Moemoea

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

As I have complained, just when I was overworked ENOUGH, they decided to overwork me MORE by putting me on a 3rd project. 

What has kept me going is the friendship of Briar and Jess, and also the project itself, which is interesting. 

The purpose of the project is to "increase our Māori capability" which is w*nkspeak for learning more about Māori culture and language. Also working with more Māori businesses and developing more housing with Iwi (tribes).

It is (as you might expect) incredibly political. We've had some hum-dingers of dog-whistle meetings. "Well THEY weren't able to meet THEIR aspirations because THEY didn't have the experience." 

Said one lady who studiously avoided even using the word "Māori" for about 60 minutes.

Even the Māori groups themselves have competing ideas as to who should be doing what and so Team Jess has been stepping on eggshells. 

But that's not why I'm enjoying this so much. I'm enjoying it because of Christine and Akasha who are two of the people we talk to a lot for their insights. They are both Māori and have such passion for including us and sharing their knowledge with us.

Christine is especially ADORABLE. She has started up weekly meetings called "moemoea" (you pronounce it "moy-moy-a" and it means vision or dream) where she teaches us words and pronunciation. She just LOVES it. And her enthusiasm is contagious. 

It's things like this that keeps my spirits up as I go meeting to meeting to meeting. And suddenly work doesn't seem so bad.

S.