Erika | Waiheke Island
“I wish now, I’m doing something with my life, because I start my life again here, and the other part of the world, because when you look back on your, yourself and you see, you feel something wrong, and so when you are far away, I think it’s easier to start again, a new person. It’s a new puritan life, yeah and be yourself.
I just looked at some pictures, and I saw, I don’t know, what I was doing in France. In France, it’s sort of a big country. Very rich, so you are very in the commercialism. A lot of, I don’t know, a lot of clothes, having a lot of food, maybe too much food, and money – always money, a lot of money, and today I don’t want that. I just want to live a life very easy, but easy doesn’t mean poor. For me, it’s a lot of richness, but without, something. I don’t know. I left a lot of clothes, little stuff – just stuff behind me in France, and yeah, it’s just I was less easy. That is another personality and now I just want to be more simple and feeling inside – not outside.
I used to (study) biology in France, and it was, was a lot of students, and not a lot of places for work, and I lost my dad. We went with my mother and my sister to Africa, to meet, meet us again, and I felt like, oh this is freedom, travelling, to see the world. Maybe before the war! I met my husband and, and we started travelling around, and we never stopped. So, that’s it. I’m here.
Waiheke is beautiful. It’s full of trees, and nature. It’s what I was looking for; native plants, native birds, beautiful sea.
I’m a landscaper, and I’m working on site. I injured myself; I had the surgery one month ago. So, now I’m doing some, a lot of tricks working.”