Waitangi day on sunday. anyone here celebrate it?..and if so, what exactly do u do? i need to find out for this informal project i'm doing with some friends. we're teaching ourselves the entire history of new zealand.so far we got as far as the treaty signed by Lord Bledisloe(sp?) in 1840 i think. phew! is it just a general festival-type affair with poi and food and stuff?
2years ago my bike got stolen on waitangi day morn.. thats all i think of when waitangi day comes around.. ah well got over twice what i paid for it thru insurance.. man that bike was cool..
to most people here when the day comes round we just think of it as a day off (it normaly is) it dosnt really mean much to most of us, to other's i guess its important, but i wouldnt know? i dont really cear for the day myself. no festivals or poi (what ever that is, i'm no good with miori words) its just another day. but if you want a good mark on you paper lie.
umm, there are generally a few things that go on - Waitangi, where the treaty was signed usually has a remberance thing -often there are protests, politicians etc... I am going to this thing called One Love though - it celebrates bob's bday as well as waitangi day and tries to focus more on what is right in the country and the unity rather then what is wrong. It's a day of free reggae in the sun - should be wicked.
On waitangi day we get divided pretty easily into 4 groups- the people who use it as an opportunity to protest (last year a politician got mud thrown at him), the people who honour it and use it as a day of commemoration (we have services at waitangi on the marae where the treaty was signed), those who work so they get time and a half or celebrate their day off happily, and lastly those who don't realise it's happening. I'm working go me! But I do think about it quite a bit on the day, if that matters.. It's a pretty important day, things were going great in terms of relations and personally I think the treaty made everything go downhill the moment people realised the 2 versions (one in maori, not that they could read it anyway, and one in english) were different.
I spent my waitangi day selling drinks to jews in a park in eastbourne and then went swimming in my clothes. SUCH a nice day. I'm sitting at home in a towel now. All nice and clean.
its a day that remembers when the founding document of New Zealand was signed, after the Maori Land Wars. Basically, a lot of chiefs of various iwi (tribes) around the country and the reps of Queen Vicky from England got together and signed a treaty. But the pakeha (white people) fucked over the maori. There's three different treaties - the english one, the maori one and the english translation of the maori one. but this is all getting very political... basically, it remembers the founding of new zealand as a country where maori and pakeha worked together... hahahaha... that worked out well...
one love was so good...so hot but scribes of ra were worth it. there was eaisly a couple of thousand people there, just keen for a boogie in the sun. and i got new hat. it was a good day
