Christchurch life – tragedy anniversaries, rugby, volunteering

Life since break has been good but pretty low key – a lot of resting, catching up on school, and hanging out around Christchurch. My life in the last two weeks has consisted of a lot of relaxing, good conversations, cooking awesome snacks, watching movies, and spreading the Arrested Development gospel to my Kiwi friend. School here is harder than expected and staying on top of things has been consuming a lot of time and energy, but only five weeks of class left! Don’t panic like I did the other day – I’m just shy of the halfway mark of my time here, so even though class ends soon I have a month of finals and a month of travel after class ends. Not to worry.

One of the most memorable things that’s happened in the last week or two is the anniversaries of both the first earthquake in Christchurch (September 4) and 9/11. There’s a lot of similarity in the feelings people seem to have about these tragedies and it certainly makes you think and remember and appreciate how lucky you are. As I’ve written about, downtown Christchurch is totally devastated and will be closed for years, but they are gradually bringing events and art and life back into the area around the fence. We checked out the Canterbury Museum, which just reopened, and a lot of public art put on by the Christchurch Arts Festival, and it was great to see people down near city center. On September 4 they unveiled two beams of light from the dark city center to represent hope, which I watched from the fence, and it’s a touching idea but still sad that there was no sort of public event where everyone could come together again and start to heal. This sort of private, insular way is very characteristic of Christchurch culture.

Another sign of life near city center is the Rugby World Cup fan zone they’ve set up in the park downtown! The World Cup started last week and is a really big deal because it’s hosted in NZ this year, it only happens every 4 years, and NZ is pretty much accepted as the best rugby team in the world and fittingly Kiwis are obsessed with it. I went with some Kiwi friends to the opening night, which had an awesome opening ceremony (check it out here if you want, gorgeous and fascinating Maori history http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GkXpQhc51g) and celebrated the All Blacks’ first win against Tonga. It’s great to see people out and excited and coming together, especially in Christchurch since they really need that and it isn’t happening. It’s silly, but rugby is so big here that it’s really something that brings people together. So the next month of games and festivities should be really fun!

Another really cool thing that I did last weekend was some volunteering with the Student Volunteer Army. This is a university club that just exploded in size after the earthquakes, becoming one of the most important volunteer groups and getting international recognition for their service. They have an unbelievable and inspiring story, so I’d encourage anyone to read more about them if you’re interested (start here http://www.facebook.com/StudentVolunteerArmy). Last weekend they were getting done a few odd projects left over from past service events so Dahlia and Bernard and I got sent out to a preschool to do some serious yardwork so they could build an orchard for the kids. We spent about three hours weedwhacking, which was exhausting but so fun and satisfying! My arms are still aching as I write this three days later. Little projects like that don’t seem to matter much but I think when you combine many of these little projects it means a lot because people feel like support is out there and that people are helping each other. It was great to be a part of something like that, since I really wanted to help being here but there’s not much to do anymore unless you’re an engineer or a demolition worker. We even got official SVA t shirts! I am very excited about that because the shirts are so recognizable and these students are seen as heroes in the community.

The field we were up against

 Very excited about this shirt

 Looking badass as usual - we forgot to take an after picture but look how good that grass looks

A few other recent happenings: last week my flatmates had another girls’ night so I went out to a club with them, always good to bond even if we spent the whole time avoiding a really drunk Irish guy. Another friend that has a car tried to teach me to drive manual recently, which was a hilarious ordeal because after 15 minutes of not managing to get into first gear I was too frustrated and gave up (temporarily!) without actually making it into the road. I’m determined to learn though! Even if it is on the left side of the street. My last piece of exciting news is that it’s finally spring here! Things are blooming and it’s been in the 60s and it is so nice – it feels good to finally almost be on the good end of the opposite weather thing. Today was warm and grey and a little drizzly and felt very much like Seattle, which was nice for 5 minutes until I realized with horror that I’m not used to the rain any more and I don’t like it and it’s going to suck when I get back. On that cheerful note I’ll sign off – lots of exciting hikes coming up, keep an eye out!