Now Voyager: More Maori

My third class in Maori unfortunately and I seem to be making little progress. They do not set homework so I don't do any revision and that is doubtless my problem, but there is a little thing of teaching skills which I'm afraid are not evident at all in the class. Immersion is their method, but this more like drowning. I suppose I will just have to grin and bear it, and hope eventually the weirdness of the language will be clarified somewhat. The grammar construction is unlike any western language, and each word has several meanings depending on the context. I believe that a teacher starting with pupils from scratch is better served by giving a few early indications of the great grammatical differences, but it is becoming clear that my teachers, although delightful, have no idea about grammar at all.

What is enjoyable is the excellent interaction and the joyful process which is obviously part of the Maori psyche. We open with singing, although I had no idea of what the first song was about until I discreetly asked my neighbour who very kindly wrote me a translation, of sorts, as the Maori language does not translate words per se, but ideas and feelings. This is the big thing I have to grapple with, but I am sure it will come eventually especially when they plan to give us some CD resource material, a dictionary and a book on Maori culture. There are also several mornings of Saturday socials where we will interact with the other classes in a Maori context to experience the culture, also a morning in a Marae. All this is actually exactly what I need so although I am complaining about my slow progress, I suppose it is just another lesson in patience for me, and a part of my New Zealand experience. On the good side however, the Maori language, when sung, is divinely beautiful.

Talking of of cultural experiences, it is St. Patrick's day today and I took out a DVD of an award winning film in 2002, about the Magdalene Sisters, a history of the Catholic Church's horrible stain in Ireland where young girls who had sinned by giving 'virgin births', just like their pin-up, Mary the mother of Jesus, were abused and treated abominably, made to work long hours at a wash-house where they had to pay for their horrible sins of the flesh. The nuns portrayed were very real, it was in 1964, my vintage exactly, and I had a friend who had a baby adopted and who went through a similar Catholic experience in Sydney, but not with the awful results of these terrible institutions in Dublin and other parts of Ireland. The priests were just as bad, and it makes you wonder how on earth there are still seminaries training priests given this terrible history. I am so happy to have escaped the Catholic Church relatively unscathed, but still with memories of ignorance and discrimination, and above all, sexual hatred. What the Church has to pay for now is really in the hands of the social justice lawyers, and unfortunately the Church, with its untold millions in wealth, can afford to employ the best legal help to extricate themselves from their total guilt in this area. The movie was shocking in the extreme but it was needed to to be made and I am sure has touched thousands who were harmed by the Church and its sometimes lethal results. Let's hope things like this never happen again.

Hard at work in Te reo maori