Whakaora. Whakahaumanu. Whakahou.

I am fascinated by language and culture, by origins and development. My own origin and development plagued me: for some time I was often ashamed of my English heritage but proud of being Made in New Zealand. This is all a recent development of course because at school I was bored by history.

*Yawn* who really wants to learn about the names of ships and when they arrived?

My adult self became fascinated by our earlier settlers simply because there seemed to be so little information about them. Their stories, our history, was woven into their elaborate carvings and tales of the beginnings of our world. My first overseas voyage made me lonely in the sense that I felt far away from my culture and my community. I realised then the importance of language.

To me, language is like portable culture. You may not be able to surround yourself with 'home' despite carrying it in your heart, but you can keep it alive through story telling and those stories are often enriched by the language used. My shame had changed tack- it was no longer my English heritage but the ignorance of my country's language. Sure, I could say Kia ora as well as the next person, but could I introduce myself?

Sadly, two languages later, my ignorance remains. While I can stumble my way though a simple mihi, I'd be unable to take part in a simple conversation. Which is a shame- such richness yet undiscovered!

This tangent was hopped upon while I was looking up 'Recovery' in the Maori dictionary.

"Whakaora" a beautiful word. But as usual, it meant so much more:
(noun) healing, rescue, revival, cure, recovery, resuscitation, restoration.

Fascinated, I continued to 'Revitalisation'
"Whakahaumanu" (verb) (-tia) to revive, restore to health, revitalize, rejuvenate.

and then finally, 'Renew':
"Whakahou" (verb) (-ngia,-tia) to revise, renew, rebuild, renovate, update, restore.


How beautiful this language that can teach us that Recovery is so much more significant, that in order to revitalise our community we need to restore it to health and of course, that renewal means revision- looking backwards to look forwards.

Kia ora.