Orientation Day

Today was orientation day for international students!  We met up at the school, they gave us some breakfast and then talked to us a long time to get us orientated.  We watched a funny video about driving in New Zealand, people came in and talked to us about health and counseling services, blah, blah, blah.  The president of MAWSA, the student association also talked to us, and MAWSA sounds really cool.

Then, we took a little tour of the campus and met with our own colleges.  I met with the business college and they talked to us for a little while.  After that, we got to be welcomed by the Maori, the native people of New Zealand, at a powhiri ceremony.  It was really awesome.  We went to the marae, or the Maori meeting house, on campus and the leader of the marae gave us a talk about what to expect.  We were required to take off our shoes because the marae is a sacred place to the Maori.  After a woman called out a song for us to enter, we were allowed to come in.  Men are always the first to enter the building, and the women follow behind.  There were a LOT more girls than guys.  I think this university has a much higher woman to male ratio than UCM.  After we walked into the building, were required to touch noses with the three Maori at the entrance, which is the Maori way to greet one another.  Touching noses is a very important part of Maori culture. Then, the leader gave a speech in the Maori language.  He picked out one of the students to give a speech.  Then after he had given his speech he had to speak out of the blue, the man made him say it again in Spanish.  The leader wanted him to sing too, because when you are new to the marae, you have to give a speech followed by a song.  The guy didn’t want to sing, so he was told to pick a number between one and fifteen. He picked fourteen. The leader counted down the line to the 14^th person in line, and it was now an Asian guy’s turn to sing.  After thinking about it for a little bit, he sang a song in his native language (I’m not sure what country he was from), and he did a really great job of it!

After the powhiri, we got some yummy lunch, and it was time for the bus tour!  We got on one of those big tour buses and got to take a ride around the city.  I got to see some places I haven’t been to yet.  First we stopped at the parliament buildings.  They are really cool, one of them is round and looks sort of like a beehive, so they call it The Beehive.

We stopped at the top of the cable car lift next to the entrance of the Botantical Gardens and saw the city form the overlook there.  Then, our last stop was the top of Mt. Victoria, a tall mountain/hill that looks over the city.  We had an awesome view from up there!

After our tour, we went back to our meeting room and saw The Whale Rider and ate pizza.  The movie was good, I have read the book before and it was a lot different, though.  We had this awesome pizza called Hell’s pizza, which is pretty much the best pizza in town.

There are a lot of international students, but the majority of them is from the USA.  I haven’t met anyone from Missouri yet, so I guess I’m the only one.  The closet I’ve heard of is Iowa or Illinois. There are Americans from all over the US here, it’s pretty cool.  I also met people from Vanuatu, Germany, India, the UK, Fiji, The Netherlands, Italy, Thailand, and Korea.  There are people from all over the world here!

Well got to go, I’m having a lot of fun here! I have some more orientation tomorrow, we’ll see how that goes!

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