We love the Library!

A fun sculpture outside the library

the classic NZ ketchup bottle

What is great about Christchurch???

While at the Holiday Park Henri discovered the Upper Riccarton library.  It became a terrific destination for all of us...the boys could each get on the internet for an hour & leave messages for friends, hunt down comic books, I could find literature & fluffy reads, Henri could use the internet hot spot to check in with work & we could all enjoy tea & snacks at the cafe.  Yes, every library does have a cafe attached.  The libraries even have posters you can borrow to hang in your room!  We may borrow some to brighten up the dorms we are now living in.

2 kinds of fresh chinese tea & lemon slices @ Library cafe!

Important Kiwi Culture
While signing us all up for library cards, fabulous librarian Rebecca gave me a crash course in important Maori (pronounced “Mau 'ree”) legends and names (it was the tail end of Maori language week).
1. Maori place names tell you about the landscape & what was there in ancient times.  The name of Upper Riccarton is Te Kete Wananga o Putaringamotu  which means “place of the speaking ground” or  "place of echo".  Christchurch is built over river deltas from the “braided rivers” that originate in the Southern Alps.  The marshlands of this specific area were such that a practiced interpreter could tell if someone was approaching on the trails.  All one had to do was put an ear to the ground to listen.  Pretty cool name for a library!

2. The waka is Maori boat or long canoe. Part of traditional Maori greetings are to tell your name, lineage and your waka (how you traveled to the island).  Our waka is the airplane.

3.  The waka and the fish  So the great Creator was out in his waka fishing with his magic jawbone.  Now he went on to do a great many things with that jawbone...but this time he pulled up an enormous fish from the depths of the ocean.  The fish was too big to fit on his waka.  So he let the fish and the waka be.  The fish became the North Island of New Zealand and the Waka became the South Island (The boys learned this legend the following week at school!).