Ao Toa

by Cathie Dunsford

  “Yeah – perhaps you’re right, Koa. Maybe if we altered our view of human invaders and thought how we could transform their activities to be of some use on this earth, we could change them too.”

  “Perhaps, Moana. Let’s hope so.” Koa turns over the compost with her pitchfork and the feasting earthworms wriggle and dive back into their warm, steamy pile. “See all that land at the edge of the forest? It was originally clay and kikuyu grass where the early farmers burned the trees for their farms. We reclaimed it with clean, recycled cardboard and paper and added layers and layers of kikuyu mulch, sand and compost until we had raised garden beds to plant the kumara and potatoes and urenika. Now look at them thriving.”

  Moana admires the mounds covered in various shades of green foliage, from the heart-shaped leaves of the purple and red kumara to the furry fat leaves of the Maori potatoes and urenika, with their beautiful white and yellow flowers. “Beats roses any day. At least you can eat them as well as admire them.”

  “Some people eat roses too. The petals can be used for jams and preserves and are quite luscious, actually.” Koa grins.

  “You having me on?”

  “No, it’s true. Ask Iri.” Moana turns around, but sees that Iri is bent over her laptop powered by the generator.

  “Come over here, you two,” calls Iri. “There’s an email from Cowrie and Kuini.” She reads:

  Kia ora Te Kotuku. Cowrie and Kuini here. Just found a great email café in Kaiwaka, can you believe it? The march is going well. You’ll never believe what happened the first day. One of the Nga Puhi kuia found a puriri berry dropped by a kukupa in her flax kete. She told us it was a blessing for our protest and it meant we would be safe, though she had a premonition that this protest would only be a beginning. Some interpreted that as Helen Clark giving in to the multinationals, but we cannot believe that she would do this. Anyway, we’ve had an awesome time. Everywhere we go, there are people clapping us on and tooting horns as they go past. Every town we reach, tangata whenua are there with delicious kai for the journey.

  People in Kawakawa told us that there was a helicopter spill of dangerous chemicals two weeks ago. Get Maata to check the books and see if it was Flyworks. The local council say it must be aerial spray drift or pollen and there’s nothing they can do about either. But the locals are convinced it was more than that as the whole town was dusted and people had to go indoors all afternoon. It lasted for days and yet nobody has taken any responsibility. There was a protest outside the town loos as we passed. We stopped to join in. They had laid flowers for the passing of Hundertwasser, which they do each year now, and people were singing waiata and praying karakia. They also vowed to set up a fund to fight any agro-chemical battles in the region, in honour of what Hundertwasser and local iwi had given to the township by putting it on the map with their wonderful loos made from recycled materials which look more like a Turkish bath house.

  The Kawakawa loos have an awesome atmosphere. Rounded earthen walls with brightly coloured bottles inlaid into the clay, beautiful basins crafted from porcelain and handmade tiles by the local tamariki as well as artists. Imagine a place to recycle human excrement being turned into a palace of celebration of the earth and of art. What a radical thing has happened here, where the best of European alternative energy has been combined with a genuine respect for working with tangata whenua, local artists and the people of the township. At first they were suspicious of it all, but now they praise the day Hundertwasser came to town and the tangata whenua embraced his ideas.

  Now we’re in Kaiwaka and we are going up to visit the Otamatea Eco-Village to stay the night on their marae and see how they are building sustainable houses, and the next day we go to the Kaiwaka Organic Green Market and Koanga Gardens. We’ll spend another night there, after Kay Baxter takes us around, and then head on down through the Dome Valley. We’ll email you again from Kaiwaka after our visits. We are having some great korero on the way and learning heaps. More soon. Hope you are all well.

  Kia kaha

  Arohanui

  Cowrie and Kuini xx.

  The bright moonlight guides her way as Irihapeti throws more manuka logs onto the fire, then joins Koa in the hot tub. It is fed by heat from the fire through recycled hot-water cylinder pipes, into the wooden wine barrel which they love to soak in at night. Iri floats into Koa’s arms and lies there, cuddled into her warmth, both of them facing the moon as it rises above the mamaku, its sprouting fronds like an orchestra of violins facing the sky.

  “You sad you didn’t go on the GE protest march, Iri?” Koa looks down into her face lovingly. “I know you stayed here to look after me as well as the nursery. You knew I was not yet up to such a gruelling pace.”

  Iri laughs. “Doesn’t sound too gruelling to me, Koa. According to Cowrie, they are having plenty of rest and really enjoying the trip as well as learning about GE-free organic practices on the way. That is exactly as it should be. No point in stating we are GE-free without showing what real alternatives we can offer. The more they discover about what is actually happening out there, the more we can truly envision a GE-free future and share this with other Aotearoans.”

  “Yeah, but I bet you wish you were there too.” Iri looks up into Koa’s face. “A part of me does – but I would never leave you here alone either, Koa. The nursery is not ready to look after itself, and we need to be here for the tamariki and their gardens. No, truly, I can say I am very happy to be here with you, my love. Besides, I’d miss cuddling into these luscious large breasts at night and you telling me stories.”

  “Me too. Glad you stayed here. Thanks, Iri. Besides, Cowrie and Kuini will keep us posted via the email cafés. They are dotted all over Aotearoa now, even in small towns like Kaiwaka. It’s great.”

  “And so are you.” Iri kisses Koa on her cheek, then her lips. They snuggle close as the wekas cry their shrill sounds into the night air and the morepork calls from a puriri at one end of the forest to the large kanuka in the distance. Another morepork replies, and they keep up their communication at regular intervals, with scruffling sounds in between as the water rats and possums go about their nightly business. A perfect crescent moon moves slowly higher and lights up more of the treetops. The bright eyes of a fat possum stare down at them from the closest kanuka. Iri sighs. “All those stories about a man in the moon when I grew up. How did they know it was a bloke? Maybe it was a luscious, large wahine toa.”

  Koa laughs. “You might be right, Iri. My sister is married to a fella from Hilo, Hawai'i, called Kane, and he told us about Hina-hanaia-i-ka-malama. Her name literally means the woman who worked in the moon. Kilinahi Kaleo reckon Hina is Pele’s name when she in the sky, and she is Pele when on the earth. Anyway, as one version of the story goes, Hina is the grand-daughter of Kai-uli and Kai-kea – that’s the Dark and the Light Sea. Her parents can take the form of pao’o fishes. They have ten kids, some in the form of fish and some birds. One of the kids neglects his sister and escapes to the heavens, leaving her the calabash, Kipapa-lau-lau, which contains the moon and stars for her vegetable and fish food.”

  “Imagine eating the moon and stars. Incredible.” Iri snuggles closer into Koa. She loves her talkstory in the hot tub at night.

  “Settle down, my kotuku. Now, where was I? Right. So the sister meets a chief and they have another ten kids – five boys and five girls …”

  “They breed like rabbits …”

  “Shoosh, kotuku, d’you want to hear more or not?”

  Iri nudges ever closer in response. “Okay. One of these kids is banished to Maui for sacrilege and he dies, but from his dead body the wauke plant springs, which is used for bark cloth – like our Pacific tapa cloth here. Anyway, his sisters search for him on the island of Oahu and they get turned into fish ponds, each stocked with special ika for which the island was famed. So, from Hina, the woman in the moon, and her offspring, we have magnificent tapa cloth from the wauke plant and a constant supply of fish waiting for us in their ponds.” />
  “So there was a woman in the moon after all?” Iri looks pleased.

  “According to Kane.”

  “Have you ever told Cowrie this? She’d be rapt. You know she has Hawai'ian blood also?”

  “No. We’ve not spoken of this.”

  “Her grandfather, Apelahama, lived on the Big Island and she went back to visit and meet her cousin Koana a few years ago. She returned full of the warm richness of the islands and said that the Maori and Hawai'ian languages and mythology are so similar that it is clear we are deeply connected. A fisherman, Keo, even took her to the spot where he said the first canoes left for Aotearoa. Ka Lae, I think.”

  “Kane talked about that place too. Said some fishermen were killed there while protesting US nuclear involvement and the desecration of the sacred island of Koho’olawe for their military installations.”

  Iri splashes water up her arm. “You have to korero with Cowrie about all this. She knows the fishermen who were murdered.”

  “Incredible. Maybe she and Kane are cuzzy bros?” Koa enjoys the thought.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, eh?” Iri lies back in Koa’s arms. “Is the calabash a kind of gourd?”

  “Yes, it was usually made from coconut. Another story has a wahine sending for her coconut gourd and its contents fly up toward heaven in the form of a perfect crescent moon, just like we have tonight, the bright part called kena, the darker side, ana.”

  “So maybe that’s how the moon was said to be made from cheese, only it was really coconut cream?”

  “Not so crazy, Iri. I’d never thought about that. Magic, eh?” Koa holds Irihapeti and caresses her shoulders as Hina smiles down on them from her heavenly home, capturing the sparks of water on their bodies and making them glisten like stars dancing on the galaxies of their arms which float on a mythical ocean.

  Maata peers through the Flyworks’ window at the tarmac as she makes a late afternoon cuppa. Raymond is talking to a tall, large fellow she has seen him with from time to time. He must be one of the chaps that takes away unused and empty cans of poison as he has a big truck and she’s seen them loading the plastic containers onto the back of it. She checks the front office. Barbara Dixon is collecting the kids from school and her daughter is inside the truck cab. Maybe this is the new boyfriend her daughter has been gloating over? He didn’t sound too nice to Maata – but you never can tell from the outside. She makes sure nobody is in reception then slips into the back office to check the files. Out of her breast pocket she takes the slip of paper bearing a time and day that Irihapeti has written down for her and carefully goes back through the rosters and flight schedules. Finally she finds it. Tuesday 18th, 2–5 pm. Farm #308. Due for DDT drop. Turn right over Kawakawa and start past the tall poplar grove. Dust fields 3-18. Marked with red crosses. NB. Flight abandoned. Sprayer buggered. Had to drop load over Zone B. Reschedule drop for next Tuesday. The right date, the right time. She carefully takes the sheet from the folder and photocopies it, just as Raymond enters the lunchroom with his guest. She freezes, hoping he will not come through to the office. She hears their voices over the hum of the machine.

  “Jeesus, Tony. Ya don’t wanna freak out over a few brownies coming to dust you up a bit. You were right to point yer .22 at them and tell ’em to go to hell. They have no business stealing your wife and kids and then intruding on your property to tell you what to do with it. Next thing, they’ll be landing you with some Treaty of Waitangi claim. Just stay put and don’t give up your ground.” Raymond thumps his cup onto the table and throws in a bag of gumboot tea. “Hand us the billy, will ya, Tony? Dunno where my waitress is hanging out today – but she’s a good worker so I’m not complaining.” He laughs.

  Maata stiffens at being called a waitress and vows to show him she is not just his tea server when she gets the chance. But not now, while still holding the evidence. She slips the paper into her breast pocket, places the folder back into its file and closes it. Just in time. Raymond pokes his nose through the door. “Wanna cuppa?”

  “No thanks. Still more filing to do.”

  “That’s my girl. You won’t mind if we shut the door then. Bit of a breeze here today.”

  “No worries. Thanks, Mr Dixon.”

  Raymond returns to the lunchroom and closes the door behind him. Maata suspects it must be private, but by now her suspicions have been aroused, so she gets up on a chair and leans up against the back wall where the open windows of both rooms are less than a metre from each other. Not very bright, these boys. After a while, their voices rise to a pitch. She can hear them clearly.

  “But how do I get rid of the evidence? I’ve now got a barn full of used containers of bloody herbicides and pesticides that have been banned for years and I can’t just take them to the dump.”

  “Then do what I do. Just get your digger and dredge out a bloody huge hole once a month and dump the containers in and chuck some earth over them. You are more isolated than us. Nobody will ever know. You could do it in broad daylight. We have to do it at night or before 5 am.”

  “But won’t people notice the mounds and the digger always being used?”

  “No worries, Tony. Every now and again we burn a few tyres to put people off the scent. If anyone says anything, we deny it. Then if they get ratty, we admit we burned a few tyres that day and they are so impressed by our honesty, it shuts them up for a while.”

  “Does that work?”

  “Sure as pigshit, mate. Puts them right off the scent. One greenie fella even took some photos of us burning banned herbicides. That freaked us out for a minute. But luckily he was too far away and it could’ve been any field in the end. We zapped the lawyer onto him and that shut him up. He has no money and he was freaked out that he’d end up with large legal bills. That usually works with greenies – so long as they don’t have Eco-Nazis like Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth behind ’em. They have the bikky to pay lawyers. That’s when you have to get really clever.”

  “Whad’ya mean?”

  “I learned a few tricks when flying choppers for ForestsFirst. Their lawyers and their PR spinners were like a Saatchi and Saatchi of the Underworld. They’d lean on a few supporters and get them to write emails and letters against the protesters, form groups that seemed to comprise interested Coasters but they were just being used for their cause. They’d hype up the scare of losing jobs and get the locals on board. That way, they had most of their workers and all the councils and public on their side against the greenies and conservationists. Sometimes they’d even write letters in wriggly handwriting on scraps of paper pretending to be old Mrs Gumboot of Okarito who was worried ’cos her son was going to lose his job, etc. Worked a treat.”

  “Really? You’re not just makin’ this up, are ya?”

  “If ya don’t believe me, Tony, I’ll lend ya a book that proves it. Some eco-nut called Nicky Hagar. He’s into Greenpeace and all those eco-groups. Anyway, he documented it all after ForestsFirst was finally exposed and it was even better than I thought. Clever buggers, all the way. Me eyes were poppin’ out like organ stops reading it.”

  “Not so clever they didn’t get caught out though, eh Ray? And that’s what worries me. I’d never get Moana and the kids back if they nicked me using dumped toxins or if I ended up in jail for it. Been there before, just for passing on a few cheap CDs and VCRs to some of her own cuzzie bros too. You’d think she’d be pleased. But Moana said if I was ever dishonest again, she’d leave and take the kids with her.”

  Raymond smiles. “Tony, mate. Now you have a free run. You should be thanking your lucky stars. I’d do anything to be a bachelor again, only I need the missus and the kids to help run the business. But I long for the good old days with the boys. The only fun we get now is up in the chopper. We do a few tokes of Northland Green, best dope in the country, while we’re flying. Gary reckons you get higher on dope in the air. Haha. Bloody right too. It’s a real buzz. We’ll take you up and give you a toke. Maybe dust your farm for free once
a year since you’re helping us out a bit, eh? How’d’ya like that?”

  “Be great, mate. I’m on anytime.”

  Raymond pauses. He’s on a roll now. And he’s been waiting for this moment. “Whatya gonna do with that huge farm now the missus has gone, Tony?”

  “Dunno. I can’t run it on me own and can’t afford to hire anyone, either.”

  “I might be able to help yer out a bit there, mate.”

  “How come?”

  “Got some friends in high places. When at ForestsFirst, we got to have a few tokes with the best of ’em and mixed with all these government dudes and scientists. Not as bad as you’d think. Anyway, one of them works for a group funded by MagicMilk, International Seed Corporation and backed by FarmCorp, and he said they are after some isolated blocks of land, well away from main townships where greenies hang out, to run some trials to test genetically engineered plants and animals.”

  Tony’s eyes light up big time. “Like Dolly the Sheep and all that? For real?”

  “Yep. You got it. But much better than Dolly. They’re onto some sort of cross-gene stuff. I dunno the details. Maybe sticking a pig’s head onto some mutton for a lamb and bacon treat – who knows. But they could use those burial caves on your land and nobody would ever know, eh? Plus the old barns. They are after places that cannot be identified ’cos they reckon after the GE Royal Commission decision comes out, they might have to go underground, literally, to do their tests. They wanna be prepared. You on?”

  “Shit, Ray. This sounds massive. I dunno.”

  Ray slaps Tony on the back. “You’d be mad to turn ’em down, mate. It’ll mean big bikkies. Cash in the hand. And more than you’d ever earn slaving your guts out as a farmer every day – gettin’ up early to milk those bloody cows.”