks, no milk. No milk, no factory. No factory, no export. No export, well what do you have left? Exports are vital to New Zealand’s commodity-centric economy. Most Kiwis must know that. TA’s Fonterra plant and its likes are adding value to what’s being exported.

Milk virtually begs to be upgraded before being exported. It has to be processed in some fashion to be safely transported abroad with any reasonable expiration date: as butter, cheese, long-life milk, powdered milk—you name it. This addition to value, captured in New Zealand’s dairy industry, results in additional employment opportunities for Kiwis. Opportunities like this may be largely lost in the forestry industry, another source of Kiwi export earnings. My guess is that most timber leaves New Zealand largely unprocessed, not as finished lumber or, say, as paper. So all those log-laden semis heading to port mean Kiwi jobs, yes, but not the value-added kinds of jobs that are customary in the Kiwi dairy sector.

So perhaps there should be annual gatherings to bless and give thanks for New Zealand’s dairy fleets and, more generally, for its dairy industry. Prayerful moments such as this could draw on both the Māori and Christian roots of New Zealand’s culture. Maybe this could be done on Waitangi Day. Maybe, too, once a year they could post bands to play for the morning and evening departure of the fleets as a sign of gratitude and goodwill. Te Awamutu and places like it across New Zealand have reason to show thanks to God and neighbor for their beautiful and bountiful land.

Jean and I look forward to living in Te Awamutu for the next five months. We look forward to the semis, too. May they keep on rollin’, please… and thank you.

Warm regards,

Tim & Jean

PS. Here below are some photos taken quite late on a February, summer's day at the Te Awamutu Public Rose Garden.

Red Roses, Te Awamutu

Yellow Roses, Te Awamutu

i-Site & Old St John's, Te Awamutu

13.04 Hamilton: Waitangi Day

Hamilton Lake Domain, Entrance

Last Wednesday was a legal holiday in New Zealand. On February 6, 1840 a treaty was signed at Waitangi, on the Bay of Islands, on the far north end of the North Island. The holiday, Waitangi Day, commemorates this treaty, signed between representatives of the British Crown and eventually over 500 Māori chiefs. The treaty in effect established the New Zealand polity that has developed, not without struggle, ever since. Beginning in 1947 there’s annually been a measure of observance of Waitangi Day in New Zealand and among New Zealand citizens abroad.

What does that measure amount to now? Over several days there are ceremonies august and celebratory on the Waitangi Treaty Grounds (administered by a trust). There’s even a 21-gun salute from a Royal New Zealand Navy frigate. Elsewhere there may a tip of the hat to the day, but seemingly there are no fireworks, no bands, no parades, and only scattered celebration. Reportedly Kiwis abroad celebrate in a big way. There are large expatriate Kiwi communities in London and in southeast Australia that celebrate the day. For Kiwis here in the homeland is this a day of celebration or a day to be passed in solemn remembrance? Or is it just another excuse for time off? Even now I’m not sure of its shape, perhaps because the holiday is still shaping up.

Consider for a moment the two other holidays of political or constitutional import in the New Zealand calendar. One of those holidays is the ‘Queen’s Birthday’, observed in New Zealand on the first Sunday of each June. This holiday is an official occasion for New Zealand to observe its ties to the British Crown. Queen Elizabeth II is New Zealand’s head of state, as will be her successors, so long as New Zealand wants this. New Zealand’s Prime Minister, currently John Key, is head of the government. While sharing a common language and much else with the United Kingdom, New Zealand is on its own as a sovereign nation, although it has many friends and no obvious enemies.

Friendship can at times be costly. New Zealand, not least because of its status as a ‘dominion’ in the British Empire, sent men to fight in both World Wars.  It was the April 25, 1915 landing of Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli, near the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (Istanbul), which marked the entry of both Australia and New Zealand as actors in international affairs. The soldiers of the two nations came ashore as soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (‘ANZAC’), fighting forces of the Ottoman Empire alongside British and French troops. A grueling 8-month campaign followed the landing. The casualty rates were very high on both sides (by at least one report, 88% for New Zealand's troops!). As has been argued in many places, the Gallipoli experience had a searing effect on the identity of the two nations-in-the-making, Australia and New Zealand. To this day both nations observe 25 April as ‘Anzac Day’, understandably a day of solemn remembrance in both countries.



The use of the term ‘Kiwi’ to designate someone of New Zealand origin stems from the Gallipoli campaign (and WWI). The New Zealand soldiers wore regimental badges upon which a kiwi was emblazoned. I suspect ‘Kiwi’ was originally cast at these soldiers as a term of mild derision. Subsequent events led to its becoming a moniker of honor. One never hears any such term as ‘New Zealandite’ or ‘Landy’. Despite its presence occasionally in print or on the Internet, ‘New Zealander’ doesn’t seem to be used in common discourse. ‘Kiwi’ is the standard term for someone from New Zealand and ‘Kiwi’ is the standard adjective for New Zealand things, doings, practices, and so forth. Which brings us back to Waitangi Day. Just where does it fit in any Kiwi constellation?



For a number of years in the late 19^th Century and during a good part of the 20^th Century, the Treaty of Waitangi was somewhat in legal limbo. In the late 20^th Century the treaty among other things became more relevant in settling legal matters. The annual observance of Waitangi Day, which the Royal New Zealand Navy initiated in 1947, probably had some role in this legal evolution. In any event in a key 1987 case adjudicated by New Zealand’s high Court of Appeal, the presiding judge described the treaty as providing certain ‘principles’, among them that the treaty established a ‘partnership’ and in that partnership the partners had and have an obligation to act reasonably and in good faith.



In a way the Treaty of Waitangi is less like a constitution and more like a declaration of interdependence. The treaty is quite short. It has a preamble and three brief articles (More info here). The treaty provides not structure, but engagement, ‘partnership’ as the Court of Appeal judge (apparently) termed it. I’d like to think the treaty led to something like the ideal marriage—never intended to be broken, albeit at times traveling through rough waters.



If the treaty is reduced to a mere legalism, as it could be by relentless wrangling into the indefinite future, it will produce a veritable ‘marriage from hell’. There’s certainly ample opportunity for the devil’s work in any society, but a special opportunity lies in the Treaty of Waitangi, which from the very outset was prepared in both English and Māori. No two languages are exactly alike. Nor do they have the same range of interests (if I may put it that way). Languages express cultures. And cultures differ. Differing languages virtually insure differing ways of seeing the world, of seeing what is important and what isn’t. It can be difficult enough to interpret the meaning of a constitution written in one language. When a putatively single document is prepared in two languages, we must be prepared for the reality that key terms, especially abstract or arcane terms, may be incorrectly translated—or more to the point—misunderstood (even with the best of intentions by all parties concerned). That aforementioned high court judge was wise to focus on the principles embodied in the treaty, rather than the wordage. Without some measure of good will, the treaty will simply become a source of unrelenting division over an inheritance rather than a rallying point for the common heritage of New Zealand.



My sense is that Waitangi Day isn’t yet a shared celebration among all Kiwis. But there is hope, I believe, because as a matter of fact both Māori and Pākehā (the Māori term for Europeans) live and work together as a matter of course. There are no Māori reservations. In cities and towns one doesn’t encounter districts where Māori are kept separate from Pākehā. On the contrary, there is a good deal of cultural mixing and not only at the marriage altar. English and Māori are official languages of New Zealand. Māori and people with partial Māori ancestry play roles, so far as I can see, in virtually every aspect of New Zealand’s life. These are not small cultural accomplishments.



Waitangi Day needn’t fit a cookie-cutter image of what a national holiday must look or feel like. The day is New Zealand’s own and it is for Kiwis going forward to fashion it just as they see fit. At least they have a foundation to build on. And may God bless it.

Warm regards,

Tim & Jean

PS. Jean and I have moved from Hamilton to Te Awamutu, about 30 minutes south of Hamilton. Our Internet access (at least for the time being) has been significantly degraded. However, the move will facilitate Jean’s medical work. She’ll be spending less time in traveling to outlying clinics. We look forward to living in Te Awamutu, but we’ll miss living so close to the Hamilton Lake Domain (‘domain’ is Kiwiese for an urban park). With this post you'll see a few parting ‘shots’ from Hamilton and two shots from its closest seaside town, Ragland, which we recently visited. Ragland is the town where California ‘evangelists’ introduced surfing to New Zealand (sorry, no surfing photos yet).



Hydrangeas, Hamilton Lake Domain

Pukeko & Ducks, Hamilton Lake Domain





Palms along Lake Rotoroa, Hamilton Lake Domain

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Black Sand Swimming Beach, Raglan Harbour

Mt Karioi & Black Sand Beach, Raglan