I'll be home in Samoa on that day but it's in keeping with the call for Maori to return to their ancestral homes and make contact during the Matariki season.
In fact, the three important themes that are encouraged during Matariki or the celebration of the Maori New Year, is first remembering those who have passed on, celebrating with your whānau or family or loved ones and finally planning for a brighter future. All of these are important considerations to make for our families and friends.
Today, I took my students to visit a Matariki celebration at another local marae that we were visiting called Waatea Marae in Mangere. It had food stalls and various government and health departments, my place of work was advertising there and there were bands playing on the stage.
Lots of people attended so that it looked like a block party with cars parked all over the place and the good thing was that there were cops there but they weren't issuing tickets for all the cars that were parked illegally in many places which I'm sure would have been a relief to those drivers as well.
All in all, it was neat to see families and friends coming together to celebrate this unique upcoming holiday with people getting into the spirit of celebration. One thing that the organizers of Matariki have stated and that's that they don't want Matariki to be commercialized but that it's about family and I like it like that...
No comments:
Post a Comment