With Kapa Haka Kura Tuarua Nationals and most of our year's events cancelled because of Covid19 we organised to have an exchange with Tititea, te Kapa Haka at Mount Aspiring College.
We left Dunedin on Friday December 11 in a couple of vans, a truck, towing a trailer load of canoes with a bunch of excited rangatahi looking forward to a weekend in Wānaka. We arrived at Te Kura o Tititea, Mount Aspiring College at around 6pm to a pōwhiri from Whaea Kaz, Whaea Candace and the Tititea whānau. After a kai we settled into our accommodation in the Tititea cabins used for their boarders, then we got down to business. Whakawhanaungatanga!
It didn't take long before the rangatahi started to shake off their anxieties about meeting new people. The quiet pepeha round soon gave way to very boisterous Zombie Name Game. I'm not sure how many names were remembered but they had a heap of fun. The Tititea crew then taught us Hiss, Huss, Hoos, which was almost identical to Wah Wah. So, in a portent of the way the weekend would turn out between the two groups we combined both games into a Hiss, Huss, Hoos/Wah Wah amalgam.
After breakfast the rangatahi naturally gathered around the basketball courts with this crew spending a lot of time shooting hoops during the weekend. Following this, we went for a stroll around the lake. We had planned on walking part of the millennium track but ended up walking around the waterfront in town and down to the Edgewater Resort. It was a great way to spend a couple of hours in the Wānaka morning sun.
Tititea has a Kī-o-Rahi field set up just next to the school so before lunch we broke the rakatahi down to three mixed teams and set up a few games to teach those who have never played before and to give the others a bit of a warm up. It wasn't long before their competitive spirit came to the fore and the warm up games turned into full on competition. There were some awesome plays and a few stand out players. There was also a few formal complaints laid with the referee Matua Corey but he wasn't having any of it.
We were well looked after by our whānau in the wharekai and after a beautiful lunch we packed up the canoes and headed for the lake. The wind had come up a bit so Whaea Kaz took us down to the best place to swim and paddle out of the wind. The crew had a great time at the lake although not everyone was keen to get in the water.
After another great feed we split the rangatahi into different groups again and they had 30 minutes to come up with a skit in which they were to highlight some part of our time together as well as incorporating a prop and theme that were chosen randomly. The Mandalorian was a highlight as was the kaiako skit.
Believe it or not, during the last few days there was some down time in which we all learnt a waiata whakamihi, Eaoia, and taught the haka, Tū Mai ki te Riri. After breakfast, clean up and pack up HWK and Tititea joined up for a Hiss, Wah, Hoos mihi to the awesome whānau who made sure our bellies were full and our eyes were smiling. It was our amazing good fortune to have been invited by Cardrona to go mountain carting on their summer opening weekend. The daredevils in the group were given a pretty stern warning about staying within their limitations. A couple of people must have been in the toilet or on the phone as we had a couple spills, that luckily didn't require a helicopter ride to the hospital.
While we were waiting for our walking wounded we had a feed and spent our last few hours with our Tititea whānau. Our HWK crew, who, with so few opportunities this year, have been champing at the bit to perform found another opportunity to perform with Tititea to thank Cardrona for their hospitality. We stayed on to perform another few numbers to thank our Tititea hosts and bid our farewells.
We picked up our injured, hopped on the bus to the bottom of the hill to pick up our vans and headed home to Dunedin. The trip home was uneventful and very quiet. An awesome way to end our year with the promise of further exchanges with Tititea.
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