Barry | Ōtāhuhu
“A new woman that lost her husband 10 years ago, and we just started communicating.
Complete stranger, and just started communicating. So, that could possibly lead to better things in my life. I don’t know, but yeah, I’m in the same situation myself. So, we’ll see what happens. She’s of a, of a different culture to me, but that doesn’t matter. She’s actually Indian, and I’m New Zealand-born Pākehā but it doesn’t mean jack-shit to me. We are what we are.
I’m a pretty out, yeah I’m a pretty straight-shooting sort of a guy and I just, saw her where I went to have something to eat. I just saw her working away in the kitchen, and she’s a chef there, and I said, oh you’re a beautiful looking woman. And, then suddenly everything changed. It’s quite, quite frankly, quite interested in me, and I just, I just thought she was a beautiful woman, even though, you know, she mightn’t have been, but to me she was beautiful. So, in other words we connected, yeah.
There’s too much standoffishness. There’s too much suspicion. There’s too much aggro. We’ve got to start lightening up and opening up, and communicating because if you don’t communicate, we’ve got problems. We’ve got problems in society. We’ve got problems in general, and I know, and I guess a lot of other people know, there’s a lot of people out there that need help, and won’t communicate, and won’t share their problems, and that leads to other problems. So, yes it’s very important people communicate, I feel.
I was born and bred in Otago, in a place called Green Island about 14 kilometres out, a suburb, a good environment, done my apprenticeship there, got married at a very young age, at 21. It didn’t work out so decided to move, travel. So, I spent a year and a half in Palmerston North first, and then come up to Auckland and have currently been here ever since, which is reiterating what I said before, I’ve been here 39 years, predominantly in the Ōtāhuhu area. I worked on big projects up here, mainly in the building associated trades. I’ve seen the suburbs in Auckland really, really grow in that period, and many, many changes, many cultural changes, especially lately, I think for the better of this country. I think positive on it. So, it’s good, good to see. That’s what I see, anyway.”
