Two Classes and a Maori

By Niwa Sumich-Paul

After practising their waiata on the bus, a rowdy group of students from Ponsonby Intermediate piled off the bus at the Orakei Marae. As the students entered the meeting house (wharenui) they started to listen to the history of the iwi and what everything meant. The students sat for an hour and ten minutesd before being stunned by the daylight.

While the classes were shown around the marae there was a large tree cut into sections and the inquiring students were told that it was the tree from One Tree Hill. It was to be carve into ancestors and given to another iwi.

Tired and jittery the children from Room’s one and seventeen piled back onto the bus and drove off in a huffy cloud of smoke.