On the Bus 2008 Tour Piece
For a week in early April 2008 the annual migration of Maori story-tellers courtesy of the On The Bus Tour, headed north to Nga Puhi country.... Na Kelly Ana Morey
For a week in early April 2008 the annual migration of Maori story-tellers courtesy of the On The Bus Tour, headed north to Nga Puhi country armed only with their words, a couple of guitars, a yoga mat and a jam jar of tea bags. This year the line-up consisted of Hinemoana Baker, lady poetess and chanteuse; Apirana Taylor whose list of talents and depth of touring experience both here and internationally are far too vast to detail; Joe Harawira, superb oral story-teller and long-time kapa haka practioner and me. Kelly Ana Morey, novelist and history chick. Our driver and calmer of nerves, soother of egos is Naomi Singer.
Reading tours tend to be a blur of faces, strange beds and ever-changing landscapes, all of which is punctuated by exhaustion, homesickness, bad cell phone coverage, low-grade chronic car-sickness, the endless search for simple, healthy, reasonably priced food and yes, boredom. Because of this the things you take away with you, by necessity, have to be an highlights package. A place where all of those in-between moments are edited away.
Monday 7th April
Total of coffees for today: 4
As Api’s voice starts to rise there is a nervous ripple of excitement through the assembly hall of Bay of Islands College in Kawakawa. First up in the On the Bus east-Northland tour. Hinemoana, Joe, Naomi and I, who have all toured with Api before, grin. They ain’t heard nothing yet. Api’s just warming up. I mean, poet, novelist, musician he may be but Api’s an actor too. And you know actors - once you get them going there’s no stopping them. We all love the high schools. Nothing like a captive audience for a bunch of creatives on the road. The kids start to giggle and Api’s voice builds and builds, the sheer force of it finally rendering them speechless. Even the assembly hall shakes in its reinforced concrete boots by the time Api’s poem, one of his gentler ones, reaches it’s crescendo. Transfixed, there’s a moment of charged silence, before the kids realise that it’s the end and they begin to cheer.
Walking out later to the bus – late-model mini-van/car hybrid - I tail a pair of home boys, eavesdropping as is my habit. We pass Api and Joe who are packing up their guitars.
‘He was that dude in Once Were Warriors,’ the kid to my left, wearing shorts 15 times too big for him says with absolutely surety. I know he’s talking about Api, as Joe, who does a pretty mean version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has more of a Play School, than Warriors kind of energy happening.
‘True?’ his mate says, looking back over his shoulder to where Api is now yakking – flogging some books and CDs - to a teacher. ‘Which one?’
‘Uncle Bully.’ For the record Api looks nothing like Cliff Curtis, but never mind.
‘Nah. that’s not Uncle Bully.’
‘Is bro’.’
I lose the conversation at the door out of the hall and look back to where Api is standing. With the top light that school assembly halls always have reflecting off his newly shaven, irrepressibly shiny pate, it’s wholly believable.
I mean to ask Api if he was in Warriors or What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?, but forget. I reckon he was. Yeah. He so was the dude in Once Were Warriors. But not Uncle Bully though.
We move down to the Trainspotters Café in Kawakawa for the first of what will be many in the tour of many, many coffees. Fortunately the coffee is great and they do a pretty good bacon and egg bagel too.
Tuesday 8th April
Coffee total for today: 2 – the bowl of grey milk at an unnamed café in Paihia doesn’t count.
We do a quiet morning of two readings around Paihia. One is at the Paihia Primary School where Joe is so clearly in his element. Those kids and their teachers too, love him and his story of a naughty bush fairy who doesn’t listen and an ill-fated fishing trip. Joe is the king of timing. He hits his cues with the finesse of a stand-up comic. His telling of the story of Turituri will prove to be fresh and funny each time, possessing a kind of effortlessness about it. However as the tour progresses, to us his travelling companions it becomes quickly apparent just how polished Joe’s version of the story of Turituri and the Moke Fish really is. It’s extraordinary how little variation there is in each telling. He has virtually committed the text of what I estimate to be a 5,000-word long story to memory.
An invitation is extended for us to visit Russell and the Pompallier Mission house. As the history girl/academic of the group I put my hand up for the afternoon visit. Api, because he hates hanging around motels and Naomi, because she’s a responsible Toi Maori representative, come too. Hinemoana claims muse and yoga as reasons to go back to the motel. Both of which seem both legitimate and fair. When you’ve got to downward dog you’ve got to downward dog. No argument. It turns out to be a fun afternoon. The weather is lovely, as is Pompallier Mission which has been returned to its original function as a leather processing and printing works. As we walk to the ferry after the tour of the Mission, I break off a likely looking twig from a pretty red rewarewa that’s flourishing in someone’s front garden.
Wednesday 9th April
Coffee total for day: 3
The early evening performance at Tuna Café in Morewa is everything that a reading should be. The hiss of the coffee machine as people gather, the room warming up and a sound system that even made the story of a ship which visited New Zealand in 1913 – my contribution to the tour – sexy. If it does that for me imagine what it all does for Hinemoana who is our very own coffee house Joni Mitchell before that legendary chanteuse destroyed her voice with fags and good times. Hinemoana gave up the fags some time back. She tells us that it was because when you live in Wellington the winds smoked half of it anyway and it became a waste of time. The boys finish the gig off with a rousing, for is there any other kind, Ngati Porou haka about the size of their … well never mind.
Tuna Café put on a kai for us after the gig, paua fritters, which makes Hinemoana in particular very happy. Clean plates all round and home to bed, early start tomorrow. Much driving to be done. Destination Whangarei.
Thursday 10th April
Coffee total for day: 1
We leave the Admirals [sic] View Lodge where we stayed for three days during the first portion of the tour, a motel that lacked only an apostrophe and I think all of us wanted to take the bathrooms, complete with amazing water pressure, home with us.
The rewarewa cutting, which is now losing its leaves, gets slammed in the van door. It looks a little sad, but I have a feeling that it will be okay.
Joe flies home a day early as a friend is receiving their doctorate tomorrow. I, and I think Hinemoana too, are both verdant with envy. We want to go home too.
The motel in Whangarei can be charitably described as desperately in need of a refurbish. Hinemoana and Api – traitors! - escape to stay with friends in Whangarei leaving Naomi and I to doss down in the cinderblock barracks. We console ourselves with excellent Thai food and Gordon “*#&@ing” Ramsey on the television. There’s tears, a sleepless night and a punch-up and that’s just us.
Friday 11th April
Coffee total for day: 2
There’s just two sessions today. James George drives up from Auckland for the last gig and I’m ever-so pleased to see another novelist. Then all too soon we’re dropping Api and Hinemoana off at Whangarei airport and Naomi and I are on the way home.
‘How long do you think it will take to get home?’ Naomi asks. ‘Not long. Two and a bit hours tops.’
There’s something fantastically tangible about two hours after five days. And as we drive past the Araparera marae on SH16 and the forestry block and into the valley where I live, I notice how much it has dried out. The paddocks have turned yellow or are grazed bare. How much it has changed. And I feel like I’ve been away forever.
For a week after I get home, the smell of coffee makes me feel instantly car-sick. The last leaves fall off the rewarewa cutting and new buds form in their place. It survived. I knew it would.
Na Kelly Ana Morey (April 2008)
On the Bus – Contemporary Maori Writers on Tour took place from 7 – 11 April 2008, touring to the Far North.
The annual tour is presented by Te Ha (Contemporary Maori Writers in English) and Nga Pou Kaituhi Maori (Writers in Te Reo Maori), two national committees of Toi Maori Aotearoa – Maori Arts New Zealand; with support from Auahi Kore (Smoke Free) and major funding from Te Waka Toi, the Maori arts board of Creative New Zealand.