“Kia ora,” I said. June the postie gave me a look. “Kia ora,” she said, and smiled. Then: “Kei te pēhea koe?” It was my turn to give a look. “Er, sorry, ‘kia ora’ is about as far as my Māori goes,” I mumbled.
We gave each other more looks. What she could see was me going as red as a sunburnt bum. What I could see was her smiling at me as I went as red as a sunburnt bum.
“‘Kei te pēhea koe?’ means ‘how are you?’” June continued, as if speaking to a slightly dim child, which, by this time, felt about right.
“What should I say in return?” I ventured.
“You should say ‘Kei te pai’, ‘I’m good’.”
“Kei te …”
“Kei te pai,” June repeated, then “Eat the pie!” She hooted like a happy ruru and so, of course, did I. “Ka pai, ka pai,” I said quickly, just to prove I had more in my kete than just “kia ora” – though, frankly, not much more – and this made her laugh even harder.
It is one of the many chagrins of my life that I am, despite my (admittedly slapdash) mahi, bloody hopeless at te reo. My excuse, as I explained shamefacedly to June, is I wasn’t taught any of it when I was at school in the 1970s and early 80s.
Unlike Michele, who learned Māori as a child in Kaitaia, and claims she was the star of the kapa haka club, all I recall learning about Māori language and culture was how to make a poi and sing a few songs at Intermediate Normal in Palmy.
When I did eventually study a language other than English at high school, Māori wasn’t offered anyway. I did French and German, and was, it turned out, bloody hopeless at those as well.
Faced with such feeble excuses, June, in her no-nonsense way, told me to stop whining and keep trying. Then she told me a story.
As a girl, she had been taught Māori at school in Wellington. But when her father found out, he hit the roof. He went down to the school and told her teachers that there was no way they would be teaching his daughter Māori – but not for the reason you might think.
June explained he objected not to her being taught the language – their language – but to the variety of Māori the school was promulgating.
“It’s an English version,” June said her father told her. “If you want to learn the proper language, girl, you go home to the marae.” So that’s what she did.
I, on the other, have to come home to Michele, who, ever happy to make her day at the expense of mine, has spent the week randomly asking me, “Kei te pēhea koe?” before dissolving into giggles and running off. Anyone know what’s Māori for “bugger off”?
It turns out my idea for role-playing as a fighter pilot with my ride-on mower, to make our endless mowing a bit more fun, you understand, is as feeble as my te reo.
A reader called Ellen emailed the Listener to “tell that Greg Dixon fella he needs to find and watch this movie. It might inspire him to begin an adventure.”
The 1999 film that Ellen suggested is called The Straight Story. It’s based on the real, 1994 story of a fella by the name of Alvin Straight, a World War II veteran from Iowa with bad legs and bad eyes.
When he heard Henry, his estranged brother in Wisconsin, had had a stroke Alvin decided it was time to bury the hatchet before it was time to bury Henry.
Trouble was Alvin had no driver’s licence (thanks to the bad eyes and legs), so he made the nearly 400km journey on his 1966 ride-on mower, a vehicle with a top speed of just 8km/h. It took him six weeks, with the mower breaking down twice, the second time just 3km from his brother’s home. A local farmer pushed him the final distance.
Ellen is right; that does sound like a proper adventure. And by chance, Whakaata Māori will be streaming The Straight Story from May 27. Ka pai!
