Waiora Pene Hare

TE WHĀNAU O WAIPAREIRA TRUST

I sing in the soprano section of GALS choir. Last year it celebrated 25 years of exuberant existence, while I chalked up five. One of the songs we’ll be presenting at our November 24 concert at St Mathews in the city is one titled “Quiet’. Quiet’s lyrics appealed to me before I heard the melody … and what a melody it is! “Put on your face, know your place, shut up and smile, don’t spread your legs, I could do that. But no one knows and no one ever will if I don’t say something, if I just lie still“ … “No I can’t keep quiet … not any more”.

I fought hard against the tears because in a few succinct words, Kai Waiata Connie Lim told an experience any woman might have had and it reminds me that as we look behind us the journeys been tough and as we gaze to the front there’s still some way to go. Today I cheered when an email’s content told me the Government I helped elect has just announced that they will increase the refugee quota. So like Meg de Rond of Amnesty
International, a former Aotearoa Fellowship participant I am excited because it “ … means the world to another 500 men, women and children who are currently waiting overseas hoping for a new place to call home and rebuild their lives”.

On Monday night I joined 999 other people with the homelessness count in Tamaki Makaurau, why? ‘Cause I could and I it felt like something practical I could do. I learnt a lot from that one foray into the West Auckland Kelston night between 9pm and 12:30am. So I am just providing an at a glance view of me. I love being from Mitimiti, I thank my lucky stars often for the coolest mother and father on the planet, being a member of a family that mostly functions gloriously, having the love of my two children and three out of womb granddaughters aged 13, 13 and 11 years old, and one in waiting – EDD mid-October. I thank Allah for many blessings: a loving partner, a hand full of friends, a home, food in the cupboard, more than one change of clothes, clean water to wash with and drink, a car, money in the bank and a job at Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust which is more like a vocation and it gives me good reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Mostly: He tangata whenua ahau, tino ataahua tena.