When life is slow and laid-back
Diapers, crying toddlers, Mother’s Day tea parties, and priority boarding on flights. The past one week has been very different for me.
I’m now in New Zealand on a trip that is rapidly turning out to be nothing like my usual ones. This is an assignment I’ve never had before - to be a nanny to my three nephews who have just moved to Auckland.
On May 11, I was invited to a Mother’s Day afternoon tea together with the children at my nephew’s kindergarten and their mothers. As I sat eating sandwiches at a low kiddies’ table with colourful plates and cutlery, surrounded by kids and their mums, I thought to myself, So this is what it’s like.
“Which one is yours?” a lady at the same table asked me.
“Oh no, I’m just an aunt. That’s my nephew, and that’s his mother,” I said.
A few days earlier, just before we boarded our connecting flight from Melbourne, I heard the announcement I had been waiting for, the one that kindly invites all passengers travelling with families and young children to board the plane first. I don’t have children of my own, so I had never enjoyed such privileges. So this is what it feels like, I thought.
When I told my friends a month ago over breakfast about my assignment - as I like to call it - they howled with laughter and said it was just an excuse.
“It’s not an assignment if you offered to look after your nephews. In New Zealand,” one of them said accusingly.
“You’re taking advantage of the situation. It’s just an excuse for you to travel,” another friend said over her plate of nasi lemak.
Perhaps. They could be right. I have to confess though, that my decision to come here has partly to do with the fact that my brother and his family are in New Zealand, and not anywhere else.
I’ve always had a fondness for New Zealand, these islands at the bottom of the world. It isn’t the most exciting place on earth but what it does have is a certain charm and quality.
This visit is my fourth to the country and it won’t be my last. I’m not staying for very long though; I’m only planning to stay for about three weeks. My brother, after all, is here to work, and he and his family will need to settle down sooner rather than later and they don’t need a pesky sister in their way for longer than necessary. I’m already making plans to come back later this year and to stay much longer.
Not everyone I’ve met shares my enthusiasm for New Zealand. I know a few people who have visited the country and left unimpressed. They found it boring, dull and too ‘sleepy’ for their liking. That’s of course in comparison with other countries, those they found far more exciting, which is fine.
I find New Zealand charming because of its people. Kiwis know that their country isn’t as happening as the next one (hint: it’s an island that’s also a continent that has lots of kangaroos), but hey, that doesn’t bother them one bit.
They know all the jokes about how they have 40.7 million sheep and only 4.4 million people (New Zealand finally passed the 4 million mark in 2003) but they’re cool with that. They even acknowledge it in their newspapers.
New Zealanders in the smaller towns are very laid-back, trusting and have an old-world view on life. I have seen booths by the roadside, stacked with punnets of strawberries and cherries and bags of potatoes, with only a handwritten sign with the price and a bottle for customers to put money in. There is no-one manning these booths and the farmers’ produce is left by itself, the money to be collected later in the day.
I’ve never seen anything of the sort anywhere else. It’s an old-fashioned way of thinking, that people can be trusted not to steal, and it reflects on New Zealanders and the life they lead. To me, that makes the country and its people interesting.
I’ll be leaving Auckland for a few days tomorrow for a short trip to the south. This will be my first break away from my nephews since I arrived. Nannies (and aunts), after all, need a break now and then, although I doubt that I’ll have priority boarding this time.
*Anis Ibrahim also writes at Five Foot Traveller.
