Charisma and her whānau continues their haerenga through Türkiye, navigating family dynamics in a foreign setting, sampling amazing kai thanks to an incredible guide, and confronting the reality that different cultures have different perspectives on significant events.
Whānau dynamics are funny things. One minute, everything’s fine – the next, someone says the wrong thing, someone else gets the feels, and things get awkward.
Our travelling party includes my boys (25, 18 and 16) and my 18-year-old nephew. My eldest son’s partner – a stunning wahine, new to our chaos and hopefully not too traumatised by it. My mum, Louie, and me. We’ve all lived together on and off over the years, and we still catch up for whānau dinners every week, but being in each other’s pockets 24/7 is not our normal.
Louie’s love language is banter. Actually, all of his languages are banter. Mum is fiercely independent, the boys are allergic to being told what to do, and I’m an introverted, overly communicative control freak. Two weeks in a high-intensity family travel bubble is a lot for my nervous system.
Self-awareness is an underrated life skill – and self-management even more so. It’s one thing to be able to feel your mood coming, but it’s another to catch it before it erupts across your whole whānau. That’s the work I’m doing on this trip. Keeping my radar on high alert – not for them, but for me.
Because owning your own energy is the difference between surviving the trip … and detonating it.
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For Māori, food is more than sustenance – it’s whakapapa, tikanga and connection. How we hunt, gather, prepare, and share kai carries meaning.
So in Türkiye, kai was the obvious way to connect to a new place and culture. We booked a food tour with Suleiman – a local who took us deep into the side streets, through unmarked shops, into kitchens filled with cheese, pickles, honey and stories.
There was a hidden staircase tucked behind a shop selling salami and cured meats, which opened to a kitchen full of local cheeses, honeys, and delicacies. Down a back alley, we were ushered through an unmarked vegetable shop to try pickles. Then came the Netflix-famous restaurant run by one of the chefs from Chef’s Table. Every stop was a surprise. Every bite – next level.
But it was Suleiman who impressed us the most. He was a guide in every sense — gentle, humble, and unafraid of hard truths. He spoke of his country’s beauty and pain, without flinching. No guilt trips. No defensiveness. Just reflection.
He reminded me that good guides don’t just explain places – they help you understand people. And in doing so, they help you understand yourself.
After eight restaurants and a very full puku, we walked away not just satisfied, but deeply moved.
Ko te kai a te rangatira, ko te kōrero. Suleiman, nei rā ngā mihi.
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There was an exchange today. No argy-bargy. But a moment – sharp, sudden, and spoken – that hit differently.
One of Istanbul’s defining features is its bazaars. Crowded, colourful, and alive with every imaginable item for sale. From fragrant spice piles and trays of jewel-toned Turkish delights, to stalls that appear to sell the latest Nike kicks – until the price tag reminds you they almost certainly didn’t come from Oregon. (Unless China’s doing some next-level negotiating behind the scenes… but I digress.)
Outside many of these shops stands someone I came to think of as “the fisherman” – their job is to cast a line and draw you in. “Hello! Madam! Excuse me!” They cycle through languages quickly, trying to locate your accent, pin your origin, and make a connection.
When asked, “Where are you from?” the response was: “New Zealand.”
The response was immediate:
“Oh you, Australia. Came here with England. Killed our people.”
Then silence.
The man turned and walked back into the shop.
It was a moment. Stark. Abrupt. Jarring.
Not something I was expecting on a casual walk through a marketplace. It lingered – not because of what was said exactly, but because of how quickly it cut through the pleasantries and forced a reckoning with history. It forced me to sit back and consider my truth versus the fisherman's truth.
At home, Gallipoli is etched into our national memory – a site of loss, sacrifice, and the beginning of identity. We talk of pride of the efforts of our soldiers, of the Māori Battalion. But we rarely hear the Turkish experience of that same war. Rarely hear what it was like to be invaded by foreign soldiers. Rarely consider how they remember us.
This wasn’t an attack. It wasn’t a confrontation. It was a statement. A perspective. One of many. And it reminded me that truth is never a single story – it’s shaped by who’s telling it, where they’re standing, and what they’ve inherited.
We’d just commemorated ANZAC Day at home – ceremonies, poppies, poems. But here, on the other side of the world, the story is different.
Recognising it as another truth is a challenge. And I struggle with it. It's different and not what I have been taught.
But it helps to constantly remind yourself that truth has many sides. And often that means sitting with the discomfort of difference.
