New Year's Eve

Monday 1 January 2007

7:30 am

I am writing from a grey and blowy day in the first country in the world to see the sun—or, in this case, to see that the rain is now visible, as opposed to having it be raining and dark. And it’s the first country in the world to see the new year (FYI, from here, the new year looks unseasonably cold and wet).

Last night we went to a New Year’s Eve party to which we were invited last week by one of Naomi’s friend’s parents. The invitation was a thrill—the first connection we’d made without the anchoring of Trish/Keith/Marianne (although they were all invited—it’s a small village). I soared on the knowledge that we were invited to our very own party, and I happily baked cookies (er, “biscuits”) to take along with us as we had no good idea about what to do with the “hangi” which was the main source of food. (A “hangi” is a Maori way of cooking food—a pit dug and into which food in trays is placed with hot stones and bars of metal. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangi) Everything felt very cheerful and good until we had to actually walk up the stairs to the party, and walk into a party where no one was in the least familiar and all were gathered around the food which had just emerged from the hangi (also unfamiliar).

Let me try to set the scene so that you’ll be able to join me in the surreal qualities of our New Year’s Eve. Joe and Ragne have a magnificent house perched high on a hill towards the back of this three-block-deep village. Their hill site means that from the back of the house there are sweeping views of the beautiful green sheep-studded hills, and from every room in the front of the house there are sweeping ocean views. I have to admit that I’m still startled to see kids’ rooms and play rooms with sweeping ocean views (like those views should be saved in some way for grownups??). Last night the house was overrun with children (maybe from 1 to 11 years old—I think Marianne’s 13-y-o son Gabriel was unusually old for this set), in and out of the grey, sometimes-raining, cold evening. The children—and many of the adults—were dressed in odd and lumpy layers, appropriate gear for people who had thought it would be summer and found out it was only 8 degrees (Celsius—come on, you can learn to convert). There were lots of outfits like sundresses with pants underneath and sweaters and fleeces and dirty bare feet. And it was impossible to tell who belonged to whom—children running in and out, adults ruffling the hair of random kids who went by (often Aidan’s), and stooping to pick up a baby who had wandered into difficulty and moving the baby out of harm’s way before continuing with the conversation.

We brought our rumply, layered American selves into this place, and I was panic struck about what to do next. So I stood around looking awkward, tried to help clear the tables (until I was shooed out of the kitchen and told to eat and have a good time) and then stood around awkwardly again, finally finding Trish and Keith and Marianne. And then, introductions slowly happened. Keith would call someone over to introduce us, a conversation would start, another person would come along, the conversation would morph and change. I talked with a doctoral student finishing her dissertation in English, with a guy who does HR consulting, his partner who does PR for Tourism New Zealand, someone who consults about environmental impact of development, a computer programmer. Many had lived all over the world, all were shockingly friendly, welcoming, and warm (and all were apologetic for the weather). We talked quite little about Iraq, Bush, or the new composition of the US Congress (although it was my sense that people were quite well informed about these topics--just not interested enough in them to chat at a party). We talked about children and holidays and parenting dilemmas and the oddities of international relocations. Every conversation was interesting, and every conversation led me to a feeling of kinship--yes, I recognize that story in myself, even though the context and the accents were different.

We left the party, at 9pm, with complainy, cold, dirty children (both of whom are still sleeping at nearly 9 this morning) and a sense that it’s possible to meet people here and that the people we meet will be wonderful. And then, as we pulled into our driveway on this wet and miserable night, we saw Bill and Dinah (for those without a scorecard, those are Trish and Keith’s friends who have a place here in town that’s being renovated, and so have lent us the bulk of the furniture we have in the house). They came in and had cups of tea and saw their furniture (covered, alas, with a skim coat of children’s toys and new year’s cards and other crap). And it was lovely and warm and filled with laughter and good stories, and then we made a date to have dinner together tomorrow night. And I think Marianne will come on Wednesday for tea.

When they left, we poured the children into chilly beds, were in bed ourselves by 10:30, where we listened to the sounds of New Year’s Eve in a new place—laughing and talking from some distant party, a bagpipe player at 11, fireworks waking us briefly at midnight. Michael and I talked about last New Year’s Eve, when we had some friends over to Belmont Rd for a dress up party and we sat around and talked politics for hours while the kids watched a movie upstairs. We talked about what we were thinking to have left such a comfortable world with a lovely house, good job, good friends, wonderful family behind to come here. Sometimes we think we are insane.

And, even inside that insanity, we’ve got the very beginnings of a community here, and we’ve peered into it and seen people who have been in Paekakariki all their lives and people who have been here three months all eating kumara and chicken legs from the hangi together. And we’ve been welcomed, at least here at the beginning of the year which is probably the best start we could have hoped to make. Weather report: Waves of homesickness followed by swells of possibility, with a fog of confusion and uncertainty limiting the visibility.

Happy New Year. Don’t you wonder what will happen next?