murupara
it's sunday morning and i'm in tauranga, not at ricky's farm hunting feral pigs. the trip was postponed because one member of the party was not able to make it this weekend. that member of the party was andrew. my week in murupara interestingly has helped me get over this crush. actually, my week in murupara has convinced me of the necessity of birth control.

murupara is a hole of a town. it consists of a takeaway shop, a four square (a dairy or small nyc-type deli that sells some groceries and lotto tickets), a school, a fire station, a second hand shop, some abandoned storefronts, and some (not lots) of people who are not making enough money. to be self-centered for a moment, i can't believe i flew 12,000 miles away to live in a dive that i probably could have found in alabama. but to be less self-centered, murupara is probably a quintessential example of all that has gone wrong in the new zealand economic situation as of late. our tutor, ray, told us about how the school vans have been broken into, and gear stolen, and student's rooms broken into. it's just not a good place, and that is both sad and a bit scary.

my first night in murupara, i went for a jog, not out of masochism but because i have a taekwondo tournament this weekend and i want to be sure i'm fit enough to kick some kiwi ass. (the last thing my delicate american ego needs right now is for some kiwis to beat me in the ring.) two minutes in to my jog, i ran through a playground and a group of kids waved and said hello to me. i said hello back, trying to be friendly as kiwis are. then they started to come over to me and talk to me, asking me if i was maori, if i understood japanese, chinese, english, where i was from etc etc. now remember, i'm obviously going for a run here. in the middle of the conversation, after i've already unsuccessfully tried once to extricate myself from the situation, one girl puts her arm around another and says have you met so-and-so? she's my girlfriend. we're lezzies. honest to god that's what she said. honest to god she was 10 years old. at the moment, the thought that went through my minds was that if the so-and-so girl was a "lezzie", then she was bullied into it by the first girl. she hadn't said a word the entire time and there was kind of a look of blank terror on her face. i just kind of laughed, said nice to meet you, and again tried to excuse myself to continue my run. it worked, more or less, as they continued to shout at me as i ran away.

so that was murupara. i have to go back there on tuesday, again for three nights, and then again the following week, for my last three nights. we use the motor camp there as a base for our whitewater rafting. the rafting is going pretty well and i'm starting to get the hang of it. it's kind of like canoeing, but with a large barge instead of a sleek canoe. it's good fun, as well. one part of the river has this rapid called jeff's joy, which is class IV, but downgraded to class III because of easy access points or what not. it is, in essence, a 20-foot waterfall. IT'S FUCKING AWESOME.

i suppose i've gone on long enough without mentioning the war in iraq. i don't really know what to say that others haven't already thought/said/protested for. i'm kind of glad i'm here, although at the same time, i'm getting tired of being picked on solely because i'm an american. and i'm getting tired of being the whipping post for all the kiwi frustrations over this war. i wouldn't mind it if people weren't so freaking ignorant to start with. they don't really understand anything or know anything about news and shit, but all they can say is americans are assholes (perhaps true, but let's not say it out of ignorance). criticism would be a lot more readily accepted if it didn't come out of ignorant heads. and for that, i kind of wish i were at home, because then i could have real discussions with people who know how to think and have a decent thought. but i'm here. trying my best to be a good ambassador for the states and also, in a small way, to verbally defend america, for what it's worth.

an interesting thing i heard but have not substantiated: iraq recently started trading oil in euros, not us dollars. an australian journalist theorizes that this is the reason for the war over oil, why the us wants to fight and germany and france do not. something to think and learn more about.

but i've been here long enough. i miss you guys a lot!!