Hangi
Hi, guys.
We (Kohanga Reo o te Ngati Ranana) just had a Hangi over here, as our annual fundraiser.
That means: we spent yesterday scrubbing 600 portions of kumara, peeling 900 portions of potatos, and preparing for today.
I got to stay at someone's place overnight, and get woken up at 3:30am to get in the car to go drive over lots of sleeping policemen, feel slightly sick, and arrive at the Hangi pit at 5am. Ten minutes before the team of 15 or so guys turned up from Ngati Ranana turned up to help, and twenty-five minutes before the truck arrived.
Note that said truck had all the shovels and a couple of picks in it. The ground was pretty hard. :-/ I nearly bent the one spade we had, before the truck arrived. Detecting the difference between the rock and the ground was difficult...
So, we dug the pit. Set up the fire. Loaded it up with the "river stones" (6 inch long segments of railway iron :-) and set about preparing the food for putting in the pit. Set up ten or so gazebos, four of which were never used. moved the red-hot "stones" into the pit, put the baskets on top, spread nice wet blankets over the top, tarpaulins over that, and shovelled the dirt back over the hole. Note that "shovel dirt back over hole" is "everyone picks up a shovel and digs like maniacs until the job is done" - same goes for throwing the stones in the pit, the idea is, go like mad, and tag out to one of the other guys standing about when you get exhausted. Since the fire is too hot to stand 6 feet away from, and the iron is red hot in the middle - I noticed when we were putting it into the hole, some of them were sparkling as, I presume, the oxygen and iron reacted in a way you don't usually see outside of a smelter...
Checked the folks up on the Hinemehe Marae (where we eat - one of only four Maraes outside of NZ) and organise where the gazebos go. Go and get some tables for them, managing to find a staple poking out of one the hard way - at speed, with my palm. One lovely big gash later, stop helping with the tables. Went off to organise the folks driving into the carpark, or at least tlak to the one guy who was doing it for the National Trust, the guys who run the area we used (Clandon Park, google it), since by now it was about ten-ish.
Organise the kids, getting moku put on them (eyeliner pencil, but it worked well. If only we had a few more people able to draw them, or a few less kids needing them drawn... note, bring a pencil sharpener next time :-) and onto the grassy area in front of the Marae for their performance. They did well, sang all their songs, and the Ngati Ranana folks nipped in the back to provide moral - and vocal - support, for us poor parents wot don't know the words, and mostly wouldn't know the actions if you hit us with them :-) Muchly appreciated. So. Kids off, Ngati Ranana did their bit, and the Kapa Haka groun - the folks with the pointy sticks - did their bit, too. (Basically, it's the martial art that the Maori warriors did with their spears. Much fun and *lots* of effort.) During this, we're setting up the tables and preparing for spreading the food out as soon as it gets dug up and spread around. An even dozen people leap in to serve, somehow I'm in the middle of it all, and we get the 300 people fed in reasonably short order - at least, it seemed that way. Somehow our queue kept getting longer - the servers behind us finished up, leapt out, and joined *our* queue to get some food off us.
So, sort that out, go back, watch Beats Polynesia do their thing, and stand around while the raffles are drawn. Then head home, getting a lift from Bee, who was there. Big Bro wandered through, as well, although I didn't have a lot of time to talk to him.
I'm a little bit tired, now.
We (Kohanga Reo o te Ngati Ranana) just had a Hangi over here, as our annual fundraiser.
That means: we spent yesterday scrubbing 600 portions of kumara, peeling 900 portions of potatos, and preparing for today.
I got to stay at someone's place overnight, and get woken up at 3:30am to get in the car to go drive over lots of sleeping policemen, feel slightly sick, and arrive at the Hangi pit at 5am. Ten minutes before the team of 15 or so guys turned up from Ngati Ranana turned up to help, and twenty-five minutes before the truck arrived.
Note that said truck had all the shovels and a couple of picks in it. The ground was pretty hard. :-/ I nearly bent the one spade we had, before the truck arrived. Detecting the difference between the rock and the ground was difficult...
So, we dug the pit. Set up the fire. Loaded it up with the "river stones" (6 inch long segments of railway iron :-) and set about preparing the food for putting in the pit. Set up ten or so gazebos, four of which were never used. moved the red-hot "stones" into the pit, put the baskets on top, spread nice wet blankets over the top, tarpaulins over that, and shovelled the dirt back over the hole. Note that "shovel dirt back over hole" is "everyone picks up a shovel and digs like maniacs until the job is done" - same goes for throwing the stones in the pit, the idea is, go like mad, and tag out to one of the other guys standing about when you get exhausted. Since the fire is too hot to stand 6 feet away from, and the iron is red hot in the middle - I noticed when we were putting it into the hole, some of them were sparkling as, I presume, the oxygen and iron reacted in a way you don't usually see outside of a smelter...
Checked the folks up on the Hinemehe Marae (where we eat - one of only four Maraes outside of NZ) and organise where the gazebos go. Go and get some tables for them, managing to find a staple poking out of one the hard way - at speed, with my palm. One lovely big gash later, stop helping with the tables. Went off to organise the folks driving into the carpark, or at least tlak to the one guy who was doing it for the National Trust, the guys who run the area we used (Clandon Park, google it), since by now it was about ten-ish.
Organise the kids, getting moku put on them (eyeliner pencil, but it worked well. If only we had a few more people able to draw them, or a few less kids needing them drawn... note, bring a pencil sharpener next time :-) and onto the grassy area in front of the Marae for their performance. They did well, sang all their songs, and the Ngati Ranana folks nipped in the back to provide moral - and vocal - support, for us poor parents wot don't know the words, and mostly wouldn't know the actions if you hit us with them :-) Muchly appreciated. So. Kids off, Ngati Ranana did their bit, and the Kapa Haka groun - the folks with the pointy sticks - did their bit, too. (Basically, it's the martial art that the Maori warriors did with their spears. Much fun and *lots* of effort.) During this, we're setting up the tables and preparing for spreading the food out as soon as it gets dug up and spread around. An even dozen people leap in to serve, somehow I'm in the middle of it all, and we get the 300 people fed in reasonably short order - at least, it seemed that way. Somehow our queue kept getting longer - the servers behind us finished up, leapt out, and joined *our* queue to get some food off us.
So, sort that out, go back, watch Beats Polynesia do their thing, and stand around while the raffles are drawn. Then head home, getting a lift from Bee, who was there. Big Bro wandered through, as well, although I didn't have a lot of time to talk to him.
I'm a little bit tired, now.