My Marae Recount

Room 7’s Noho Marae Experience

On the 1-2 of May term 2 2019, Room 7, room 5, some teachers and some parents went to our local marae the Arahura Marae. We went to the marae because we were learning about marae and māori culture.

Te Powhiri/the powhiri

The first thing we did was the powhiri and that took like 30-45 minutes. We have to wait at the waharoa/gate. With Miss Ireland's back turned so the people know that we were not ready. When Miss Ireland's back is facing us that means that the people know that we are ready. Then they do a karanga, that’s when they call to each other. After the karanga one person from our side and there side do speeches. The speeches were in māori so I couldn’t understand what they were saying. That was the most boringest part of the trip. That took about 10 minutes or so. After that we had some kai/food. I had a scone and banana cake with chocolate icing. My first reaction was, ‘‘This food is amazing.’’ The food at the marae was sooooooo good!!

Awa/River

The river and looking for pounamu was so fun. Jerry told us not to look for green but to look for stones with a white crust. In about 10 minutes some people found pounamu. I went to a little creek part by the river and jumped on to rocks and looked under some rocks but still did not find any. Then I went to the end of the river and had a look over there. I asked Jerry where the best place to look was and he said to look over in the little creek part so I looked over there again. In about an hour of looking I still did not find any! Then Miss Barrow Said it was time to build sculptures. You had to be in teams of four with  two girls and two boys. I was in a group with Breanna, Copper, Isaac and me. We built a taniwha. We built our taniwha out of sand, rocks and a clay type substance.

Ahiahi activities/afternoon activities

Later on in the Ahiahi/afternoon we did our activities. I started with indoor sports. The first game we played was rats and rabbits. The way you play that is you line up some skipping ropes and put your feet against you're friends feet and if someone calls rat then the rabbits have to try and get to the other side and the rats have to try tag them before they do get to the other side. But if someone calls rabbits then the rats have to try and get to the other side and the rabbits have to try tag the rats. Then we played hockey with newspaper sticks and a foam ball. We did indoor sports for about an hour. At 8:00 I did tukutuku panels. I loved doing the tukutuku panels as they were super relaxing. Tukutuku panels are like cross stitch. You use a needle and a piece of paper with squares on it and poke holes on the corners of the squares then take the needle from one of the bottom corners go to the Opposite top Corner Then go to the bottom and back up to the opposite corner and you should have a cross.

 

 I'm really happy that I went to the marae it was so much fun. I was really taiatea/nervous but the people were really nice up there. I suggest you go to a mare, it is a lifetime Experience.