Second Week: Eating Lamb's Liver, Abi Makes a Friend, and Other Stories

The "jaffa race" was on Thursday while I was working. "Jaffa"s are like the American jaw-breakers- hard candy balls. Hundreds of people show up to watch hundreds of jaffas race down Baldwin Street (above). Each jaffa has a number on it, whoever wins gets a prize (I think it's a few hundred dollars at an eatery in Dunedin!). If this seems completely bizarre to you, you're not the only one.

Pictured is the race set-up. Traffic started building at 11 o'clock. Our cafe was slammed at around 12:30 after the race. It was a whirlwind of seating people, taking orders, getting water, and making coffee!

Those tiny red dots are all jaffas. As you can see, this is a major event in Dunedin. I, too, feel a little strange about the intensity of a "jawbreaker race"...

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I know I don't have many pictures of the flat up yet, but this is a war memorial that's across the street from the opening of Pentland Street (where I live). This gives you a feel for the architecture and the scenery on North Road, the road I'm directly off.  The hills in the background are much more dramatic (I'll post pictures soon, I promise). I see this every morning while walking to work.

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Sarah (pronounced Sear-ah) is a practicing chef in the kitchen of the Mannequin, she's 20 years old and is interesting in graphic design. On Saturday night she invited my out for a few drinks. These few drinks turned into going to a night club and dancing with about 10 of her Kiwi friends to American pop music from about ten years ago. I met a few interesting people, including a member of New Zealand's bowling club, a guy my dad's age named Dobby, who talked to me about being a stay-at-home dad, and his wife's nursing practice. 

After being her "wing man" for a few hours, I left her with an Aussie she had a crush on. It was a fun night. It was great to meet her friends, her dad (he was visiting her from Queenstown), and Sarah herself outside of work. 

The next morning, Janna, my manager, had me try "Lamb's Fry" which is actually lamb's liver. My motto in New Zealand is "try anything", but I'm thinking of re-thinking that motto IMMEDIATELY.

Work has been hard. I've worked a few 10 hour shifts that had me reeling, but I'm happy to have today and tomorrow off to recuperate. Anyone who says that working at a cafe is a no-brainer needs to get a job at one for a week (maybe when the jaffa races are on!). 

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Today was my first day volunteering at the Botanic Gardens. My partner is a woman from Beijing named Margaret. Margaret still misses Beijing after a few years of living in New Zealand. Her daughter studies dentistry at Otago (she apparently wants to make dentures, Margaret said), and Margaret "takes care of her life". You can tell she misses home a lot, I told her I missed home too.

Margaret is still learning English, so I asked her to teach me a little Chinese. So far I only know how to say "how are you".  I don't know how to say "good", "bad" or "all right", so I won't know how Margaret's doing even when I ask her, but oh well, it's a start. 

Our main job as volunteers is to fill tiny bags with duck food, so people can feed the fat ducks that live in the Botanic Gardens. Today we filled about 200 bags; I asked the manager about statistics on duck obesity, but she didn't have any. I'll have to get back to you on that. 

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Now, a little on how I'm feeling being abroad.

A few weeks before I went to New Zealand everyone I knew asked me "Abi, why are you going back to New Zealand". Some people questioned why I was going again- if I wanted to travel why not go somewhere I hadn't been? Others gave me a knowing wink when I said my boyfriend was a Kiwi. Still more wondered if I was running away from reality- "life after college". 

Yesterday a girl named Victoria (a friend of a friend when I was here) came into the cafe and ordered a coffee. When I told her that I had just come back to Dunedin two weeks before, she said "ahh, you came back for love!". 

In a way, Victoria is right, but not for the reasons she imagines she is. 

First and foremost I've come here because I love the ability to be in control of my own destiny; I love the fact that I'm making it on my own in a foreign country. I have a job! I am making friends! I talk to people on the street! I know the name of that used book store owner! I know that there are 48 houses on North Street between our flat and the center of North East Valley! These are tiny things that give me so much satisfaction, these tiny livelihoods remind me that I am fantastically alive. 

Growing up is a fear for millions of young adults, but I am so thrilled to be in charge of my own life. I am excited (and terrified) to count out my change at the grocery store, to bus tables, and debate if I'd like to buy a bike. It's true that I came here for love: a love of growth, change, a wealth of love for the friends that I have in the states and here, the love I have for Simon, and the love I have for my family (albeit, far away right now), and finally, a love for this new independence that I am cultivating.

Coming back to Dunedin is like re-meeting an old acquaintance that quickly becomes your best friend. It is so different to live and work here, rather than study as an American here. I have met one American since I've been here; daily I am surrounded by Kiwis. It's a completely new experience: something incredibly personal and difficult.

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Living in a foreign country is an "adventure", but not because I'm traveling every waking moment, or because I'm "meeting the native people". It's an adventure trying to understand people's accents when they're ordering "fish and chips", or a "long black". It's an adventure meeting June the self-proclaimed "cat lady" across the street, or having a conversation with Claire (the manager at the Botanic Gardens) about nuclear power and New Zealand's attitude towards sustainability. It's an adventure to learn how to properly wash a table, or how to use the electronic cash register, or- whew!- how to make a coffee.

 In this way, all of our lives are adventures, are they not? Even when you do not go abroad, even when you are at "home" being a teacher, a father, a mother, a friend, a grocery-store manager, a social worker, an accountant, unemployed, or a student, every day is an adventure, and being abroad is just a mindset.

These are my adventures this time around, the everyday sort that you have to put your sweat and blood into, and they prove- in many ways- to be more challenging than ones I've had before, but incredibly gratifying at the same time. 

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Overall, this week has been a lot of learning to make coffee, trying new things (gross new things), and trying to understand heavy accents. I'll keep you updated in the coming days. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get my IRD number (like a social security number in New Zealand), so I can actually get paid, and maybe I'll get some transportation going soon, so I can travel outside of the North East Valley and Dunedin. Last night Simon and I walked the full two miles into town to see Harry Potter. Because there are so few theaters in Dunedin, the movie was packed and we had to sit in the front row with our necks bent at a 90 degree angle. I'm still laughing about it.

Hope all is well with you, have a good Sunday or Monday!

Cheers, 

Abi