Nya | Papatoetoe
“I grew up mostly in South Auckland, and through Māngere and Rewa, and it’s been like a long journey, but I also grew up in Kutarere and like, a lot of places around New Zealand, and have seen that most of it’s always representing a colour or gang, and with me that’s not the case.
I’m not about like gang, gang, gangs especially like now that I want to join the defence forces; it’s better off keeping away from the bad side of stuff, but I’m a mummy’s girl, and we didn’t really live together my whole life, but I love her all the time.
A random act of kindness that I’ve done is with my course. We do community service, and we cleaned up the Puhinui River together as a team, and we did it for the community, because we thought it was too messy. So we cleaned out all the tyres, the beds and everything together as a team. The last time I really connected with someone was probably my squad, because we’re doing military prep, so we do a lot together and this is our last week together so it’s really hard leaving each other.
Last heart to heart I had would have been with my best friend. We told each other about when we were little, and growing up in the different places; her being from the Islands and me being from New Zealand – what it was like growing up as a little kid. Like, her one would have been being able to go clubbing when you’re like 12 or 14. For me, it would have been growing up in the different areas in New Zealand like Kutarere, Auckland, and down the line. We were bored. We were really bored, so we started talking about growing up and we wanted to explain that, being best friends, we wanted to make sure that we could trust each other, so we explained like, pretty much our life story to each other.
So yeah, it’s a heart to heart, it is difficult; like you’ve got to show that you’re worthy to be trusted with the things that the other person is going to tell you, but it feels really good knowing that they trust you, and knowing you can trust them also, and it does build a better relationship between both of you’s. It doesn’t have to be romantic, but it could be like a friendship, or even build your family bond.
Ah, with me and my culture like, I love my culture and throughout school I’ve always done kapa haka and stuff with my grandad. I’m not really good at speaking it, but I love singing it and um, always been that kind of cultural person.”
