Boobs

We have hit Spain, the part of our journey where we had hoped for a slower pace – and more time in smaller, rural towns. A week of beach life in a little township south of Valencia was exactly what we needed. Tāwhiri even came to the party, with the forecast sitting in the high 20s all week. There was a volleyball court on the golden sandy beach just metres from our whare, and the ocean was perfect for swimming and playing in the waves. So off we went – loaded with towels, snacks, sunscreen, and volleyballs – to park up for the day. And that’s when it hit us.

Boobs.

Women’s boobs. Everywhere. Free and enjoying the sun just like every other body part. Kuia mai, pakeke mai, rangatahi mai – all ages, shapes, and sizes. And it just wasn’t a thing.

So two things from me on boobs.

First – the boys. Watching their faces the first few days was gold. You could almost hear their brains ticking. The general response was a kind of gaze-fixated-on-the-horizon strategy. Or staring intently at the sea.Or their feet. Or the volleyball. Anywhere but the boobs. Louie included. I couldn’t help but laugh at their awkwardness.

Second – a reflection on us. On home. On our bodies. And how we’ve been taught to alienate naturalness. How we, especially as wāhine Māori, have inherited generations of shame. Our tīpuna would’ve had their boobs out. Working, paddling, swimming, feeding pēpi, gathering kai – bodies were strong, brown, and functional. Beautiful and unashamed.

But colonisation brought Christian morality and Eurocentric beauty standards. Suddenly, what was once normal became something to hide. And if your body didn’t fit a narrow, Pākehā ideal? Shame. Layered shame. Internalised and inherited.

So when I sat there, towel on the sand, soaking in the sun and watching kuia with their boobs out free and unapologetic – yes Pāniora.

I have got some internal rewiring to do. I still feel awkward when I see nudity. But I celebrate the freedom. I honour the confidence. I admire the unapologetic embrace of the body.

Boobs, boobs, boobs.  An unexpected opportunity to reflect and start to change my own perception of my own body and how we at home have strait-jacketed our own body confidence.

Oui Oui Wi Wi

Ever had to walk into a situation where everyone’s already warned you how bad it’s gonna be?

Like meeting someone with a reputation for being a bit of a bully. Or heading into a space where you’ve heard people are cold, rude, unhelpful. Or going somewhere new where you don’t know anyone, don’t know the rules, and all you’ve been told is don’t mess it up or they’ll judge you hard.

And the more stories you hear, the more you start building yourself up – or freaking yourself out.

That was me with France.

I’d heard the stories. People getting snapped at for not speaking French. Locals refusing to help. Eye rolls. Cold shoulders. That French snobbery. So many people had told me about it that, honestly, we planned less time in France than we otherwise would have.

 Not because I’m scared of languages – I love the challenge, even though I’m a slow learner. But I didn’t think we’d have enough reo French under our belt to get by respectfully. And I didn’t want to be that guy – getting the aunty growling at me in the bakery for butchering “bonjour.”

I’ve gotta say though, I do admire the way the French back their language. They’re staunch. They protect it, speak it proudly, and don’t make apologies for it. It actually made me think about us – about how we treat te reo Māori at home, and how often we expect Māori to bend around everyone else.

Te reo Māori belongs to all of us in Niu Tireni. It’s part of us and who we are. We should all be learning it, using it, speaking it – proudly, like the French do. Imagine if we had the same kind of collective backing and everyday expectation around our own reo. Not performative. Not political. Just everyday pride.

So when we finally got to France, we went in humble. Tried to use the basics: bonjour, merci, au revoir, s’il vous plaît. I was nervous about the pronunciation, but we gave it a crack.

And honestly? The French were amazing.

Warm. Encouraging. Welcoming. Every time we tried a few words, they smiled. They helped. They gently corrected or gave us new words to try. They didn’t expect fluency. Just effort. And they met that effort with real kindness.

It was the opposite of what I’d been led to expect.

What really hit me was how much my thinking had already been shaped before we’d even landed in France. It made me realise how easy it is to inherit someone else’s judgement – and carry it like it’s your own.

It’s like gossip. Or social media. We let other people’s stories build a picture for us – sometimes without ever checking if it’s real.

 So yeah. France. It surprised me. And I’m glad it did.

Next time someone tells me how a place is or what a people are like, I might still listen – but I’ll wait until I see it for myself before I believe it. Merci Wiwi!

Home and Empire

 At the end of our trip, we find ourselves in London, England. It was important to me that the boys got time here – in the country that has shaped so much of New Zealand.

New Zealand is an English-speaking country, but it’s more than just the language. You see it in the buildings: clocktowers, columns, redbrick, and rose gardens, even in small-town Aotearoa. We inherited their architecture not just in stone, but in structure. Their institutions became ours. Their values were overlaid on our own.

Our coins still bear the English monarch. Our justice system still carries the weight of their laws. Our governance structures, public service, and even our schooling have echoes of the same machine that once ruled an empire. Many of us have whakapapa linking us to those early settlers and adventurers who made New Zealand home – and brought England with them.

And yet, I’m reminded of just how different we are. We are not England. We are not British. My toto Māori reminds me that our identity was never meant to be an English replica. Our worldviews, our stories, our ways of being were radically interrupted by this place and its pursuit of global dominance. Colonisation wasn't a side effect. It was the plan.

Captain Cook was profiled as a hero. British settlers were painted as brave pioneers. Meanwhile, Māori were often cast as the problem – violent, savage, resistant to 'progress.'

Our school curriculum was almost entirely devoid of Aotearoa’s real history. Not by accident, but by design. Indoctrination didn’t just target Māori – it shaped the thinking of all New Zealanders, embedding a single story, a single truth.

And that still plays out today. In the way policy is written. In the way our history is still contested. In the tension of having to prove why te ao Māori matters in our own country. In being expected to speak English by default while defending our reo. In trying to protect our whenua, while private property rights still take priority over whakapapa.

And still. We survive. Ka whaiwhai tonu mātou.

Even as we reflect on this jarring truth, we have also taken time to seek out sparks of brilliance and magic.

Trains! The Tube is one of the most efficient public transport systems I’ve ever used. Trains coming every two minutes. Signs that are clear. Maps that make sense. You can get from one side of the city to the other with barely a wait. It makes you realise what we are missing out on back home. Imagine if we had a proper rail network. Imagine if climate, equity, and movement had been prioritised like they clearly have here. Instead, we got motorways.

And then there’s the magic of Harry Potter. I have been a fan of the series for a long, long time now. Those books captured me fully and the magic of the movies has been something as a whānau we have all found joy in. Franchise hype (and J.K. Rowling controversy) aside – Harry Potter World was amazing. The sets. The detail. The scale. The nostalgia. The world-building. The way a story can capture the imaginations of tamariki and pakeke alike. It reminded me why storytelling matters. And why our own stories – our pakiwaitara, our pūrākau – need the same investment, the same scale, the same celebration.

Being here has been confronting. And also inspiring.

We carry the legacy of this place – its weight, its reach, its blueprint. But I like to think we’re also rewriting it. Not without struggle – and there’ll be more ahead – but there’s something powerful in that. There’s magic in holding onto what's important to us and in doing what we know to be right.

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