Galavanting Globally

Cultural Lessons

For all the reasons I mentioned in my previous post, we have been unable to leave Whakahoro aka my new favorite place in the world.  Luckily Kelly is charming and likable, so our new friends were suckers/kind enough to let us continue to stay with them.  This week has been a lot of the same ol' outdoorsy things that us outdoorsy girls do such as wrastling with sheep.  Shh shh little lambs, a little castration at the hands of inexperienced Americans never hurt anyone.

Now any of you reading this might, ok definitely, know that I am a complete nut for dogs.  I pine for dogs the way most women's biological clocks beg to breed.  The big difference being that dogs don't cry, talk back, need college tuition or require the birds and the bees talk.  Plus they are smushy and adorable even in their awkward teenage years.  So in addition to Whakahoro being the most amazing place ever, it is also serious Dog Palooza up in here.  Jaden, the farm manager for one of the farms, currently has 11 dogs to his name.  Eleven.  Initially that just sounds like borderline hoarding, but out here every one of them is actually necessary and each have their own jobs.  There are sheep dogs who's job it is to bark at the sheep to get them moving, sheep dogs for herding, pig dogs for tracking and corralling wild boars and let's not forget the puppies all so important job of being stupidly cute.  And all of these dogs are wicked smart, super obedient and know their left from their right, a distinction I still struggle with, ask any of my rugby teammates.  One dog can singled handedly (pawedly?) herd hundreds and hundreds of sheep from one field to another.  These dogs make all the dogs I have ever known back home seem like they might have a touch of down syndrome.  Sorry friends.  These dogs, however, are not the soft, sleep on the couch, get fed out of fancy dog feeders so they don't swallow their food too fast kind of dogs.  They are the sleep outside, work their asses off and sometimes get trampled by horses kind of dogs.  I was constantly warned that I was making the farm dogs soft by my over zealous affections.   I was also warned not to let them lick me in the face, farm dogs also have free range to whatever they find out in the paddocks.  I'm sure your imagination can fill in the blanks on the farm fresh entrees.  I'm not saying I'm going to give up snuggling on the couch with my favorite canines anytime soon, but I might expect Fido to at least take the garbage out every once and while when I get home.

Along with the dogs, you've probably noticed several cultural differences mentioned since we've started this trip.  Preparing for our departure yesterday, Kelly and I wanted to make all of our new friends dinner, a mediocre gesture of gratitude compared to the kindness and hospitality we were shown over the last couple of weeks.  The nearest town to Whakahoro is a seriously curvy, motion sickness inducing, hour plus drive away.  We braved the drive to the store for the ingredients necessary to make lasagna for a small army.  We like to think we made quite a few friends (and us Americans get nervous about not having enough food to completely gorge even the most metabolism gifted 18 year old farm hands).  As we start cracking into the SIX Costco sized cans of tomato sauce, our friend Anna asked, "Why the hell did you get so much tomato sauce?"  Duh, we're making lasagna for the apocalypse.  "No, but why so much tomato sauce?"  Ok, now I know we're on a different continent, but it's still an english speaking country, what am I missing here?  Cultural lesson #563; tomato sauce in New Zealand is actually ketchup!  Those American sized cans were for refilling ketchup dispensers.  We had already braved the gravel roller coaster of hell to the store and back and now all we had was enough ketchup to supply Fenway Park.  Our hosts thought the cultural debacle was hilarious.  I, however, didn't think there was a swear word appropriate enough.  Luckily we were able to commandeer enough real tomato sauce from our friends to make it work in the end.  But my question still is, what the hell are you supposed to call "tomato sauce" then?

November 5, Guy Fawke's Day

Goat on a picnic table, that shit is just funny