MY Birthday! - Oct 22- Caving in waitomo and Maori culture night in Maketu

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October 22nd was a great day to be my birthday! We first went to Waitomo to do some caving. There were several options but ultimately I and 3 others from the bus chose to do the Toomoo Toomoo Tubes. We got in to our gear - wetsuits (I needed assistance with this one!), gumboots, and helmet and climbed down 27 feet on a ladder into one of the many caves in Waitomo. Once in the caves we had to climb over rocks, swim in freezing water, and crawl through claustrophobic passages but it was all worth it just to see the thousands of glow worms that called the cave “home”. Towards the middle point of the caving experience, we had gotten into black tubes, shut off our headlights, formed a human chain, and “black-water rafted” among thousands of glow worms. As we learned, the glow worms don’t actually glow, but it’s their excrement that glows. But what a lovely glow it is. They looked like tiny green stars -“Glow in the dark” green to be exact.
After caving, we drove to Maketu where we would be experience Maori culture first hand. En-route to Uncle Boy’s Marai (Maori community), we prepared by “tattooing” our faces with black eye-liner. The men got their cheeks, noses, and chins tattooed while the women only got our chins and lips tattooed - thus being as authentic as possible to Maori tradition. We were given strict instructions by our driver on what would go on that night. Uncle boy would give us 3 challenges and we would need to accept them all in order to be welcomed into to the Marae - continuing with the tradition where one Maori tribe enters another tribe’s Marae. Upon arrival we received dinner - an authentic Maori Hangi (bbq). This was our first challenge - we needed to accept and eat the dinner. This was easy; of course we’d have no problems with eating. We then chose our chief - we chose the oldest guy, Tom from Finland, on the bus - which again keeps with Maori tradition. Generally, the oldest male is the chief of the tribe.
The “Chief” of uncle boy’s marae approached our group rather angrily ready to fight with a staff in hand. He dropped the staff, and it was Tom’s challenge to pick up to the staff as a peaceful gesture. We were warned ahead of time that if the staff was not picked up that we weren’t allowed to sleep there that night. A good thing, then, that Tom picked up that staff! Afterwards, we greeted the rest of the tribe with Hongi, the traditional greeting where you greet each other by pressing together each other’s forehead and nose and shaking hands. We then watched some traditional dances with poi. Afterwards we had to learn our own dance (third challenge) - the men doing their own, and us women our own. Later, the Maori sang happy birthday to me in their language, Maori. A couple of my busmates sang in their languages as well - Claire, an Irish girl sang in Gaelic and Aude from New Caledonia sang to me in French. That night, again following the tradition, we all slept in one large room - all 18 or so of us - just on mattresses.

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