Meeting Maoris at Tamaki Maori village

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I'm picked up at my hostel and am joined by a young couple from the UK one of whom later turns out to be pretty important, but more of that later. We join a coach load of Americans who are a lovely bunch of mostly pensioners. It seems to be the thing to do when you retire in the US, go on large group coach tours in far flung places. I've met them all over. They always seem to have some indignity or other to suffer. This time it was having to wear lanyards with their names on as if saying 'If you find this old person, please look after them and ring this number so we can come pick them up'. On other trips I've seen them being forced to wear identical baseball hats, or carry identical shoulder bags! They are old not idiots, just talk to them you stupid tour guides and you'll find out their fascinating INDIVIDUALITY!

Our bus driver is very funny and gets us learning some Maori terms, the first being Kia Ora which is a greeting or acknowledgement or just something you say every five minutes as the evening progresses. We are travelling on a waka. Well not really as originally this referred to a canoe but now relates to any kind of transport (I've probably got this all wrong, but bear with me!). We are on waka Kea - the name of our bus. During the journey a chief has to be chosen and this is were my companions of the hostel pick ups come back into the story. It seems Steve the auto glass repair guy is to be volunteered! This will involve having to stand his ground in the face of an aggressive challenge of peace with shouting, eye popping, tongue protruding and spear lunging. We are all warned not to move, laugh or smile either as this bit is all very serious. Once the chief is accepted as coming in peace with his tribe and the two opposing chiefs have done the hongi (pressing of noses and sharing of breath) we are allowed to enter the village.

We are then split into groups and taken to different areas of the woodland to huts where we are told about different aspects of Maori culture. First we are shown the poi balls. Originally they were rocks on strings used to strengthen the wrists and forearms ready for battles as they were spun in different directions. Now they are woven cloth balls filled with reeds and used by women as part of their dancing and singing performances. Three ladies were 'volunteered' to have go and it's obviously harder than it looks as they were really rubbish.

Next we move on to the stick games. No-one is putting themselves forward again and as our Maori lady explains there might be some running and most of our group were pretty old I take one for the team and step forward along with three other girls. We have a four foot long stick each and have to stand in a square holding them upright. Then having learnt the Maori words for left (mahue) and right (matau) we have to listen to which one she says, let go of our stick and run in the right direction around the square to catch the next girl's sick before it falls. Having practised this with the sticks really near to each other we then have to do it for real. 'Step back two steps', she says to our horror! Omg this is going to be harder than we'd thought. And so the fun commences, much to the amusement of our onlookers. Each time a stick falls the one who dropped it has to drop out of the game. I manage a respectable 2nd place.

We then move on to the next lady who shows us how the Maori women used swamp flax and reeds to weave bags and clothing. She shows us how fibres were made from splitting the long leaves. Special cloaks were made using the finer fibres along with kiwi feathers. The feathers from at least 20 birds were needed to make just one cloak. It took two years to make, one to collect and prepare the materials needed and another year to weave it.

We move on to the next area in the wood and see it's two of the scariest guys from the 'peace challenge' ceremony. Luckily they are really friendly now and show us how the Maori men used to train in agility to be able to run fast the through the forest avoiding roots and stones. It's a bit like the fitness training thing with tyres on the ground only these guys are using sticks. The really chunky Maori guy demonstrates and is surprisingly nifty and light on his feet. Two teams are chosen from our group and they race up and down in relay, the last one each time getting a pretend whack on their shins with a spear.

Next we find out how the body and face tattoos were made using a wooden implement with a sharp stone fixed on. The stick would be tapped twice to go the correct depth into the skin to make the ink fix. Three taps and you'd be through to the bone! Anyway, the thrust of the explanation is that the word tattoo originates from the Maori word pronounced 'toe tu' after the noise of the stick being tapped. So Maori's claim to be the first tattooist or toe-tooists in the world.

The finale is the famous haka, a war dance performed only by men. A few of our group step forward and learn first the shaking hand movement signifying life, then the shouts and stamps, next added in are the hand thrusts, more shouting and finally the eye popping and sticking out tongues. They do pretty good but don't really look that scary as they are too amused by what they are doing, their grins kinda spoiling the effect.

Before going to our performance of singing and dancing we are shown the hangi method of food preparation. A large pit is dug then hot rocks, readily available in this highly thermal area, are placed in the pit along with slow burning wood. Wet sacks are placed over the stones and this creates the steam that cooks the food. Meat is placed in the hangi first as it needs most heat to cook it, next come the root vegetables and stuffing, then softer vegetables like broccoli or cabbage and not forgetting good old steam pudding. The food is wrapped in the wet cloths then the whole thing is covered in soil to keep the heat in. We watch the guys shuvelling off the soil, unwrapping the cloths and with much accompanied steam the sacks are unfolded and the food baskets removed. Mmmm this is to be our dinner.

We move to a theatre area where we are treated to a performance of singing along with poi ball twirling and more haka demonstrations. Finally we sit down to heaving platefuls of hangi food (veggie option is sweet potato lasagne, which I doubt was anywhere near the hangi). As well as the steamed pudding there is also scrummy pavlova. I sit with a lovely Scottish family, the parents visiting their daughter who has been living in New Zealand during her gap year working as a nanny. She's reluctantly returning to the UK soon, but is looking forward to studying nursing.

We say goodbye to our hosts. What a fantastic evening. The fun isn't quite over however. Our lady bus driver is in singing mode and gets us singing a along to some cheesy tunes from all the countries we're from. Our chief starts us off singing 'The wheels on the bus go round and round' and when we get to 'the horn on the bus goes...' she honks the horn to fit the song over and over. The naughtiness doesn't end there. As we approach the roundabout into Rotorua she gets us singing 'She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes' and says she won't stop going round the roundabout until we finish the song! True to her word we go round it about five times! So funny. We are eventually all dropped off at our hotels and say a huge thank you to Tamaki Maori village and all the amazing staff that make this such a successful, informative and enjoyable evening.

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