Rotorua

We arrived in Rotorua yesterday evening and planned to spend the day taking it easy after two very stressful and adrenalin infused days in Taupo. I seriously needed some down time...I feel exhausted no doubt due to the endorphin/adrenalin dump that my body went through not once, but twice and one of times for 3 consecutive hours. Alex is feeling fine. After reading our faithful and sometimes very unhelpful Lonely Planet 2006 book, we decided that it would be best to check out the natural hot springs that gives Rotorua its' lovely egg smell and take in a Maori cultural show to learn about the New Zealand native, as we had the Australian natives and as I have with the American natives. We managed to just barely find some free hot springs though they really like to remind you that there are thieves on the prowl at all times so take all of your valuables with you down to the hot springs (I'm not sure if they do that to warn you or to deter you from free pools to pay pools)...luckily our valuables fit neatly into one tiny bag so off we tramped down a small dirt path along a steaming creek that opened up into a large hot springs pool. It was gorgeous. You could see where people had lit tea light candles at night to soak up the pools' essence underneath the moon and stars. The entire town smells of sulfurish egg so you get used to it a bit though it is quite strong near the thermal pools and mud baths; however, you kind of forget all about that when you are sitting beneath a warm waterfall digging your hands into the rocky sand below exposing a hot underbelly that heats the water to a toasty 45 degrees Celsius. Like most chlorinated hot tubs, you can only sit in them for about 20 minutes before you feel a bit faint and this one was no different. We pushed ourselves as long as we could stand it though, as there are very few if any opportunities in this world to sit in a natural hot pool and soak, and I needed to unwind those muscles that were damaged during the ropes course...there are aches and pains in places I didn't know existed. But it wasn't long before we had to bid farewell to our little secret find down an unpaved road in the middle of nowhere and head to our cultural show...that is where the evening took a strange turn. Now, we are both always up for a bit of cultural history and it is always interesting to learn about people and customs that are foreign to us and this trip has offered us endless opportunities to do just that, but there is something a tiny bit odd about paying to go to a cultural show where you sit back with hundreds of other white people and the odd Korean thrown in for good measure, as people from various ancestral tribes dance and sing and tell us all about their native language, weapons, tattoos and food. I felt weird and I cannot lie...all my life I have learned about the pillage of the Indians in America. When I was little it was all a sham in a way where you learn about the Indians (they were later called Native Americans, as Indians live in India) teaching the Pilgrims how to make popcorn, say How! and sharing a Thanksgiving feast. I remember vividly playing an Indian in a school play with lines such as, "How" and "We want to share a piece of our land with you." But as I got older and read all the books that were so cleverly left off the academic school reading list (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, for example), I realized that the Pilgrims actually raped, tortured and killed the Native Americans while stripping them of their culture and heritage...now they live on reservations and struggle with alcoholism and gambling issues. Sounds oddly familiar to the Aboriginals in Australia and now the Maori people of New Zealand. Not sure how it all makes me feel really, as times change and things progress and I would be a liar if I said I didn't just love my new little computer and all the gadgets I have at home and I certainly love shops and malls and the ease of being able to just go to a grocery store ad get everything I need. I must say I hated sitting there in a ocean of white faces, repeating words in the Maori dialect watching them dance around for my pleasure (and we all know how much I love a dance show), but I am so fascinated in how all three of these native groups of people (and countless others) have endured similar fates and why some seen happy with the progress and "live a life of modern comforts, while embracing their heritage," as one Maori performer explained tonight, but why so many others are fraught with pain and suffering of their lost identities and struggle with so many demons. There are many examples of discoveries by explorers of vast lands that were already inhabited by others, so what made one culture and way of living overtake, conquer and eventually replace another? Why did one thrive and grow, while the other dehydrated and eventually disappeared altogether leaving scarred remnants of a lost people? We visited Massey University and the University of Sydney while on this trip and I met with two School of Social Work Deans, both of which told me that to work towards and be committed to a PhD and writing a thesis means finding a question that you are dying to know the answer for. This may just be that nagging question that could drive me through a thesis project in my future...hmmmm...