Nostalgic thoughts in the Capital of Coffee...I mean New Zealand

Today I made it to the city from Brooklyn via Central Park. Wellington is a lovely small city that I know I wouldn’t mind living in for a year or two. It is a comp

act city, with a happy, vibrant and international essence. There’s also coffee everywhere. If San Francisco has a Starbucks on every block, Wellington has eight independently owned coffee shops on the same block. I kid you not!

I walked my wandering lady figure down the Brooklyn hills through the green forest of Central Park down Willis Street to the Customhouse Quay area. I saw a coffee house called Mojo and decided to order a mochaccino. It would be the perfect final touch to the breakfast I had earlier consisting of hardboiled eggs with garlic noir (yes, that fancy garlic from Malrborough) and more garlic noir with blue cheese. Delish!

The mochaccino was served on a regular glass (like those for drinking water) with a white marshmallow and a pink marshmallow on the side. The coffee house was full. Working people everywhere in their business casual outfits having their 3-6 people meeting at Mojo.

I dropped the marshmallows in the mochaccino and they inflated before they slowly melted. I could taste vanilla and strawberry flavors slowly steeping into the creamy milk chocolate and coffee elixir. Once I had swallowed all the liquid in the glass I spooned what was left of the marshmallows in order to savor those two lovely balls of sugar. The marshmallows melted on my tongue leaving the subtlest aftertaste of vanilla and strawberry. I know what vanilla and strawberry clouds taste like.

Without brining myself back to my senses, I got up the chair and slowly wandered through the Quay area through Frank Kitts Park in the direction of Te Papa, New Zealand’s National Museum. I enjoyed the view: children running around and jumping off into the water; food trucks selling more coffee, greek food, churros and empanadas; art stores. It was a perfect summer morning.

Once in Te Papa, I decided the best way to learn about New Zealand history fast was to take a tour. I was offered the general tour or the Maori focused tour. If you know me well, you know which one I chose.

Our tour guide walked us through the Maori section of museum and I heard many words I had never heard in my life. I heard the beautiful story of creation. I learned that NZ was uninhabited until 1100AD when the first Maori tribes arrived. I learned about Waitangi and what that has meant for the Maori people. I noticed how colonialists had learned some lessons from the first colonies and had decided they needed to marry into the important tribes in order to gain influence. I was excitedly overwhelmed with history, art, and stories told in the innocent yet dry and somewhat dark kiwi sense of humor I have come to love.

After the tour I wandered through the Maori floor a bit more and learned about the All Blacks Haka. I then saw a bit of contemporary New Zealand art and finally went onto learn about modern history. I think New Zealand as a nation is somewhat ballsy – they just do what they want because they want to and they are trying to do the right thing. Some examples include standing up against nuclear weapons and the nuclear tests conducted by the United States and France around the Pacific Islands. The way the country protested/boycotted South Africa’s apartheid during rugby games with the ‘Halt All Racists Tour.’ The way they are leading through ecotourism and environmental regulations. The country is also attempting to set the record straight with the Maori population through the Waitangi Tribunal, even if the crown sometimes ignores their recommendations.

Oh yeah, parenthesis, soon on February 6, the country will celebrate the Treaty of Waitangi. This treaty was a way of the British Crown obtaining a written document proving they had rights over New Zealand lands from the Maori chiefs – they clearly had to prove to the French they had arrived there first. In this document, the British Crown has rights over the lands of Aotearoa but the Maori’s would have equal rights as British Citizens. One of the main issues with this treaty is that it was written in English and Maori, and from what I have been told by two sources so far is that the translations are different – so in a way the Maori chiefs signed for what was written in Maori, while the British settlers signed for what was written in English. Another problem with the treaty was that Maoris at the beginning were not treated as equal citizens as Article 3 denotes. Just like every other colony I’ve known racism ruled the interactions of the colonialists and the native populations.

I know I don’t have all the information about New Zealand’s history and I know it is not a picture perfect rosy portrait, but I can see a self-sufficient nation working hard for what is right and standing up for what they believe. Maybe it is possible because they are far away from Europe and the United States, or maybe because the per capita population is so low, or maybe because they care more for the health of their country and citizens. I don’t know, but I become nostalgic. I wish my island didn’t have such a history of dependence and a history based more on self-sufficiency. I wish Taínos hadn’t been completely absorbed into a new culture – or who knows if exterminated is a more appropriate term – so that we could have more details about our land, the legends that go with them, as well as an understanding of the sacred places in the island.

After my overwhelming history experience I decided to unwind with a bit of New Zealand contemporary art in Te Papa and then the City Gallery in Wellington for some Creamy Psychology.