Alimina – Avondale
“I messaged my brother to come and pick us up from my cleaning job, because our car just crashed last week. So, we don’t have a car.
I started off a franchise business about nine years ago, and then the recession hit and everything sort of went pfft for me, and also some other personal things that happened like an unfair court procedure with Housing New Zealand, and I got pretty stressed from it. So I dropped off some clients and just stuck with one – one couple that have always been cool, and so they’re still my clients to this day. I just finished cleaning down at their place.
I’m not really connected in the community at the moment, but I normally like going to church. That’s my community I suppose, and I spend a lot of time with my family. I was born here, so this is my country I would say, and it was a very lovely place almost 50 years ago. It was very, what could I say? Innocent. It was very innocent, very kind, very friendly, things were so cheap, jobs were plentiful, housing was plentiful. It was called the country of bread and honey. I still love it. I’m still here almost 50 years later.
I suppose in a way, if you’re born in New Zealand and you’re not in a family that’s culturally orientated, such as us, you’re not really connected with your culture unless you catch the plane and go back home for a holiday.
There are things like the Polyfest – Polyfest for the kids. My children have been involved in the Polyfest and the Cook Island dancing and the Māori Kapa haka, so those sort of things are the only times that we sort of have that connection, and just recently watching Moana. The movie Moana has been a nice reflection to our island ethnicity.
Unfortunately my parents weren’t taught to teach us the language or the reo. I am actually heading back over to go and settle down in the (Cook) Islands in my later life, and I’m going to encourage all my family to come and live there, and we’ll just run a business. I’m wanting to do something like a motel business to create enough money for living and really get into the island life.
Humanity is all about kindness and consideration, like I was saying about how New Zealand used to be; instead of walking past each other just say hello, you know, with a smile. That’s so nice. We used to do it all the time; we’d always walk past each other – ‘hello’. We wouldn’t even know each other for a bar of soap, but smile and make that person’s day.
I must admit that out of all of the cities I’ve been to in New Zealand – cities, townships and everything; Auckland is the best, because Aucklanders are friendly people.. So big ups for Auckland.”
