My sister's dog knew more te reo than we did

Ngahi Bidois.

To celebrate the recent passing of Te Ture mo te reo Maori 2016 I thought I would share my te reo Maori journey with you.

I hope it inspires you to learn te reo Maori, one of our official languages of Aotearoa.

When I was young my sister Angela had a fox terrier named Whetu. Whetu was white except for the brown markings over one of his eyes and like all fox terriers he was a highly intelligent dog. He was also bilingual because my sister taught him Maori.

So if you wanted Whetu to come to you then you would say "Haere mai Whetu" and he would trot on over. If you said "e noho" he would sit, "e tu" got him to stand and "hurihuri" saw him roll over.

I recall my sister going to my mother and father for many other Maori words to teach Whetu and in the end that jolly dog knew more Maori than us kids!

One of the many funny incidents that happened with Whetu was when I had one of my Pakeha friends over and called Whetu over to meet him, "Whetu - haere mai", and Whetu came trotting over.

My Pakeha mate looked at me and said, "Chaa, that's neat all right." I said, "What's neat bro?" He nodded at Whetu and replied, "Chaa, you got a dog with two names!"

Whetu did know more Maori than us kids. The reality was that both my parents went to primary school fluent in te reo Maori and had it strapped out of them. That process of trying to eradicate the Maori language was a part of the stink colonisation process my mum and dad and most of their generation experienced. So when 'us kids' came along they chose not to speak Maori to us or teach us the little Maori language they had left. I therefore grew up not knowing te reo Maori to any level of fluency.

Sure, I knew the songs for the kapa haka juniors which saw us out at Awahou Marae with Ngati Rangiwewehi most weekends, but that was about it. I knew the waiata and haka but you dare not ask me to translate them.

I even did a bit of Maori language at Western Heights High School and as part of my first degree at Massey University on the Tu Tangata scheme, however the only outcome there was to pass subjects with still no real level of fluency achieved.

Having said all that, life was good and I later remember eating a burger while sitting on a hotel bed in Christchurch attending yet another leadership course for my job with a multi-national oil company. They were fast-tracking me through positions after completing my business degree and I was eating the burger because I was sick of the restaurant food downstairs.

As I ate my burger I remember having a conversation that went something like this. "I have made it. I have completed my major goals that I wanted to achieve by the age 30 and here I am, 26 years of age and I have done them all."

Those five major goals being to get a degree and a corporate career, have money in the bank, be married to a beautiful woman and have an even more beautiful car. I think the last one was a bit selfish, but never mind.

Some would say I had become quite successful with my beautiful wife, degree, money in the bank, flash car and high-flying career with a multi-national oil company. The future looked pretty good.

Getting back to the topic of te reo Maori, it would be fair to say that learning te reo Maori was nowhere near my 'how to be successful' list. I was kei te pai - all good thank you. However, within a year te reo Maori would become the only major goal in my life. This goal would not just affect me, but also my beautiful Pakeha wife Carolyn and our children, Eruera and Tumanako, who were yet to be born.

To be continued.