May 17, 2008 - Pahia

May 17, 2008 – A Day in Pahia

Weather:  Mostly Fine

 

When driving through Whangerai yesterday we called David and Ann Reyburn.  David is the president of the Northland area and who had organized two of the Care-A-Vanner builds we had been on before in the Northland area.  One was in 2005 in Waipu on the Pacific coast and the other last year in Kaitaia at the bottom of the Ninety Mile Beach.  We consider David and Ann very good friends and always enjoy seeing them.  They suggested that they would drive up to Pahia and meet us at the campground and then take us to the current Habitat build that the Northland affiliate had just started.

 

The affiliate has a short term Global Village team arriving a week from Monday.  The Northland area has a high population of Maori and the affiliate has worked with them closely to address some of their housing problems.  This Global Village team will be staying in the Marae that is within walking distance of the construction site.  They will sleep on mattresses on the floor and their meals will be prepared by the Maori.  It will be quite an experience for the team.

 

Joan and I enjoyed our time with David and Ann and the trip to the site.  We stopped and had a very nice lunch at the Texas Diner.  The place is kind of in the middle of no where and from the outside made you think twice about stopping.  But once inside it was very nice with prints of Native American Indians on the wall.  Joan had an excellent burger and I had a steak.

 

 

 

 

David and Wayland checking plans.

 

 

 

Oyster Farm

 

 

 

 

 

It was great to see David and Ann and look forward to the possibility of seeing them in Phoenix next year.  They are considering a trip to Alaska where they would look up Tom who has a fishing boat there.  He helped on the Kaitaia build last year and we also got to know him.  A really fine person.  David and Ann also have friends in Phoenix that they haven’t seen for a while and would like to reconnect with.  Tom’s parents also live there so if David and Ann come to Phoenix we will also try to get there at the same time.

 

Well, it was a great day seeing friends and more of New Zealand.

 

Life is good!

 

Kiwi Word of the Day:  Aotearoa (A-o-tee-row-a) – Maori word for New Zealand meaning “Land of The Long White Cloud”