Hangi-over again...
So, over the weekend, the Kohanga Reo o Ngati Ranana had their tenth annual fund-raising Hangi[1], which was, amongst other things, painful, hard work, and a roaring success.
It involved, for my part, getting up on Saturday morning, taking a train out to Sydenham, where we all collected, more or less, at one of the whanau's houses for prep work. That means we took 45 kilos of kumara or sweet potato (the Real Thing is expensive to get, over here, so we made do), 50 or 60 kilos of potatoes, something like 20 kilos each of lamb and pork, and an equal amount of chicken (that was done before we got there, so I didn't get involved in counting that) and converted the whole lot into 646 portions of potatoes, 576 portions of kumara, 360 portions of lamb, 360 portions of pork, and probably another 400 portions of chicken. Fortunately, this year we dispensed with peeling the potatoes and kumara, but even so.
Oh, yes. And we made a whole mess of steamed pudding and stuffing, although that didn't come out so well.
And I went on a drive down to Hinemehi, next to Clandon House, in Clandon Park, near Guildford (google it, they have maps online - which I'm not, right now, otherwise I'd put a link in) to offload a van full of scrap iron, and various bags and boxes and tins and shovels and takes and implements of destruction, so that we didn't have to make a second trip in the morning. And back to Sydenham, where I spent the evening, sans $wife.
Went to sleep, woke up around 3:15am. Got sorted, and picked up and headed out to Hinemehi - we were a bit late leaving, and didn't leave until ten past 4, so we didn't get there until 5. At which point we started with the digging the pit, setting the fire going, organising the irons, etc. Ah, the "river stones" we used last year, which were exceptionally good, were apparently borrowed sometime during the year. Sadly, we couldn't locate the person who borrowed them, so we couldn't borrow them back. So the guy running the thing had to scrabble up some loose scrap to throw in - this included a bunch of steps, some flat grating, a radiator, and a manhole cover, as well as two six-foot girders - which he did exceptionally well. The "river stones" last year were 8 inch lengths of rail track, with a hole drilled in one end, so you can hook them out of the fire and drag them into the pit. So, anyway, the ground was muddy, due to rain on Saturday, and after we got through the sod, the ground was sticking to the shovels and spades well enough that they were tripled in weight. One pig of a pit digging later, and 3 inch platforms for everyone digging, and we had a hole ready. The pit boss set up a fire in the pit to dry it out, and, for the first time in ten years, apparently, the groundskeeper wandered past while we were mid-way through it - he's new, so they tell me, but friendly enough for all that. After a few minutes chat, he wandered away again, and came back with a leaf-blower, which he directed into the pit. The fire in there leaped up good. :-]
And then we waited while the main fire burned away merrily, and the side fire was set up, and the cauldron was set up on it, and a soup of pork, with cabbage and dumplings in it, was prepared for breakfast. Oh, and we spread tinfoil in baskets, spread the meat over that, and sprinkled salt over the layers of it, ready to put in the pit.
At about 8:30, the fire in the pit was out, so we ripped the main fire apart, pulled all the iron out, and dumped it into the pit. Then we put the baskets over it, spread blankets and towels (soaked in water) over that, and then a tarpaulin, and then buried it all again. At this point, the groundskeeper wandered off again, reappearing, as we'd almost finished, driving a digger. Man, the energy that would have saved, earlier in the day - not that it wasn't very welcome when it arrived anyway.
After that, we had breakfast, swept the remains of the fire back together to let it burn out, and the wahine turned up with the rest of the folks setting up.
I wandered off sometime around here, to go set up the marquees to fend the rain off, getting things organised, and watching the rain settle in. I also wandered off to direct cars into the car park, inasmuch as they paid any attention to me standing in the rain - what is it with people, they drive past as if I'm standing there letting rain fall on me for my own amusement, with no other reason for being there. Or they stop and chat, and ignore me entirely when directing them to where to park. Go figure. At around twenty to eleven, I left the National Trust guy directing the parking, and headed back up to the marae to get prepared for the pepeha - apparently someone had the bright idea to direct all the visitors into Clandon House to wait, avoiding the rain, and for some reason, we had someone with a video camera wandering around, as well.
We went through the pepeha, got all the visitors greeted and hongi'd, and broke up for fifteen minutes or so, then put the kids on for their show, after having the marquees organised into a ring around Hinemehi. The kids put on their show, including the haka (it's so cute watching some of the younger ones, just toddling, managing to do the haka with everyone else) and the various songs, and broke up to run away for a bit, then got herded back down to sit in the front and see the Ngati Ranana put on -their- set. Reason for this is some of them were having trouble figuring out poukana, or the ugly faces that are supposed to scare, and one of their teachers wanted them to see the Ngati Ranana guys going for it - particularly the ladies. Only down side of this, is one of the kids got scared and climbed onto their parent's lap and wouldn't watch. :-] Other than that, it all went well.
After that, there was a brief recital from one of the Ngati Ranana ladies (I believe her opening lines went something like "Kia Ora! Kia ora, kotou! Hiya, suckers." :-] ) of a poem she'd written about Hinemehi, back a while when there was some argument over whether it should stay where it is, or get shipped back to NZ[2], with her strongly in favour of staying. Touching, it was - sadly, I don't remember enough of it to do it justice, but if I can get a copy of it, I'll put it up here. And then there was Beats Polynesia, who put on a good show that I missed most of, being as how i was running down to the pit and back carrying messages and suchlike. However, it appeared to be well received, and the bits I heard were well done - the amusing bits at the end where they dragged some of the crowd out to dance with them, Polynesian style, was entertaining, at least.
After that, we broke up for a bit, and then got into serving the food out to 300+ people - got the guys up from the pit to eat something, and everyone headed into the dessert, as well.
Finally, we had the blessings over the Taonga for the new kids in Kohanga - the youngest one was, I think, something like 2-3 months or so - and the closing speech, and the raffle. We didn't win anything, even though $wife was the one organising. I told her we should have rigged it... ;-]
Packed up, and got a lift home from Blair and his partner, for which I was well and truly grateful. Got home around ten past seven or so, and went splat - I recall having a bath, and having trouble getting out of it. I finally crashed at about ten.
My boots are still covered in muck, even after washing most of it off while still down there. My trousers got put in a bucket somewhere. I have blisters on both thumbs, stinging nettles in my middle and pinky fingers on my right hand, a blister on my palm where my wedding ring pokes, a notch on the back of my middle finger, first knuckle, where I caught it on a fence when waving to Tornado, and a nice lengthwise slice across the tip of my little finger on my right hand. My arms ache when I stretch, or when I pick things up. My feet hurt. My legs ache when walking. My back, just above my right kidney, hurts. My shoulders are stuck, I managed to get something in my right eye while moving the irons to the pit, which only came out overnight (and I was concerned that it might have hit my contact, and melted it) and the cold that I had almost kicked before the weekend has come back.
All in all, a roaring success. :-]
[1] In this post, there are a number of Maori words. I hope I got them all right. I may well be wrong in my spelling, but I know what I mean. :-]
[2] The original story is that Hinemehi is a marae that survived the Tarawera explosion back in the 1880's, and some Englishman decided that he'd take a souvenir back to England. So he took a marae. When she got here, they thatched her, because, so they say, they looked at photos of her back in NZ, with all the mud and ash on her roof, and duplicated that. She's one of four marae's outside of New Zealand, the only thatched marae in the entire world, and, theoretically at least, the center point for the Maori people in the UK. Some discussion in the last year or year and a half over if she should be sent back, with strong opinions on both sides, has resulted in a decision to keep her where she is. Eventually. I managed to miss it entirely, though, for which I am appropriately grateful.
It involved, for my part, getting up on Saturday morning, taking a train out to Sydenham, where we all collected, more or less, at one of the whanau's houses for prep work. That means we took 45 kilos of kumara or sweet potato (the Real Thing is expensive to get, over here, so we made do), 50 or 60 kilos of potatoes, something like 20 kilos each of lamb and pork, and an equal amount of chicken (that was done before we got there, so I didn't get involved in counting that) and converted the whole lot into 646 portions of potatoes, 576 portions of kumara, 360 portions of lamb, 360 portions of pork, and probably another 400 portions of chicken. Fortunately, this year we dispensed with peeling the potatoes and kumara, but even so.
Oh, yes. And we made a whole mess of steamed pudding and stuffing, although that didn't come out so well.
And I went on a drive down to Hinemehi, next to Clandon House, in Clandon Park, near Guildford (google it, they have maps online - which I'm not, right now, otherwise I'd put a link in) to offload a van full of scrap iron, and various bags and boxes and tins and shovels and takes and implements of destruction, so that we didn't have to make a second trip in the morning. And back to Sydenham, where I spent the evening, sans $wife.
Went to sleep, woke up around 3:15am. Got sorted, and picked up and headed out to Hinemehi - we were a bit late leaving, and didn't leave until ten past 4, so we didn't get there until 5. At which point we started with the digging the pit, setting the fire going, organising the irons, etc. Ah, the "river stones" we used last year, which were exceptionally good, were apparently borrowed sometime during the year. Sadly, we couldn't locate the person who borrowed them, so we couldn't borrow them back. So the guy running the thing had to scrabble up some loose scrap to throw in - this included a bunch of steps, some flat grating, a radiator, and a manhole cover, as well as two six-foot girders - which he did exceptionally well. The "river stones" last year were 8 inch lengths of rail track, with a hole drilled in one end, so you can hook them out of the fire and drag them into the pit. So, anyway, the ground was muddy, due to rain on Saturday, and after we got through the sod, the ground was sticking to the shovels and spades well enough that they were tripled in weight. One pig of a pit digging later, and 3 inch platforms for everyone digging, and we had a hole ready. The pit boss set up a fire in the pit to dry it out, and, for the first time in ten years, apparently, the groundskeeper wandered past while we were mid-way through it - he's new, so they tell me, but friendly enough for all that. After a few minutes chat, he wandered away again, and came back with a leaf-blower, which he directed into the pit. The fire in there leaped up good. :-]
And then we waited while the main fire burned away merrily, and the side fire was set up, and the cauldron was set up on it, and a soup of pork, with cabbage and dumplings in it, was prepared for breakfast. Oh, and we spread tinfoil in baskets, spread the meat over that, and sprinkled salt over the layers of it, ready to put in the pit.
At about 8:30, the fire in the pit was out, so we ripped the main fire apart, pulled all the iron out, and dumped it into the pit. Then we put the baskets over it, spread blankets and towels (soaked in water) over that, and then a tarpaulin, and then buried it all again. At this point, the groundskeeper wandered off again, reappearing, as we'd almost finished, driving a digger. Man, the energy that would have saved, earlier in the day - not that it wasn't very welcome when it arrived anyway.
After that, we had breakfast, swept the remains of the fire back together to let it burn out, and the wahine turned up with the rest of the folks setting up.
I wandered off sometime around here, to go set up the marquees to fend the rain off, getting things organised, and watching the rain settle in. I also wandered off to direct cars into the car park, inasmuch as they paid any attention to me standing in the rain - what is it with people, they drive past as if I'm standing there letting rain fall on me for my own amusement, with no other reason for being there. Or they stop and chat, and ignore me entirely when directing them to where to park. Go figure. At around twenty to eleven, I left the National Trust guy directing the parking, and headed back up to the marae to get prepared for the pepeha - apparently someone had the bright idea to direct all the visitors into Clandon House to wait, avoiding the rain, and for some reason, we had someone with a video camera wandering around, as well.
We went through the pepeha, got all the visitors greeted and hongi'd, and broke up for fifteen minutes or so, then put the kids on for their show, after having the marquees organised into a ring around Hinemehi. The kids put on their show, including the haka (it's so cute watching some of the younger ones, just toddling, managing to do the haka with everyone else) and the various songs, and broke up to run away for a bit, then got herded back down to sit in the front and see the Ngati Ranana put on -their- set. Reason for this is some of them were having trouble figuring out poukana, or the ugly faces that are supposed to scare, and one of their teachers wanted them to see the Ngati Ranana guys going for it - particularly the ladies. Only down side of this, is one of the kids got scared and climbed onto their parent's lap and wouldn't watch. :-] Other than that, it all went well.
After that, there was a brief recital from one of the Ngati Ranana ladies (I believe her opening lines went something like "Kia Ora! Kia ora, kotou! Hiya, suckers." :-] ) of a poem she'd written about Hinemehi, back a while when there was some argument over whether it should stay where it is, or get shipped back to NZ[2], with her strongly in favour of staying. Touching, it was - sadly, I don't remember enough of it to do it justice, but if I can get a copy of it, I'll put it up here. And then there was Beats Polynesia, who put on a good show that I missed most of, being as how i was running down to the pit and back carrying messages and suchlike. However, it appeared to be well received, and the bits I heard were well done - the amusing bits at the end where they dragged some of the crowd out to dance with them, Polynesian style, was entertaining, at least.
After that, we broke up for a bit, and then got into serving the food out to 300+ people - got the guys up from the pit to eat something, and everyone headed into the dessert, as well.
Finally, we had the blessings over the Taonga for the new kids in Kohanga - the youngest one was, I think, something like 2-3 months or so - and the closing speech, and the raffle. We didn't win anything, even though $wife was the one organising. I told her we should have rigged it... ;-]
Packed up, and got a lift home from Blair and his partner, for which I was well and truly grateful. Got home around ten past seven or so, and went splat - I recall having a bath, and having trouble getting out of it. I finally crashed at about ten.
My boots are still covered in muck, even after washing most of it off while still down there. My trousers got put in a bucket somewhere. I have blisters on both thumbs, stinging nettles in my middle and pinky fingers on my right hand, a blister on my palm where my wedding ring pokes, a notch on the back of my middle finger, first knuckle, where I caught it on a fence when waving to Tornado, and a nice lengthwise slice across the tip of my little finger on my right hand. My arms ache when I stretch, or when I pick things up. My feet hurt. My legs ache when walking. My back, just above my right kidney, hurts. My shoulders are stuck, I managed to get something in my right eye while moving the irons to the pit, which only came out overnight (and I was concerned that it might have hit my contact, and melted it) and the cold that I had almost kicked before the weekend has come back.
All in all, a roaring success. :-]
[1] In this post, there are a number of Maori words. I hope I got them all right. I may well be wrong in my spelling, but I know what I mean. :-]
[2] The original story is that Hinemehi is a marae that survived the Tarawera explosion back in the 1880's, and some Englishman decided that he'd take a souvenir back to England. So he took a marae. When she got here, they thatched her, because, so they say, they looked at photos of her back in NZ, with all the mud and ash on her roof, and duplicated that. She's one of four marae's outside of New Zealand, the only thatched marae in the entire world, and, theoretically at least, the center point for the Maori people in the UK. Some discussion in the last year or year and a half over if she should be sent back, with strong opinions on both sides, has resulted in a decision to keep her where she is. Eventually. I managed to miss it entirely, though, for which I am appropriately grateful.