Tali | Northcote
“I was born in Tonga and came to New Zealand when I was about seven/eight, and I’ve been here ever since.
When I landed my job [I felt thankful]. Getting a job is really hard, especially when you need to have qualifications and stuff, and yeah I was really thankful that my boss actually gave me a chance to prove myself. It was really good. Like, especially from my background. I’ve kept out of trouble, stopped hanging around with the wrong crowd. It’s really helped, I probably would have been in prison already if I wasn’t given this job.
On Saturday I finished work and I shot out to Ōtahuhu to put some payments on the car I crashed. After my payments were done, I was driving back. I fell asleep. I remember dozing off about three or four times on the way back, and the last thing I remember was jumping off the harbour bridge. As soon as I jumped off the harbour bridge, I just lost all memory, and the last thing I remember was waking up to the crash. The impact woke me up, and yeah that was pretty bad, and luckily the woman I hit, her kids weren’t in the back seat, because she had car seats and stuff.
I think I totalled her car as well, so I’m just waiting to get the bill for that. No insurance, nothing. That could have been avoided, but I just wanted to get home as soon as possible, because there was a rugby game on. Yeah, nah that is a time I was really thankful for, actually. Like, the crash was pretty bad, like people could have been hurt or worse, died but yeah, really thankful that didn’t happen. Like, maybe there is a God out there, you know? I need to slow down, I’ve been working, working too hard actually, not enough rest, driving.
My car, I haven’t even finished paying it off, and like I finish paying it off on the 16th January, and today I have to try and figure out a way to pay for the tow and stuff, because they won’t take it, because I still have payments on it and stuff. Yeah, so no-one would buy it. So I have a lot of troubles on my hands right now, trying to figure everything out with no money. So I’ll probably have to go somewhere and do a loan or something.”