Work and Stuff...

We’ve been indoors the past couple of weeks, unfortunately. The rainy season seems to have begun. At least we’ve had more rain in a couple weeks than we’ve seen since we’ve been here, so we don’t have many adventures to report on. We did try to get out to a city-sponsored Polynesian Festival, but by the time we arrived there, the rain had too. So we didn’t stay long, and just got one really good picture. It was held in a huge park, and each different culture had kind of a village of their own. This picture was of a guy standing guard at the entrance to the Fijian area. Kinda fierce looking, huh?

The crowds were heavy and you just kinda had to be carried along with them, like going to the State Fair of Texas or the Houston Rodeo. So when the rain started down in earnest, we were happy to go. Auckland is said to have the biggest Polynesian population in the world. I believe that!

We have been so extremely busy at work this last little bit! Susi, our department secretary, received a late Sunday night call to check herself into the hospital because they had a donor kidney that looked like it was a match for her. So when we got to work Monday she had already undergone transplant surgery. That was two weeks ago, and her progress has been up and down, but hopefully things will improve and she’ll be on the mend. As a consequence of her being gone, we’ve had to pick up some of the slack. Specifically, I’ve taken on the education funding grant that she administers. We have a local donor who has sponsored many, many of the Polynesian kids in several island countries to help them get some training or education to help pull them out of poverty. Susi has worked with that, and Steve asked me to pick it up. With no instructions and no prior knowledge, I’ve kind of stepped into the middle of things, and hope I’m not making a mess of it. Luckily, we do have local people in each country that handle the paperwork on their end, and then send it on to Susi. So at least I have them to try to explain things to me. It’s been a challenge, but I think I’m picking it up.

Dad, of course, monitors the activity of the entire South Pacific on a daily basis. First thing when we get to work, he gets on the computer and checks all his meteorological sites, local news in each country, and whatever else he has identified that will tell him we have weather problems somewhere in our Area. There is an enormous fault line that runs right through things, and there are daily, sometimes hourly, earthquakes along it. It runs down right to the northern tip of New Zealand. All through that area are volcanos as well. In fact, most of the islands have been created by volcanos. We actually have 48 extinct volcanos within the city limits of Auckland. One of them is where the lake is that Dad runs around each morning. We don’t even think of them as being volcanos. They’re just pretty little round-top hills now. But the ones out in the Pacific, along with the fault line, give a lot of concern. With the underwater volcano that blew this past week, there was an earthquake of 7.9 magnitude, and the concern was tsunami waves washing over Tonga and many other islands. Tonga is very flat, with no mountains at all. One of the church employees there jokingly (but maybe not so jokingly) told us they could either climb to the spire of the temple, climb a coconut tree, or stand beside the grave, because there was nowhere else to go. Luckily, the tsunami alert was called off when nothing materialized that they feared.

Very few homes here have heating or air conditioning. We've discovered more humidity here than what we expected. When it rains, our apartment gets VERY humid, and I can't just kick down the thermostat like at home and dry out the air. We have to keep the windows closed or the rain comes in, so the indoors just steams up. The temperatures aren't cold, it's just raining. Consequently, I find myself feeling like a wet dog - and looking like it too. In the mornings I blow dry my hair, then use the curling iron, but when I get done, my hair is still wet. Too wet to comb. Finally in desperation a couple of the wettest mornings, I get to that point, and then just leave for the office, crank up the A/C in the car, and by the time we arrive, I can actually comb my hair.

So with no more pictures or things of particular interest to report, I'll just add more words and phrases to tickle your ears: at least they did mine!

Sport is a singular word: news, weather and sport
Test: In sport, when one team plays another, it isn’t a game, it’s a test.
Massive is their favourite big word. Every sale is massive. Everything big to an extreme is massive. If something is a big deal, it’s massive.
Sales are a “big save” (or “massive save”), not savings, but save.
“After leaving your message, press the pound key” – nope, here it’s the “hash” key.
When you make a call, if the line’s busy, it’s engaged.
You don’t check the box, you tick it.
Solo mums = single mothers
Through is used almost interchangeably with in: in answering the door, they’ll ask you to come through. If someone will bring you something, they’ll bring it through.
Wee: a lot of Scottish influence here, so lots of things are wee. Not a wee bit, just a wee. Take a wee nap. She has a wee baby. I’m a wee short on money.
G’day: there’s also enough Australian influence that g’day, or g’day, Mate is a fairly common greeting.
When you buy anything, rather than say, “$12.38, please”, they’ll say “$12.38 thank you”, all in one breath.
Numbers are just that – numbers. Rather than something being on page 125 (one twenty five), it’ll be “page one two five”.
Months are shortened to three letters when they speak: Valentine’s day is one four Feb. The middle of summer is Jan.
A water blaster is a power washer
Transport is anything that transportation would be – just not the –ation on the end.
Accommodation is always used in place of hotel, motel, apartment, flat, house, whatever.
Ay is tacked on to the end of sentences, kind of like “huh?” or “Isn’t that right?” It’s pronounced just like a long A, and no questioning tone at the end of it, just more like a statement. “Tomorrow’s your birthday, ay.”
Sign in a McDonald’s: “Pardon our mess whilst we’re expanding.” They really do use “whilst”.
The –ed on the end of words is frequently a t instead, such as learnt or spoilt or spilt.
Rather than say “yes” or “yep” or “un-huh”, they do a short, clipped, “yip!”
A batch is a not-so-great little summer beach house or shack. Most of them are disappearing now, but back in the day they were all over the place. Comes from the word batchelor. I guess just a little shack a single guy would live in.
This was a brand new one on us. As I said, there was a volcano that spewed up from under the ocean near Tonga this past week. It shot up, and then there was a 7.9 earthquake to go along with it. We got a tsunami warning for a good portion of the Pacific Area that Dad was following pretty closely until they cancelled it. But almost as soon as it happened, someone put video of the eruption on YouTube. Some passengers on a cruise ship or ship of some kind, had their video cameras on this eruption and it was pretty cool. Apparently, they were pretty awed at seeing a volcano up so close. One of the deejays on the radio said the passengers seemed to have been pretty “gob smacked” about it. We got a real hoot out of that phrase!