Autumn in Syria

In front of one of the famous and ancient norias in Hama.

My blog has only two guidelines: it should be about life in New Zealand and remain apolitical.

This post will violate the first, but remain true to the second.

Today I want to write about the tragic events in Syria, where hundreds of demonstrators have been killed in a government crackdown.

I went to Syria in my former life. I was the first American newspaper man to interview President Bashar al-Assad.

After the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, there was great hope that the son would be a reformer. But even by the time we arrived, in 2002, Springtime in Damascus was beginning to sour. Back then Assad told me that he was cooperating with the U.S. in trying to fight the forces of terror.

While the sights and smells and sounds of the Middle East intoxicated me - the souk in Aleppo took me back two thousand years - it was sad to see such a poetic, passionate people so downtrodden.

It seems as if events are spiralling out of control for the regime now. The protesters have reached critical mass and the movement has taken on a life of its own that neither tanks nor bullets will be able to stop. Whatever happens, Assad will never be seen the same way again.

Many of the people I met in Syria were deeply suspicious of me, a foreigner, and very reluctant and afraid to talk candidly.

The few unguarded moments I was exposed to were deeply revealing. And heartbreaking. For it was sad to see how quickly a proud people could be reduced to the main constituent part of their existance: their fear. Fear put there by their government. Fear they have lived with every day of their lives. A fear that bubbles just below the surface.

That fear appears now to have fomented to an anger of repression.



Though the only journalist, I had travelled to Lebanon and Syria with a group of four other people. One day, near the main souk - a market neighborhood - we saw a brouhaha. Seems like a motorist had hit a bicyclist. Somehow the whole market seemed to be involved. There was pushing and shoving and the excited voices of people taking umbrage. The bedlam had spilled into the streets and was blocking traffic.

A suited man with Aviator sunglasses got out of a black Mercedes and approached the crowd. He moved his hand towards his chest, as if going for a gun. When the exercised people saw him, they fled immediately. The roadway was cleared, Moses-like, in a matter of seconds. The government was there. Time to flee.

A couple of days later and a few hundred miles from Damascus we were enjoying a feast with some local villagers. It was a pleasant affair by the banks of a lake. I was talking to an old man. He told me that the previous year he had decided to run for the parliament, but not as a Baath Party member. He told me had received "official" visitors asking him to withdraw. He had refused. The men came back and asked him again to withdraw. Again he refused. Until they reminded him that his son was studying abroad and, the next time he returned to Syria, it would be entirely possible that drugs would be found in his suitcase.

I asked the man what he did. He had tears in his eyes and merely shrugged his shoulders. The answer, of course, was obvious.

It was a stupid question. An American question.



Finally, we toured an amazing fortress. Built during the time of the Crusades and perched atop a hill, it was the sort of building that transported you.

There was a movie being shot and I was busy taking pictures. A couple of other members of my party had engaged a guide. He was quite an effusive fellow, apparently, and very proud of the fortress and the history of his country. So proud, in fact, that in a moment of excessive candor he actually critisized the government - and the president in particular - for the lack of funding they were putting towards historical preservation. In a most unkind gesture, one of the party pulled out a picture of himself with President Assad, and asked if this was the man he meant.

The guide's knees buckled and he began to whimper excuses and desperately try to explain himself. I'm sure the man did not sleep a wink for months after we departed.

There were dozens more such examples of the fear instilled in its people by a dictatorial regime. We drove through Hama, which Assad's father flattened in 1982, killing up to 30,000 people. Even the presidential palace seems to hover above Damascus like a wraith. Damascus Spring, though an illusion, is very obviously but a fond memory now. The country has descended into nightmare.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

A disastrous day in the South

The Birmingham News.

Nature's furious ways continue. Unbelievable devastation in the South, particularly Alabama. Our thoughts go out to all our friends in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia and the other states so horrendously affected by the tornadoes. Stay strong.

Such civic-minded vandalism

What kind of place do you live in when something like this can happen with impunity?

Nancy Wake, a Wellington icon known as The White Mouse, has graced Oriental Parade and my morning runs. Today the boys and I were down there when we noticed that somebody had gratuitously stuck an ANZAC Day poppy to her lapel. Wake served as a British agent in World War II and became a leader in the French Resistance. At one stage she was the most-wanted person by the Gestapo, with a whopping 5 million Francs on her head.

She was much decorated, even earning a Presidential Medal of Freedom with Bronze Palm from the United States.

Oh, wait a minute, that's why somebody stuck a Poppy to her lapel. She deserves it. Wonderful to be in a place with such civic-minded vandals.

Tamaki - a night with Te Arawa

It was a hell of a greeting.

And that was precisely the point.

As our interpreter through the Tamaki Maori Heritage village said, "In no other culture are visitors greeted with outright hostilility."



This powhiri - a Maori greeting ceremony to determine if visitors come in peace - was certainly that: a ferocious challenge. The warriors come out of the village to confront the visitors. They brandish their Taiaha (a spear-like weapon), they scream and make guttural noises and ululate. They move like the earth, the wind and the creatures of their world, our guide Sonny told us. The eyes bulge. The tongue comes out. The roar rises. It's a fine how do you do.

The Maori believe that any visitor coming with evil in his heart will react to such provocations with violence - and that it is better to discover such intentions outside the village. How many hosts over the years have invited guests into their midst only to be slaughtered in the night? (Hello Glencoe.)



The first time I was "treated" to a powhiri, I was part of a group on its receiving end. I can tell you without fear of being called wimpy that it is a terrifying, knee-buckling ritual. This time round I was off to the side and able to observe the powhiri. After Sonny had explained to us what was happening, how the warriors are not only showing off their martial skills, but are also interpreting the world around them, I can tell you that it is a most beautiful dance of death.

This was not a kitschy night, though done differently and by others it could have been. Sonny explained to us that the Maori are deeply proud of their culture and honored to share their lore, their customs and their language with people from the four winds. He was quick to point out that this was not an amusement park. Do not laugh, do not mock. He might have added - as a dozen Maori have told me on separate occasions - that such disrespect has often been punished by a quick thump across the back of the head with the Taiaha. This being a slightly more commercial venture, that would probably not have been good business.

We were also told that the traditionally recreated village was a historical time piece. "Maori don't live like this anymore," Sonny said. "We live in the suburbs now with 52-inch TV screens and everything."

It was a fun evening, but a serious presentation of the Maori ways. Sonny, though his last name is the Scottish Corbett, something he said was quite common, said the Rotorua Maori mainly belong to the Te Arawa iwi, or clan. There was only one joke about cannibalism - in which we were assured that Maori didn't eat Americans because they were too high in cholesterol. There was, however, plenty of Aussie leg pulling. Until, as it always does in New Zealand, it ended with a sincere acknowledgment of the closeness between the two countries.

Once the Teka, the offering placed before the visiting chief, had been picked up and the visitors were determined to have come in peace, the Karanga, the welcome call, rang out. Then the women of the village sang and invited in the visitors with traditional dance and chants.



The darkness of the night was broken by little fires in front of wooden huts. The village itself was of remarkable beauty, surrounded and covered by monumental gum trees. Each hut was fronted by a Maori expert in one of the traditional arts, such as weapon making or Te Moko. That is the art of tattooing. In Maori tradition the moko are like the open diary of a person. Every accomplishment, on the battlefield or in the village, is commemorated with ink. Each person's tattoos are completely unique, their public DNA. In fact, Michael King, in his history of New Zealand, wrote that the Maori chiefs, who had no written language, signed important documents with images of their tattoos.

Young Maoris were schooled in warfare from as young as five. They were taught footwork, weaponry and trained to become strong. But as much of the Maori culture was about hunting and music. So, from the village we were ushered into the hall where we were given a haka, the war dance, some songs and stories. It was a graceful evening. All the Maoris I have met are sincere in their desire to share their culture with outsiders. This evening was no exception.

We all had a wonderful time and were fed very well from the hangi, the pit in which, like their Polynesian brethren in Hawaii, the Maori prepare their feasts. We did a bit of eye-rolling when we were told, after dinner, that the gift shop would be open. Judging by the scale of the rest of the operation, we imagined it to be a large warehouse. It came as a pleasant surprise, then, that the store was modest, bordering on the disinterested.

A buried village in idyllic Aotearoa

It's difficult to complain that there's not much to see in a place whose main claim to fame is that it's buried.

Still, it is ture: there wasn't much grabbing to see at "The Buried Village." Te Wairoa was inundated by the explosive lava flow from the Mount Tarawera eruption in 1886. What was a budding center of a growing tourist trade growing up around the Pink and White Terraces was pretty much wiped out that fateful night. So were its raison d'etre, the terraces, dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world" at the time. (Parts were recently rediscovered.)

Diligent excavation over the years has revealed the foundations of some of the buildings and a lot of the tools and earthenware that were part of the everydays of the inhabitants. With letters and old photographs you really do get a feel of the place before its destruction. And the few ruins and wooden replicas really are evocative - even if they've added some modern attachments to keep them upright.



The things is, the setting of the old village is absolutely idyllic and well worth the trip nonetheless. It's bucolic New Zealand at its best, the sort of place that makes you want to just pull up stakes and run away to. Morgan said it several times: "Oh man, I would love to have a house here."

He declared the stream - with its trout - perfect too. The place was lovely indeed. An added bonus in New Zealand is the complete absence of snakes and deadly spiders. It's lovely to be able to stroll through the bush without worrying about your next footfall. We've had pretty hikes in many parts of the world that were just a little less comforting because of the wildlife trying to eat us.



In the end, you just have to accept that when 8,000 square kilometers of land is buried by a natural disaster there might not be cool disaster-y things to see. What we saw in the shadow of Tarawera Mountain today reminded us powerfully of why the early Maori and later the Pakeha settlers were so drawn to that magnificent spot. The peace of the place no doubt magnified the calamity of the disaster

If it smells bad, it must be healthy

Rotorua Museum and former Bath House.

When Rotorua finally emerged from under a fusillade of bad weather, it turned out to be a rather interesting place. Smelly, but interesting.

Known as sulphur city because of its hydrogen sulphide emissions, Rotorua is a hub of geothermal activity, geysers and hot mud pools. The museum, once a bath house noted for its curative powers, is a glorious old building and a fascinating place to spend some time. Part of its permanent exhibit explains the draw the hope of a healthy holiday had. Back in the 1870s, visitors came for mud baths, therapeutic treatments, and deep pools, which, wonderfully, claimed to help with "plethora and corpulence." Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

It was the start of a great tourist tradition for Rotorua. The museum is also in the part of town that's the most sulphury. It truly and unhappily reminded me of my first apartment in St. Augustine. Aroma therapy that wasn't.

Rotorua is in a volcanic zone, part of the Ring of Fire. The area's darkest chapter came in 1886, when Tarawera Mountain erupted. It's about 16 miles southeast of Rotorua. The eruptions killed more than 120 people and caused fissures that ran for 11 miles.


Tarawera Mountain today.

The volcanic eruption was a horrific event, that also had the devastating result of burying what was then commonly referred to as the "eighth wonder of the world" - the Pink and White Terraces of Rotomahana.

On June 10th, 1886, all of Tarawera's three peaks blew, blasting three distinct columns of smoke and ash thousands of feet skywards. Villages were buried, the very landscape altered - new lakes formed, old ones reshaped - and the terraces were wiped off the map. The eruption was so violent that it was heard on the South Island and people in Auckland, more than 200 km away, thought they were under attack by Russian warships.

The Pink Terraces, known as Otukapuarangi ("fountain of the clouded sky") and the White Terraces, Te Tarata ("the tattooed rock") were thought to have been lost forever. But the last time we were up in this area it was reported that researchers had discovered portions of the Pink Terraces on the bottom of Lake Rotomahana - at a depth of 180 feet.

I'm not sure if they're going to see if they can find the rest of the terraces. It'd be pretty cool, like Rotorua's own Atlantis. You'd have to be able to charge a buck or two for that. Submarine ride anyone? Hey, at least they're not trying to cure corpulence anymore.

A wet, wild, windy wacation

I had no idea it could rain this much. Even the monsoons stop for a breather. This rain - let's call it our holiday rain - built up force just before night fell and then unleashed itself throughout the darkness. It rains still now. The lake is white-capped and the island I was going to kayak to this morning has disappeared in a cloud of mist. On and on it goes. A fine holiday. A Scottish holiday in New Zealand.

Luckily - and again totally randomly - there was a traffic cone in the backyard of the lakeside bach we've rented. Seems appropriate, I suppose.

A wet, moving Anzac Day

It was so dark and wet when I went looking for the Anzac Day services in Taupo that I was convinced I was going to be early. I couldn't believe as I drove around the city centre that there was no parking to be had.

It was pitch black and pouring with rain.

And yet, as I approached, there were several hundred people - people of all ages - huddled together under the autumnal rain and their multi-colored umbrellas. The strains of "God Save the Queen" began the Memorial Services. There were so many people there that those of us arriving late had to stand out on the sidewalk and could only hear, not see, the proceedings.

At 4:29 a.m. on April 25, 1915 - hence the early hour of Anzac services - the first wave of Aussie and Kiwi forces (the members of the Australia New Zealand Army Corps) made landfall to heavy fire on Turkish soil. Thousands died or were injured on that fateful day. Today's Anzac service began with memories of Gallipoli, but mention was made of all veterans, of all who fell and, of course, the current New Zealanders serving abroad.



The original objectives of the day were soon lost in the mass confusion. It ended with Kemal Ataturk, then the commander of the Turks, taking the high ground. The Anzac troops were left with no choice but to dig in, keep their heads low, and hold on. This they did tenaciously. So bravely, in fact, that the Turks years later renamed that strip of land Anzac.

While the impossible had been asked of the Anzac troops, and while British disorganization led to the failure of the mission as originally envisaged, the Aussies and Kiwis distinguished themselves gallantly. What had been hoped would be a lightning kill strike dragged on for eight months. In the end, 8,709 Australians and 2,721 New Zealanders had died. Thousands more were terribly injured.

Throughout the dreadful Great War, 18,050 Kiwis perished. With the population of New Zealand standing at just over a million at the time, the casualties represented 1.64 percent of the population.


This was the poignant sight when we went back later in the day.

It was promised at the earliest Anzac Day service that "As the sun rises and goeth down we will remember them."

Judging by the somber, respectful and large turnout at today's service, that is a promise kept by future generations.

Angry, beautiful Mt. Ruapehu

The upside-down seasons are changing. It's creeping into fall in New Zealand. Mt. Ruapehu, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, is already covered in snow. The leaves, just beginning to turn in Wellington, are well on their way up Lake Taupo way.

Ever since our seven years in South Dakota, fall fills me with dread. The winter that followed the gorgeous autumns on the prairie were brutal and hard and could kill the soul. This being my first year in New Zealand, I'm not really sure what to expect. But the leaves and the golden colors of the valleys certainly are fine.


Taranaki Falls in Tongariro National Park.

We're heading up to Rotorua, but had heard a hike near Whakapapa was not to be missed. The last time we were up this way, it rained so hard we had to beat an early retreat. More of the same was forecast for this weekend so we suited up for some torrential tramping. This time we were lucky. For now.

Tongariro National Park, the oldest national park in New Zealand - and the fourth established in the world - surrounds the volcanic mountains of Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. Its been listed by UNESCO as one of the world's 25 mixed cultural and natural World Heritage Sites. It's gorgeous. The wind's gathering cold hurtling up the valleys across the great scrub of the bush also spoke of fall. It seems like this would be a dangerous place to be caught unawares. The weather was calm and sunny when we approached Ruapehu. By the time we left clouds were storming low across the sky and the rains we'd been promised arrived. Having heeded the forecast, we brought board games for our trip. It looks like a smart move.

But the star of the day was Ruapehu. We never saw the tapu - sacred - top of the mountain the first time we were here. Nor its bottom or any other part of it, for that matter. Today, though, it was with us for a good two hours. It's been misbehaving recently, beginning to gurgle and burp and sending scientists' equipment a-twirling.



On our way to the Tongariro Park, we passed a sign for the The Tangiwai Disaster Memorial. We wondered what that was about, thinking perhaps it was something to do with an eruption from Ruapehu. Turns out it did, sort of. On 24 December 1953 an overnight express train traveling from Wellington to Auckland crashed off the tracks and into the Whangaehu River, killing 151 of the passengers.

Just minutes before the train passed, the bridge had been damaged by a lahar from Ruapehu - mud- or debris flow from the volcano.

The mountain erupted spectacularly in 1995 and 1996 and on Sept. 25, 2007, according to Wikipedia, there was a hydrothermal eruption - without warning. The eruption was accompanied by a 7 minute long earthquake, 2.9 on the Richter Scale.



Luckily, we've moved on and were glad to catch some elegant shots of the old beast today. I'm thinking once Amy reads this post we won't be heading back to Ruapehu anytime soon. Yes, Lake Taupo will do much more nicely for now.

Running to South America

Morgan really wants to go on his school's Rugby tour of South America. Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, to be precise. He was not phased by the fact that he'd never played Rugby, nor that he had nowhere near enough money to cover the costs.

For a while there he took the Rugby ball with him everywhere he went. Then he went to the trials - and made the team. Step One accomplished. Step Two was going to be a little harder. But a bargain was struck. We'd cover half the costs. He had to raise the rest. So he decided to train for the Wellington marathon and use the 26.1 mile run as a fund raiser.

He was aware of the fact that I'd once raised $2,600 for charity by running the Edinburgh Marathon. And, if the old man can do it, how hard could it possibly be?


Despite the strong winds, time for a bit of stripping down.

So, for six weeks now he's been running with his school's cross country team during the week and going long at the weekends. I was supposed to be training with him, but buggered my Achilles on, oh about week two, which was not tremendously helpful. I now accompany him by bike.

Today was to be his first half marathon. It's quite a long way to go for anyone, but particularly a 14-year-old. My Achilles is a little better, so I told him I'd bike most of the way with him, but run the last three.

We started at Breaker Bay, by the inlet into Wellington Harbor. It's close to where an interisland ferry foundered on a reef in 1968, killing 53 of its passengers. It's a spectacular little spot, but the wind today was brutal and again seemingly coming from all directions. Still, the marathon is going to be around these bays and he'll have to get used to running in these gusty conditions.

Not that he cared, but I had a nice bike ride. I could watch the surfers, look for whales and breathe the salt air. Best way ever to do a half.


There was light at the end of the tunnel.

The only "incident" along the run came in the tunnel that runs under the Wellington Airport runway. I went ahead and waited for Morgan. He came sprinting out of the tunnel like a man being chased out of a cave by a bear. A bus had apparently sped through there and caused turbulence that nearly threw him against the wall.

He finished strongly, but in pain. The next 13.1 miles are going to be a lot harder to come by. Still, he made me - and himself - proud today. It was a heck of a run.

A memorial to a benighted place

With Anzac Day coming on April 25, we thought a nice stroll up to the Ataturk Memorial overlooking Tarakena Bay would be in order. Dedicated in 1990, the memorial to the first president of the Republic of Turkey is a blessed spot. It is odd too - to me, anyway - for a land to bear a memorial to the man who commanded the enemy forces that inflicted so much death and destruction on the Kiwis and Aussies at Gallipoli.

But, after the war, Ataturk maintained close ties with New Zealand and the heartbreaking message - first made in a 1934 speech to veterans returning to Gallipoli - now inscribed at this memorial seems like a genuine attempt to build bridges and heal hurt.

Anzac (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) day was originally to commemorate the dark times around Gallipoli, but has now morphed into something akin to Memorial Day in the States.

In 1915 the Kiwis and the Aussies were part of an allied expedition to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula. Gallipoli was not one of the highlights of Winston Churchill's career. He believed Gallipoli needed to be won to open shipping to the Black Sea. The ANZAC force landed on the beaches - on April 25 -and almost immediately came under brutal fire. They were essentially stuck there in a deadly and arduous stalemate for eight months. The ANZAC forces lost more than 11,000 men.



Though Gallipoli was not a success in any military sense, and though the ANZAC force had every right to feel dramatically let down by the Brits, the campaign earned the boys from Australasia a reputation for bravery and dedicated, unquestioning service and loyalty.

Their sacrifices are recognized in Turkey, too, where "ANZAC Cove" was renamed by the government on Anzac Day in 1985.

What I hadn't noticed about this lovely memorial - until Ewan pointed it out to me - was that if you stand back and look at it from top to bottom you can see the crescent and star of the Turkish flag. It stands in a beautiful spot overlooking the deep blue waters of the Cook Strait, the surroundings a stark contrast to the awful hardships endured by the ANZACers during their eight months in that benighted spot so far away.

An inanimate rescue, a new chorus

This time-lapse video by Jason Larraman shows just how unsentimentally the man-wrought destruction - or, more euphemistically, the de-construction - in the wake of the Feb. 22nd earthquake proceeds. The scale of it prevents ceremony. Crews come. Buildings fall. Holes remain.

This is, or rather was, the iconic Volcano Cafe - ironically damaged beyond repair by another force of nature - being levelled in Lyttelton outside Christchurch. The backhoes move through there like ravenous elephants snatching at high-lying foliage.

The fact that there is no sound, too, is distressing. For the new soundtrack of Christchurch and its surrounds is the beep-beeping, crunch-crunching of these machines marauding through the mortally wounded buildings. The scale of the demolition is beyond imagining for anyone who knows Christchurch - more than a third of the buildings in its heart alone will be or are already gone. Thousands of others in the suburbs.

Two colleagues of mine who were able earlier this week to return to our hotel to retrieve the possessions that have been stuck there for nigh on two months, said there were de-construction sites as far as the eye could see. Backloaders and bulldozers and their awful noises form the chorus of the streets.

One of my colleagues said my hotel room was in bad shape, beams and doors down. I'm so glad Amy decided to get out of there as soon as she checked in. Otherwise she would probably have been stuck in there for a few hours, through all the aftershocks, as another one of our friends was. Our stuff is still down in Christchurch - we should get it back next week - but it's a small, if guilty, triumph to know it's been rescued and is out of the hotel.

Though my electronic life - computer, i-Pod, all my pictures and files - was in that room, we didn't focus on that, tried not to complain. Too many people have lost too much for that to be right. Still, knowing that we'll get it back soon is another step away from that awful day and its difficult aftermath. I'm well aware, as I write that, that there are so many people still living the earthquake daily. There's not an hour that goes by that my or Amy's thoughts don't drift off down to Christchurch and her struggling people.

When Christchurch is back, she will be a very different city than the elegant, British-influenced old doyenne she was. She'll be younger, greener and more spacious. As the bulldozers and the articulated trucks patrol the streets, it is important to remember that. Christchurch will be back one day. And newer. And stronger.

Frustration mutating into despair

The North Island was set to rattling last night by a 6.6 earthquake that struck near the Kermadec Islands. It was described as not being very strong. The thing is, it was centered nearly 900 kilometers away from Wellington and still woke up thousands of people here. Call me soft, but that seems like a rather brutal act of nature to me.

Anyway, that's not the point of this brief update. This is: I don't know how many of you read comments after blog posts. I don't usually. But yesterday I received a very poignant comment from my blog buddy Fi in Christchurch. She writes the Four Paws and Whiskers blog from Christchurch. Understandably, her usual subject matter has been somewhat overtaken by events in the Garden City.

But her response to my post about the latest aftershock in Christchurch really shows just what a grinding crisis the folks down there are going through - even the ones who came through the quake relatively unscathed. It is frustration growing into something worse. Here it is:

"As a mature professional woman who is still employed and has minimal house damage, it has left me feeling disorientated, down and tired. We have only a fraction of what some are going through - and we will eat, stay warm, or hope to if the earth settles!

"The change in routine; loss of usual friends, places, things all take their toll on us all - wherever we live. No one is unaffected. Yes we are grateful to be alive, and hopeful things will improve eventually, but it is frankly weird that other people can still build with bricks, concrete, and buy stuff and go places oblivious to the things we now notice and value ... my children are planning to head overseas.

"Changes perpectives, alters lives, relationships, plans, dreams.

"I feel like navel gazing with no view of a future - and it is not healthy.

"Today I tidied up - with some pleasure - the first time in 8 weeks i have felt the urge to garden or tidy.

"Life seems incredibly empty and we are trying to look outside and plan again - people-orientated pursuits being the most important thing - we have to support each other.

"Outlook for Christchurch - sunny with a chance of earthquakes."

Hang in there, Fi, and everybody in Christchurch.

The beeping tunnel

I don't know why, but driving through the Mt. Victoria tunnel - the beeping tunnel - always makes me giggle.

The long cruel winter cometh

Picture by The Press.


Just because much of the rest of the world has moved on after the Feb. 22 Christchurch earthquake – with tsunamis, nuclear fall-out in Japan and wars, how could they not? – doesn’t mean the pain and the hardship faced by Cantabrians has.

People who ask me about "the recovery of Christchurch," always seem surprised when I talk of the dire conditions Cantabrians are still facing. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose. The fact that there’s been next to no mention of Christchurch in the overseas media leads many to believe that all must be well.

Far from it.



The nasty 5.3 weekend aftershock may not have done as much physical damage as its bigger cousins in February and September. Not that it was insignificant, damaging more buildings, blowing water mains and causing the reappearance of the dreaded liquefaction and its slimy silt.

But psychologically, it was a bastard.

You can see the rapidly fading resolve in the folks. It's just too much. They've suffered through hundreds of aftershocks. They've swept the vile slime from their houses and yards at least twice. The earth keeps shaking. Thousands of people are still using chemical toilets. The jobs aren't coming back.

One of my friends from Christchurch told me that now that the adrenaline - that drive for survival and to remain unbowed - has faded, and the new normality has set in, it has become almost impossible to bear. A life diminished. People hanging on, some of them - many of them - because they are trapped by circumstance and money in a place that no longer feels safe or happy to them.

And still the sickening roll of the aftershocks keep coming. This photo, below, was taken Feb. 22. I remember that, despite the great relief of surviving the initial impact, the constant rumbling of the earth put a terrible stress on everyone. They kept coming while we were trying to do other things.

There was always the clenching worry that the aftershock would keep growing, that it wouldn’t stop, that it would snap the building you were in.

And we put up with it for just one day. Times that by one week, one month, two months. Unimaginable to not trust the very ground beneath you, to feel vulnerable in your own home. Day after day. It robs you of your sleep. It robs you of your peace. It stays with you, violating you daily, letting you know it's in charge.

To add to all the grief in Christchurch, it’s getting cold now and the wage-support programs that the government had put in place are beginning to lapse. People are wondering how they're going to put food on the table and wood in the fire.

So, no, Christchurch is not getting better just because it's been a while. It's still getting battered. It's people are still suffering. So keep the Cantabrians in your thoughts and prayers. It's going to be a long, cold winter.

You can't beat Welly on a good day

That's what the locals say. And it's true. Wellington today showed off her finer side, with perfect temperatures and glorious sunshine. We're creeping towards winter here, which means a lot of rain. So days like today are to be cherished. Bits of days, actually. The weather changes by the minute here. This morning started off like yesterday finished, below, stormy and wet.

Epic Conage

I have a loyal band of cone-spotters who, if they don't quite understand my obsession with traffic cones, gently enable it. They are forever telling me of new and interesting locations they have spotted these orange specters that so taunt me. (For those new to this blog, there is an astonishing reverence for and abuse of the humble traffic cone. Here and here.)

My friend Ola recently alerted me of what can only be dubbed the epic-conage of Wellington. It stands atop a 75-foot Norfolk Pine and how it got up there is going to haunt me as one of life's great mysteries. (Incidentally, Ola happened to be driving by this morning as I was out taking these pictures. He stopped and hi-fived me, but I believe he thinks I'm a bit of a nutter.)

It is, in fact, so epic that it has its own Facebook page, "The Waterloo Road Cone." It has 115 fans and alerts its followers of the weather conditions, the view and general naughty behavior by the St. Bernard College students who go about their daily lives in its shadow.

It is a little bit lonely and unsure of itself. Dare I say, it seems to pine for better days?

"Does this tree make my bum look big?" the cone asks one day. Luckily a friend assures her/him that it does not.

It is very much a community-minded cone. "Wanting to wear Red and Black for (Christchurch), but having to settle for orange and silver instead," the cone lamented after the recent earthquake.

The cone is also a family man: "Proud of all my cone brothers and sisters guiding people in Christchurch. Respect to all the services who are working tirelessly into their 4th day..."

There are pictures of the luminescent cone at night on the facebook page and much worrying from the cone itself about how long it can last. "Feeling a little tipsy, not sure I'll last the winter," was the ominous message yesterday.

Curiously - and I'm sure this makes me a suspect - the first sightings of the Waterloo Road Cone apparently began two days after I arrived in Wellington. My only defense is that I didn't have this obsession then. The good thing is, I suppose, if you don't believe me, you can just go to the Cone-man's facebook page and ask.

I've been squirreling away wonderfully odd cone pictures in preparation for another post, but this epi-cone deserved instant attention - and respect.

A Bulldog in New Zealand

After checking out a couple of the Rugby World Cup locales last week I realized how much the competition has changed since the first one in 1987.

And how different I am since then.

I just happened to be in Australia when the first ever Rugby World Cup was held there and in New Zealand. I was going through a lot of stuff at that time. Amazingly, wandering the streets of King's Cross, I'd run into two of my school friends - rugby team mates - from Scotland right before the games began. With the whiff of fate about us, we decided to go to some of the matches.

Back then, even in the hotbed of Rugby that was Australia, it was an informal, almost intimate affair. The 2011 RWC, to be held in September and October in New Zealand, is a big business behemoth.

Nowadays, the competition is all about promoting national identidy and protecting sponsors' rights. Back then it was much more casual.


People like my friend Stuart were the only security threat back in 1987.


I remember being slightly taken aback at how easy it was to get tickets and, well, how small the Concord Oval - now home to the Waratahs - was. There was no security to speak of, not even any real threats out there, except, perhaps excessive drunkenness. Sponsorships were at a minimum, nor were there any fan zones or great festivals around the event. It was all pretty low key.

Scotland were playing in far-off New Zealand which, as broke as I was, seemed like another world. So we had to make do with cheering for anyone against England. Australia did the job well and made us happy, beating the English 19-6.

We knew we would be whistling into the wind in our support of the Japanese against the English. It was, indeed, a rout, with England thrashing their outclassed opposition 60-7. Still, we were in Australia and watching Rugby and that wasn't bad.

Next up against the English were the Americans.

To be frank, as we donned our borrowed red, white and blue to cheer for the U.S. of A. against the auld enemy of England, we weren't quite sure what to expect of the Eagles. I'm not sure we even knew the Americans played Rugby. But it was very cool to see the Stars and Stripes in the crowd and to know that the United States was taking part in this festival of Rugby. The Eagles had won their inaugural Rugby World Cup game - beating Japan 21-18 in Brisbane, but had also lost 47-12 to Australia. Could these be the underdogs of the tournament? After all, they had the same win-loss record as the English.

There was no professional Rugby back then, but even so the U.S. team struck us as small. But boy did they have speed. I remember thinking that these college kids - for that is what they were back then - played a different, exciting brand of Rugby. They were fit and fast and thrilling to watch. They were out-muscled in the end, losing 34-6. There was to be no underdog magic as the Eagles headed home.

I was thinking back to that day recently. There I was a wannabe American for a day, hoping against hope that they could pull off the unthinkable against the English, wishing, really, that I could be watching the Scots.

Now, 24 years later, I am an American. The day I took the oath of allegiance remains as my proudest day - except, of course, the day I married Amy. The day I received my citizenship in Philadelphia I watched as a group of men in traditional costumes walked up the aisles in the civic center. The emcee told us that each of those Americans could trace their ancestry back to one of the founding fathers - and that now we were as American as they were. Not second-class citizens. Not Americans with an asterisk. As American as they. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. I know I wept like one reborn.

So now I sit in New Zealand and await the arrival of the Eagles. I know they don't have a chance. But they are my team now and they represent the country that has taken me in like a long-lost relative, the country that I love.

And America has been good to me. Not only do I have a beautiful wife, two gorgeous sons who, despite my best efforts to cross-culturally educate them, are Americans through and through, but I also have more deep friendships than a man my age deserves. America embraced me. America showed me her good side, the unquestioningly decent, generous, life-loving side. America gave me my breaks. America loved me without reservation. America, for God's sake, allowed me to represent her.

A lot of my Scottish friends ask me why I became American, as if it were a betrayal of Scotland. It is not that. Scotland is in me, and I love Scotland. But America is where I became a man, where I flourished. America made me who I am. She didn't even ask me to choose. I still have my British passport. Even you doubters have got to respect that.



It's funny, when I first arrived in Athens, to attend the University of Georgia, it was the Rugby team that took me in. Sure, I made a lot of deep, firm friends at the journalism school, but it was the Rugby team that became my family, that allowed me to bridge the gap easily. The UGA Rugby side was a rag-tag bunch, consigned to the periperhy like some sort of semi-mad club that would never be invited to the finer events of university life. No worries, we made our own fun wherever we had to play.

That's kind of the way we liked it.

Now, all these years later, I wish we could have a Bulldog reunion here in New Zealand to cheer on the Eagles. Because Georgia was the place that set me on my way.

This time round I won't have to scrounge around to find some red, white and blue to put on. This time I'm a bona fide American, not a wannabe Yank on an anti-England bandwagon. Go Eagles. Good luck and God bless you.

Godwits - the consumate snowbirds

When I first landed in this country I was beguiled by Radio New Zealand. The esoteric nature of some of its programming was always a delight.

But after a few weeks, I must confess, I began to think that some of the segments were, well, put ons. There is no way they could be devoting this much time to that, I would think. But still I listened, because I wanted to know.

One such story that struck me as fishy that way came over the airwaves in September. It began with an excited scientist announcing that "they" had begun to arrive. That he hadn't actually seen "them" himself, but one of his friends had reported that "they" were here.

"Here we go," I thought, with my suit of "War of the Worlds" armor on. "I think this is a leg pull."

The "they" in question were the bar-tailed Godwits.

That was my final proof. "Bar-tailed," as in a tale told in a bar, by drunks. "Godwits," as in the magnificent opposite of dimwits.

I had finally spotted my RNZ hoax and felt good about myself.

Until I did some research and found that not only are these magnificent creatures real, they are quite something to be admired.

The reason I mention all of this now, is that "they" have left New Zealand and are heading back to Alaska.

Yes, you read that correctly, the bar-tailed Godwits fly from Alaska to New Zealand and back again every year. That's a 15,000-mile roundtrip.



The first Godwits left Auckland recently, will head to Korea for a bit of fattening and then fly on to Alaska. There they will become new parents before heading back here in September. This is the longest migration of any bird in the world, with the birds staying airborne for one straight week.

They're remarkable flying machines and anyone interested in doing more research about them can do so here. Now that they are on their way again, my good friends the Godwits, I just felt a double apology for my disbelief was owed. One to the magnificent bird - I'm sorry I ever thought of you as a dimwit. And one to RNZ: I'm sorry I ever doubted you. Do go on telling me about crocheting in Croatia and bee-farming in Mongolia. I'll believe every word you say from now on.