“Well, I’m sure grateful to Meriel for my survival. Reading her book allowed me to find out so much that even my doctors and the health system were unable to tell me on my journey to discover what my illnesses were and how to recover from them. I had no desire to be a victim, despite their trying to paint me as such, and as soon as I got the knowledge she provided with her research and insights, then I was able to start this long healing process.” Koa wipes back the tears that flow from her face in relief.
“Hey there, Koa.” Iri cuddles her closely, wrapping her arms around Koa’s lavalava. “We will not ever give up on these causes. They are connected to the GE issue. While the genetic engineers say that GE means less spraying, we know it’s not true from the overseas research. It just means different poisons and mutations entering into our food source and the air we breathe. Bugger them, Koa. I will fight this battle for you and for all of us if it is the last thing I do and so long as I have breath on this earth.”
Koa looks at her lover, her friend, her soulmate, her eyes again filled with tears of relief, joy, sadness, happiness. “I know, dear Iri. You are my saviour too.”
Iri snuggles closer. “I wouldn’t mind another hot tub session right now.”
“In the middle of the day? We’d never get any work done afterwards.”
“Who said anything about work?” Iri has a gleam in her eye. She takes Koa by the hand and leads her to their caravan. As they play and laugh, the piwakawaka go strangely quiet, sensing a storm lies ahead, while the women of Te Kotuku bask in their blissful happiness.
Maata bangs loudly on the door of their caravan the next morning at dawn. “Come. Quickly. Mere needs you!” She disappears before they have time to ask any questions. They wrap their lavalavas around their bodies and flee to the nearby cottage, expecting to find Mere on the floor with a heart attack or having had a fall. Instead, they witness the flickering of her television, so seldom used, through the curtains. Inside, Mere points to the television screen, as if in a trance. “I knew their greed and treatment of indigenous people would come back to haunt them. But not like this, it’s terrible.” On the screen, people fleeing, dust around them. Firemen and police everywhere. A pizza sign on a blackened shop, a bagel symbol smashed in the rubble. Looks like New York. Then, suddenly, an eerie shot of the twin towers at the base of Manhattan. From the right, a black dot appears, flying toward one tower. It disappears into the building and flames flash out the sides. Seconds later, a replay of the second tower with what looks like a passenger plane heading toward it in slow motion. The plane smashes into the building, as if in a terror movie, and then it collapses, like a pack of cards, in dust and rubble. They cannot believe their eyes. It’s then that Irihapeti recalls her dream. Maybe it was a premonition? Maybe she should have told others about it? She feels guilty before reminding herself it is absurd to feel such an emotion now.
For the next few hours, they remain glued to the screen, stopping to make tea and discuss the issues. They are torn, feeling for their friends and whanau in New York and on Great Turtle Island, yet knowing why this has happened and being amazed that the announcers have so little awareness of their own government’s history. Not so long ago, the United States supported the Taliban into power, when it suited them, and now the Taliban are the enemy because they have supported Osama bin Laden, believed to be the perpetrator of this atrocity. Between repeated shots of the giant birds flying into the twin towers, which the news corporations know is compulsive viewing such as they have never had handed to them on a plate like this, are glimpses of Osama bin Laden. Such a graceful and beautiful man with soft eyes, about to be turned into the devil incarnate by the United States and world news media. The women can never excuse such acts of violence, but it makes them sick to see it happening. Yet again. Before long, talk of war, of revenge against Afghanistan for harbouring bin Laden and the Taliban.
“Please no. Not another Vietnam,” urges Mere, pleading with the screen image of Colin Powell, a black brother who would turn on other black brothers for the US cause. They sit in stunned silence as the images flow, as the anger grows, as more and more information comes out. Over the next few days, they watch events unfold, bringing the new seeds inside to plant in their packs and sharing korero. They feel for the New Yorkers, strangely humble in their hours of terror. Yet they also feel for the tangata whenua of Afghanistan, who have been the victims of perpetual warfare over the last few decades, their land being reduced to rubble and their fields to dry dust. That the world powers could even think of attacking such a devastated country besieged by atrocious poverty and malnutrition, before the onset of yet another harsh winter, fills them all with anger.
“Why the hell can’t they bring the Taliban and Osama bin Laden to justice using the court system? If they can do it with the Serbian and Bosnian tormentors, then surely they can do it now,” argues Mere. “I have seen too many wars, too much devastation. There is never, ever a reason for war. We have to find better ways to resolve our oppression or anger or suffering. Surely?”
Her questions hang in the air like balloons, float into the sympathetic ears of her listeners, already on her side of the fence. But they do not reach into the screen to the announcers and the police, firefighters, angry at their lost brothers, the people bound in their grief at this moment.
“Is it unholy to say that this kind of suffering happens at the hands of the United States daily and yet is never on our screen in close-up focus as now?” asks Koa. “And thousands of children die of malnutrition every day without any media fuss.”
They nod in agreement with her, in sympathy for all those suffering, on both sides of the world. But as the hours go by, more and more US evangelism and warmongering irritates them, angers them. They return to their daily tasks, weighed down by the battles they are now fighting on local and international fronts, but even more determined not to give up. As Mere stated on the first day of their viewing, “We cannot collude with depression, with anger. We must always fight our causes in the belief of creating and leaving behind a better world than the one granted to us. We owe this to our ancestors and our descendants. To those who went before us and those who come after us. Such wisdom, such grace.” She ends on a note of warning: “Ka tahuna te ururua ki te ahi, e kore e tumau tonu ki te wahi I tahuna atu ai: kaore, ka kakatoa te parae.” To Maata, who does not understand all her words, she explains. “Literally speaking, this means that when the bush is set on fire, the flames will not remain in the dry brushwood; no, they will spread right over the plains.”
“So what does this mean for Afghanistan?” asks Maata.
“That war can never be confined to a few people. It will spread like wildfire.”
“Well, we need to tell that to the United States.”
“Too right, Maata. And all of you need to get on the internet and get writing to your local papers. We need to support those tangata whenua in Afghanistan right now and also fight our battle for the land here too. But they need us more right now.” Mere is wahine toa, standing proudly in her defiance.
“What a powerful woman,” whispers Koa to Irihapeti, as they depart for bed.
“Kia ora. Cowrie will be proud of her too. I hope they email soon and let us know how they are.” They wander out into the night air, so grateful for this land they live on, so grateful to be near the sea and to have a land capable of nourishing them when used sustainably, a land that they are willing to share so long as it is respected.
“So what’s it like working for Mr Creepy?” Waka opens the van door for Maata.
“Nothing weird. Real messy place. But apart from that, he was okay.” Maata climbs into the van and plonks her backpack onto the seat beside her. “Let’s have a swim. I’m hot.”
“Got the surfboards in the back. Wanna head for the dunes?”
Maata grins. It’s their favourite place and they do not always have the use of the marae van on loan from Piripi. “Sure.”
They drive out to Mitimiti Beach and carry their
boards over the high dunes until they get to the wild West Coast breakers, thundering in on the sand.
“You game to join me?” challenges Waka, knowing she has not been in this rough surf since she was nearly drowned a few years back.
“Yeah. Why not?” Maata rises to the challenge, realising she has to do it sometime. Besides, after the September 11th explosion, she knows that anything could happen to anyone anywhere and it’s up to everyone to live life as fully as possible and appreciate every moment. Somehow, this strange act of vengeance has given her even more courage to stand by her principles and the bravery to take risks and appreciate life as never before. Mere said they owed it to themselves to give thanks for every moment on this earth. She’d heard this stuff before, but never really believed it. Now it has flown home to her, as sure as those giant birds flying into those twin towers.
Maata and Waka run down the beach and into the raging waves which curl into large watery caves and crash over the pair as they paddle out on the surfboards, their heads tucked down, their feet like fins. The first wave hits Maata hard so she digs her fins in deeper and thrusts through the belly of the second wave, emerging on the other side, triumphant. She gasps out the salt water that filled her mouth and draws a huge gulp of air into her lungs before the next wave curves over her body. Suddenly, she is exhilarated. Her body is strong again, her will determined. Waka paddles alongside her until they clear the rough water and can float a while in the rolling sea beyond the breaking waves.
“We made it! Choice!” yells Waka, admiring the strength in Maata’s arms. Her eyes light up a chestnut brown when she is excited and her voice deepens. She fins through the water like a sleek seal. Something in his soul is aroused by this woman emerging from her childhood cocoon, something that is rare. A strength of spirit and an ability to keep fighting despite the odds. Maybe the abuse she endured as a child has in some way prepared her to cope with anything life throws up for her? Maata paddles alongside and dangles a fin into the water, touching his fin. A wave of energy surges through his body, stronger than any of the waves they have dived through today. He looks away, unable to meet the rich intensity of her eyes. It’s then that he sees a fin circling around them. His heart beats like a Pacifika drum in his ears.
“D’ya reckon the herbs will have enough sun here under the banana palms, Iri?”
“Sure. It’s the heat they want and most of them do better in the semi-shade. Remember what Cowrie said in her email about Jo’s planting under the Ethiopian bananas?”
“Yeah. I hope she brings some of those seeds home to usas well.” Koa makes a nest in the raised earth, sand and fernleaf mulch for her Vietnamese mint. The leaves, striped dark and lime-green, wave in the wind, delighted to be back in warm earth nurtured by mulch and prepared by worms.
“We can always email and get Jo to send some if not. I’m really looking forward to visiting his farm. D’ya reckon he’d be into us taking the kura kaupapa kids as well?”
“Only one way to find out. Sounds like he’s into educating others and sharing his experiences.” Irihapeti places some dead ponga logs around the outside of the raised beds under the bananas.
Koa notices this. “What if the new bananas want to spring up and the treefern log is in the way?”
“No worries,” grins Iri. “See that log over there?” Koa looks in the direction she is pointing. “It was moved an arm’s length by the baby banana to the right. They are incredibly powerful when they sprout new shoots and they manage to surge through almost anything in their way.
“But won’t it destroy the garden edging?” Koa looks puzzled.
“Then we’ll adjust to fit nature’s whim,” smiles Iri.
“Fukuoka would like that!” Koa stands upright, rubbing her back.
“And it’s easier to go with the flow. That’s what gardening with nature is about. Staying flexible all the time and adapting to new challenges. None of this Italian Renaissance design crap for me.”
“Yeah – it’s fine in its place. But I like Te Kotuku gardens much better.” Koa stretches and admires their day’s work. They have made raised beds under half the banana plantation and planted out the new herbs they had sprouted last season. Now they scatter organic mustard seeds all over the plot to take the place of any weeds that might have the errant desire to thrive there, and plant a few nasturtiums. Both will be great for salads, and they seem to wend their way around the other plants without too much hassle.
“Can’t understand why so many gardeners hate nasturtiums and root them out at the first chance.” Iri especially loves the new dark scarlet nasturtium sent to her by Cowrie after their visit to the eco-village in Kaiwaka and takes great care in planting it at the edge of the plantation, nurturing its new home with a few cockle and mussel shells from their last feast.
After a brew of fresh manuka tea with pohutukawa honey, Koa settles into her favourite tatty armchair while Iri dives into the internet to catch up on emails. Koa is rereading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and finds it still speaks to the current ecological issues vibrantly so many decades after the writing. Every now and again she recites a passage to Iri, and Iri reads from the emails to her. They debate the issues and soak up the support from the local organic gardeners who are using the net to find out new methods or share old ones. Irihapeti scrolls through a number of anti-GE petitions and responses to the Royal Commission’s report on GM. Then she finds an email from Cowrie’s friend Sahara, in the UK, who has sent an article from the magazine Resurgence which she subscribes to.
“Hey. Listen to this. It’s about the importance of women in organic and GE-free farming.”
Koa looks up from her book. “About time too. What’s the essence of it?”
Iri sips her tea and scans the screen. “Mainly that the desire for organic food has grown out of the rejection of GM products and that over half the organic farmers are women compared with about five percent farming chemically.”
“Women have always been involved in farming and still are in the Third World. It’s mostly industrialisation and the corporatisation of farms that changed all this. But ecology pioneers Eve Balfour and Rachel Carson warned us against what we are facing now with GM.”
“Too true.” Iri scans the article and prints it off so that Koa can read the details later. She is encouraged and fired up by the strength of the article. “This inspires me to want to keep up the pressure against GM. Imagine what Rachel and Eve would have thought of the Commission’s report?”
“They’d’ve thought it a sell-out if they’d lived to witness what we have by now.”
“I still find it astounding that we were not taught about them at school and they were never mentioned in my botanical classes. I only discovered Silent Spring by chance in a secondhand bookstore in Kawakawa.”
“I only discovered them on the net and through Organic New Zealand magazine. Never heard of either of them before that.”
“Disgusting, eh?”
“More planned than that. They were, after all, a huge threat to the multinationals producing agro-chemicals, just like Meriel Watts’ book in Aotearoa.”
“Cowrie mentioned that Meriel is working on her doctorate on pesticide use in Aotearoa. Be great if we could ask her for a copy when it’s finished. Have you got her email?”
“Yep. It’s on file here. Ya want me to zap her a request?”
“Ka pae.”
Koa and Irihapeti talk late into the night, debating the issues of GE and discussing excerpts from the article and from Carson’s book. They decide it is time that they passed on this knowledge since it was missing from their own education, and they start to plan a hui based around a sharing of such information and resources. Maybe the people Cowrie and Kuini are meeting on the hikoi would be willing to talk and share their discoveries, alongside those from the strong Maori Coalition against GE.
“We need to include Carson’s book as essential reading for the hui and also for our kura kaupapa courses. We could summarise some
of the main issues for the tamariki. They are hungry for knowledge and wisdom in these areas and so disillusioned with the blindness of globalisation. Their new heroine is Naomi Klein with her No Logo book. If they could link the issues of GE to those of globalisation, then they’d have a ready audience of young people willing to get on board and fight to keep Aotearoa GE-free.” They work late into the night, fired up by the article, inspired by the work of the women who came before them. “We have to make sure the tamariki work across race lines here, Koa. Rachel Carson is tangata whenua on these issues. We have to judge people by how they act in saving our earth, not just on their words and the colour of their skin.”
“Too right, Iri. What was it that the Navajo elder told Cowrie on Great Turtle Island? The land belongs to those who look after it best. We are all caretakers of Mother Earth. None of us owns the land. It responds to those who look after it best. Something like that.”
“I agree. But the issue of land rights goes beyond this. It’s vital we retain much of the land taken away from us in order to look after it appropriately. That process has to take place at the same time.”
“But what happens if we get greedy Maori leaders wanting to sell portions off to the multinationals for gold mines or genetic engineering?”
“Then buggered if I will excuse them for the colour of their skin. No. It has to go deeper than this. The Navajo are right. It has to be about who looks after the land with the most care. That’s our future, Maori and Pakeha.”
Ao Toa Page 13