Stuck in the Suburbs: The Homestay

Hi again! I hope Hallmark™ Valentine's Day was good to you all.

A can of L&P from my friend Cali, and a yellow
rose from a restaurant called Thai Me Up. Yay.

So I've been really busy all this week, dealing with not only readings and essays for my Anthro class (plus applications for internships) but ALSO our first few sessions of our main Linguistics class, Field Methods. We're studying Tongan, a relative of Māori that is strange and awesome but not the subject of today's post. Instead, let's take a quick tour around my host family's house!

My lovely bedroom (don't worry, I'm fully unpacked by now).

The living room! Note the upright piano in the corner.

Kitchen/dining area, which my housemate Adam and I recently
used to make tacos and quesadillas for our family.

Mmm. Homemade guacamole is best guacamole.

View from the back porch.

The bay behind the house is great to look at; not so much for swimming.

The clouds make cool shadows on the water.

A not-really-secret trail from behind the house into the woods!

Oh hi, crane-like bird.

Plenty of cool houses in the suburban neighborhoods.
Apart from the older houses like this, the 'burbs remind
me of Florida.

A little nearby school, with cute multilingual greetings.

The sunset always catches me off-guard.

SO INTENSE

I'm not sure how acceptable it would be to post their names on a public blog, so I'll just use their first initials for now. D and M, the mother and father respectively, are a wisecracking Pākehā couple with four adult sons scattered all throughout the world. She does substitute teaching, he works on airplanes for Air New Zealand, and they both manage to keep busier than most adults their age. I'll frequently get up in the morning to greet D on her way out the door as she bustles off to go walking with a friend, and later come home to find one of them talking to a friend or family member via phone or Skype. 

Still, in the midst of all that, they've made time to get to know us and get us acquainted with various aspects of New Zealand life. For instance, spaghetti on toast! Sounds crazy, but it's easy to prepare and pretty tasty after a long day of chasing buses around the city. Don't knock it before you try it. I hope to expand my repertoire of Kiwi food over the next few weeks (pavlova, please?).

Without reading too deeply into anything, I'd like to think that D and M exemplify a lot of traits commonly ascribed to Kiwis. Hardworking and practical, they have a zeal for travel that's kept them going throughout the years and has given them a lot of great stories. On top of that, they have a penchant for dry wit that always keeps me and Adam on our toes, with such exchanges as the one below:

D: I hope you like your bed.

Me: Yeah, I really like the comforter. I used to have one at home, but we had to get rid of it once it started to smell weird.

D: Well, how long are you here for?

They've also offered a lot of neat insight into New Zealand politics and culture, especially as we've asked them more about Māori issues. It seems that they, like many Kiwis, want to find a middle ground between the ideas of Māori activists and those of the sometimes-sluggish government. Of course, that doesn't make solving problems like land claims any easier, but it does provide perspective on the Pākehā view of these issues. I learn something new from them every day, and I hope it stays that way.

By now, I bet you're wondering what my daily schedule is like. Well, I have a weird class schedule, but here's a rough approximation of a typical day in the life of me:

6:30 AM = Wake up due to sunlight, attempt to sleep in.

7:30-8:30 AM = Roll out of bed and head to the kitchen to make breakfast and lunch.

9:00 - 9:45 AM (on an early day) = Catch the 267 bus into the city to get to the university.

(early day) 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM = LING 54 lecture/discussion with a Māori professor (this week was Professor Mutu) on various aspects of Māori, like this one tricky particle ai

(later day) 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM = ANTH 51 discussion on postcolonial stuff; this week on indigenous issues and the benefits/problems of NGOs

at some point between 12:00 and 2:00 = lunch with the gang, either at an Asian food court or some other fun place

4:00 - 6:00 = studying/hanging out in the library to do readings and homework before heading back to the suburbs

7:00 - 8:30 = dinner and lots of chatting with the host family (usually includes ice cream or other desserts...they are too good to me)

8:30 - midnight = more homework and/or procrastination in the form of watching Downton Abbey (I am addicted...help)

So, yeah! There's a little bit about my life so far, and how I'm often busy but not (yet) overwhelmed. I'm really enjoying my homestay and I hope to keep learning from the family.

If you've gotten this far without falling asleep, here are some more blogs from my fellow FSP-ers! Plus, my sister Lily is road-tripping to Alaska for the Winter World Championships, because she's a boss. Read about her long, cold journey here!

And with all those links, I bid you adieu. Auckland's Pride Festival (the first in 11 years) is this weekend, so lots to look forward to and write about!