Living the Kiwi Life

Now that we’ve been in New Zealand for over a week, crisscrossing the North Island from Auckland to Wellington, I’m beginning to understand all that the end of the earth has to offer.  It’s a country of contrasts for sure, with icy mountaintops and fiery geothermal features, high adventure activities and laid back pace, and society that is progressive and nativist at the same time.  Clayton and I came for the adventure–swimming through glowworm caves, careening over the highest commercially-rafted waterfall, and digging a geothermal spa at Hot Water Beach, to name a few things we have done–but the Kiwi lifestyle is pervasive and I might just bring it back with me.  Here’s a primer for you non-Kiwis of what my time has been like here…

First some semantics.  “Kiwi” is used to identify a true New Zealander, lower-case kiwi is the endangered flightless bird that serves as a national emblem, and kiwifruit refers to the fuzzy green fruit.  Of the three, I’ve probably seen the least kiwifruit.  It’s winter here, which means they’re not in season, but there are still crates of them at the front of every grocery store where bananas would be back home.  The bird kiwi, for all five of its species being reclusive, nocturnal, and endangered, is surprisingly ubiquitous.  The national icon adorns t-shirts, postcards, and business logos, even the dollar coin.  In a few places we drove, such as Tongariro National Park, the “kiwi crossing at night” signs were serious (although locals encourage you to target their invasive possums, running over a kiwi would be a cardinal sin).  Live kiwis are on display at numerous sanctuaries and museums across New Zealand; we watched them at the Otorohanga Kiwi House, running awkwardly on two legs through their darkened terrarium and poking at the ground with their spear-like beaks.  Kind of a weird choice for a national symbol, but Kiwis embrace their odd little fuzzbird.

Kiwis, by and large, are some of the coolest people I’ve ever met.  You expect your rafting and hiking guides to be cool, but I’ve also had some great conversations in unexpected places.  There was the lady in the rugby pro shop (talking about rugby is a great way to befriend a New Zealander, pro tip) whose excitement for everything rugby went far beyond selling us stuff.  There was Zach from Invercargill who came along to watch the big rugby match between the All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies, happy to explain the nuances of rugby to us sheltered Americans.  Native son and Thunder star Steven Adams is also a popular conversation starter, as he is the country’s biggest basketball figure and highest paid professional athlete.  I met a guy my age who played against Steven Adams growing up, getting his layups repeatedly blocked by the 7-footer.  The gas station clerk in Rotorua was excited to tell me his daughter was friends with Steven Adams’s older sister (three-time gold medalist and Dame) Valerie Adams as children.  There was the park ranger at Tongariro who quipped “Come on, kid, you’re on a volcano!” when I was trying to choose a hike with good geothermal views.  Lots of people have asked us where we’re from, wondering whether our conspicuous accents are from the U.S. or Canada.  So I’m working on a Kiwi accent to go undercover, which involves flipping a lot of vowel sounds around and saying “cheers” and “bro” a lot.

It’s a laid back culture for sure.  There’s a palpable vacation vibe, maybe because there are so many tourists here on holiday.  Yet everything is remarkably on time.  It’s just second nature to build in enough time in your schedule to smell the roses.  For being so laid back, there’s also a lot of high-octane activities that make New Zealand a heaven for adrenaline junkies.  Numerous skydiving, jet boating, bungee jumping, whitewater rafting, ice climbing, and other activities advertise as the ‘first’ or ‘highest’ in their respective categories.  For this wealth of high adventure activities, numerous foreigners have relocated to New Zealand, causing some political tension.  Even New Zealand, despite its welcoming vibe, probably doesn’t want too many of the world’s Matt Lauers relocating to beautiful Queenstown (true story, he did).  There’s also some political tension surrounding past mistreatment of the Maori, but the country seems to have made major strides in this area.  After 100 years of suppressing Maori culture, the government has invested in programs like the carving and weaving school at Te Puia to re-teach Maori descendants the artforms that were nearly lost.  There’s also Maori language options in primary and secondary schools, so many young Kiwis are bilingual.  Unfortunately, the socioeconomic inequality remains obvious, but I find it promising that the Maori cultural appreciation appears to be more widespread than our awareness of Native American issues back in the States.

Driving has been an adventure, to say the least.  You drive on the left side of the road here, meaning the steering wheel is on the right and many of the controls are reversed.  That has been pretty easy to get used to, a bit like playing Mario Kart on ‘mirror’ mode.   The harder part to get used to is the speed of travel: once you get out of town, the speed limit is almost always 100 km/h.  In effect, people go as fast as they want/can, so I’ve watched some harrowing passes from my position in the slow lane.  During one of our first night drives, we got pulled over by an ambulance, who tailed our slow car for a couple miles.  Nice guy, of course, who informed us were “all over the road” and offered to escort us over the winding mountain pass.  With all the rain, we couldn’t even keep up with his escort.  City driving is perhaps more daunting, and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more tense than when I was whizzing through the narrow, twisting streets of Welly.  When I have the courage to look up from the road, though, I am usually treated to absolutely spectacular views of the coast or countryside!

Practically every small town here has a landmark or symbol that they proudly display, which makes country driving supremely enjoyable. In effect, I was left with a memory from several towns that I drove past without even stopping.  Otorohanga had a giant kiwi figure holding its welcome sign, proud of its kiwi conservation facility.  Turangi, Taupo, and a few small towns in between had large statues of trout, as nearby Lake Taupo is an international destination for trout fishing.  Te Puke, center of the agriculture belt, was represented by a 40-foot tall kiwifruit (something I learned, kiwifruit orchards look much like vineyards but must be surrounded by massive hedgerows to block the wind).  Katikati was characterized by its 50-some-odd murals lining the main drag.  Matamata is hobbit-themed, as the Lord of the Rings films were shot on a farm nearby.  Bulls has statues of…you guessed it, bulls, everywhere.  I think it’s super cool that the small towns here show such pride, and it seems to be keeping small town life comparatively vibrant.

Small town, big city, secluded mountaintop, touristy beach…wherever we go, I’ve been having a wonderful time.  This week promises more adventures, as Clayton and I venture into the Southern Alps toward the bottom of the South Island.  Penguins, glaciers, skiing…I’ll write about it all soon.  So here’s to another fantastic week in New Zealand.  Cheers, bro!

It’s the heart that matters more

In a world of goals, expectations, and schedules, it can be easy to lose sight of what’s truly important. The dog days of summer in Missouri are the month of July, when my brain kicked lazily into autopilot going about the daily grind.  But August 3^rd was like a bucket of ice water poured on my summer nap, a startling wakeup call that consisted of shock, pain, and panic which gradually subsided to extreme focus, reflection, and plans for self-improvement.  Not to waste this moment of clarity, I want to write about the last week through the rose-colored glasses that define my special friendship with Russel Gehrke; after all, this is his story, and that’s how he would tell it.

Russel had a massive heart attack on Friday morning.  An EF5, if you will.  An 8 or 9 on the Richter scale, even though he only called it a 3 or 4 on the pain scale (case in point, optimism doesn’t hurt until it kills you).  He had a brand of heart attack known as the Widowmaker, a complete blockage of the main artery.  This blockage pressurizes the heart within minutes, damaging the cardiac muscles until they simply cannot pump anymore.  Russel and I talk in mechanical analogies, and the mechanism is similar to a sudden engine failure – like what happened when we put a slightly different timing belt on my Subaru (long story, mostly not our fault) and the engine misfired, sporadically at first then one lap around the block later and all four heads were dented beyond repair.

Considering how close he was to dying, Russel handled the whole ordeal like a tough guy, for better or worse.  When the dog woke him up by barking in alarm (this is amazing how some animals can sense imminent heart failure, whether by hearing, smell, or some sixth sense), it was several minutes before he noticed the chest pain enough to decide to go to the hospital.  Janice drove him there, and he walked into the ER under his own power.  He describes the next scene as “straight out of a hospital drama,” when a large team of medics run-wheeled him to the ICU and inserted the stent that effectively saved his life.  His upbeat attitude through the pain of rebalancing his systems with numerous IV infusions/other medications and his playful humor from the piteous position of being bedridden for a week earned him the high praise of “best patient” from multiple nurses.  If you asked him how he was doing, he’d most likely respond that he’s feeling good, even “better than I have for a while!”  And he genuinely meant it.  The doctor revealed that Russel had suffered a smaller heart attack at least a week prior, so maybe there was some truth to it.  But still, the man’s got heart!

Of course, we all experienced a reckoning. For him, it was the realization that continuing to take on heavy fabrication projects for inconsistent pay is unsustainable, both physically and financially.  His days as a MacGyver-esque solo act are over; this time around he’ll need to accept more help from his family, coworkers, and doctors to be successful.  For me, I realized I need to pay closer attention to my friend, to be generally more plugged in with the people close to me.  He left the workshop in the afternoon on a few occasions during the weeks prior, once mentioning chest pain as a reason.  I didn’t press him further, and it didn’t cross my mind that he may have had a heart attack, since you wouldn’t expect someone to be walking around after one.  I knew that his diet was the exact opposite of what you’d consider a healthy one, but I mostly just poked fun at him for it, lousy friend that I am.  When his blood triglycerides were measured at a ridiculous 3000 mg/dL a few years ago, he probed my chemistry knowledge with his hypothesis that the oils were lubricating his blood vessels (I couldn’t prove his point, but I also didn’t urge him to treat it seriously as a health issue).  Moving forward, I will be more involved with his working and eating habits, since we spend 6-8 hours together at work daily.

The rest of the experience played out a bit like “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  Russel had at least 20 visitors, a steady stream of family and friends for most of the day on Friday and Saturday, some praying over him and others joking irreverently to undo the damage.  That’s just the thing: Russel means so much to so many people.  He’s lived his life in such a way that either he’s touched your heart with his willingness to help or else his infectious positive personality made you want to keep him close.  The most touching moment of the week was when his brother Mike came by the ICU: Russel was moved to tears because he hadn’t seen Mike or his three sons in a few years due to some ongoing disagreements.  There’s nothing like a loved one’s life flashing before your eyes to remind you that it’s your personal relationships that matter most in life, and that the pursuit of wealth, status, or other constructs of success can be a distraction at times.  With Russel’s release from the hospital today, I am patently optimistic that this scare has passed, and that we will all be better for it in the end.

Blood Moon, in case you missed it

Though I do generally enjoy life here in the U. S. of A., I was low-key jealous that the rest of the world got to experience the longest blood moon of the century on Friday.  The term “blood moon” refers to the faded red hue that the moon takes on during a total lunar eclipse.  While the Earth blocks direct solar radiation from reaching the moon during totality, some of the longer wavelength red light refracts around the edges of Earth to produce this mystifying red-orange glow.  I have seen a total lunar eclipse only once, when I was living in Nashville in September 2015.  I stood outside for over an hour on that crisp fall evening, watching the moon proceed from a penumbral dimming to a partial umbral shading of the moon’s surface to the full red orb of totality.  This eclipse was visible for most of the eastern hemisphere, and here are some pictures from around the world.  Fret not, though, residents of the western hemisphere: we’re due up for our next blood moon on January 21st, 2019!