Beyond the Edge Beyond the Bar: 15.05 Napier: Preparing to Leave 'Home Away From Home'

5.A Norfolk Island Pine on Napier's Marine Parade

If someone spends enough time in a foreign or even hostile place, he or she will put down roots of sorts. Napier is no longer foreign nor was it ever hostile, not to this writer. But I've not put down much in the way of roots. I've acquired routines and in that way I've domesticated my time in New Zealand. But I've not become a part of the Napier community. This is in marked contrast to the previous stay in New Zealand, from January into July 2013, when Jean and I lived in Te Awamutu (TA).

There we actively participated in St John's Anglican Church, which (among other things) became an important channel for becoming rooted in TA. I suggested in an earlier blogpost (13.09) that a measure of love is behind every form of knowledge and even more so behind anything having meaning for us, even mere words. Without commitment and engagement, there can be no knowledge, no meaning. The less the level of commitment, the less the knowledge or meaning to be found... or lost.

All of which said serves as a preface to my observing that while I don't look forward to pulling up stakes in Napier, the departure from Napier will have less meaning and emotive weight than did our departure from Te Awamutu. There simply hasn't been the community engagement here that I was able to have in 2013. If Jean and I had arrived after the end of the New Zealand summer vacation season, as we did in TA, there would have been more opportunities to become engaged in community efforts and organizations, which become quiescent during the summer vacation season (December thru January).

So it goes or so it has gone. Our 'domestication' in the Ahuriri district of Napier will come to an end in a few weeks. In a previous blogpost (13.10) I discussed the housing preferences of Kiwis. In this one I've included photos of Kiwi housing stock. For starters I've included photos of the Ahuriri complex where we were assigned an apartment. The apartment complex in the Internationalist style is quite at odds with prevailing Kiwi tastes and preferences, at least beyond Auckland and Wellington. While our Ahuriri apartment lacked charm, it offered a superb view of Ahuriri Harbour. I'll give it that. Beyond the Internationalism of our Ahuriri digs, you'll find images that will hopefully convey the winsome structures where most Kiwis make their homes.

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

PS I've also included some photos of an old Raglan hotel, like other Victorian or Edwardian-era hotels I've seen in New Zealand. There are also some photos of a Kihikihi primary school, very typical of schools throughout New Zealand in being of wooden (earthquake-sturdy) construction. Hotels and schools, after all, are homes away from home.