Getting Rooted in New Zealand Read online

  Getting Rooted in New Zealand

  JAMIE BAYWOOD

  Copyright © 2013 Jamie Baywood

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 1482601907

  ISBN-13: 978-1482601909

  DEDICATION

  For my grandma.

  To my niece and nephews: I hope that you each have your own adventures.

  And for G, for letting me be your copilot.

  Author’s Note

  To write this book, I relied upon my personal journals, e-mails, and memories. I have changed some of the names of individuals and organizations—but not all—to preserve privacy. I write my experiences from a purely personal standpoint. From what I’ve gathered from other travelers, my experiences are unusual when compared to those of others who have worked abroad in New Zealand. I would highly recommend everyone goes to New Zealand to experience their own adventure.

  In addition, I practice a form of Buddhism that involves chanting “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.” I mention this throughout the book because it is inextricable from my life; it is a part of my story. I’m grateful that my Buddhist practice provides me with a built-in community of absolutely amazing people wherever I go.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Cyan Corwine, thank you for laughing and crying with me and for our pinky promise. I’d like to thank Liam and Olivia for kindly proofreading my book. Special thanks to Thomas Sainsbury and Roberto Nascimento for laughing at me and with me. Jim and Vicky, thank you for being the best neighbors a Buddhist girl could have. Natalie, thank you for taking me under your wing. Thank you to Katie, Andrew Mockler, Colin Mathura-Jeffree, Steve Wrigley, Phill, Anna, Shaunna, Lynda, Joan, Kana, Liam, Bjorn, Lulu, Marie, and the lovely people I met in New Zealand and Samoa for all being in my life. Thank you to the beautiful country of New Zealand, which allowed me to call it home for a bit.

  I’d also like to express immense gratitude for having the worst bosses in both California and New Zealand. You taught me how to value myself and believe in my talents when no one else did. I’d also like to thank the character I refer to as Gretchen in the book: I hope that if you read this you’re able to laugh with me and that you’re healthy and well. Thank you to all of my teachers, who have come in the most fascinating forms.

  Lastly, thank you to my parents and stepparents for trusting in my leap of faith.

  TUESDAY, JULY 6, 2010

  I landed in the dark, with one suitcase, a backpack, and a pillow. I have what I need and nothing more. The work-abroad company I got a holiday working visa through instructed me to get on a bus, which took me to Ace Hostel in the Auckland city center. I’d never been out of the country for longer than ten days before, and this was my first time traveling alone.

  It was still dark when I got to the hostel. Jet-lagged, I fell asleep quickly and didn’t wake up until the next day. There is a young French-Canadian girl who just arrived and is jet-lagged too. She slept in the bunk above me. In the middle of my long sleep, a very tall person with shaggy hair came into the room and slept in the bunk across from mine. I thought, “That is one ugly girl.” In the morning, I realized it was a guy. I didn’t know the hostel rooms were unisex. Without my contact lenses in, I squinted at him from my sleeping bag, “Are you a guy?”

  In the morning, I opened the curtains to my hostel room. The window faced a brick wall. I almost burst into tears.

  At the airport in San Francisco, my suitcase was nearly twice the weight limit. The airline gave me a giant plastic bag that I frantically filled with heavy things, like my winter boots and the Lonely Planet New Zealand tour book, then I handed it to my worried mom telling her, “I guess I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

  From my window in a hostel, I have a view of a brick wall. I have no plans, no expectations. I just needed to go.

  I managed to skim a tour book before leaving. The book said, “New Zealand is one of the safest countries in the world. New Zealand’s population has a hundred thousand fewer men than women.” It also advised to wear sunscreen and not drink pond water or walk in dark alleys late at night.

  Last October, I decided to boycott dating after having my heart broken so badly that I felt like a raw skinned animal. New Zealand seemed like the perfect place to avoid the opposite sex and have some much needed alone time. I’d been dating since I was thirteen years old. At twenty-six, I’ve spent half my life dating and haven’t had a minute to myself.

  I’m going cold turkey with guys. No dating for one year.

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2010

  I’m officially the oldest person in the hostel. There’s a nice English girl named Marie who’s now sharing my hostel room. We went to the grocery store together. The chips—or crisps, as Marie calls them—come in weird flavors I’ve never seen before, like lamb and mint. The money in New Zealand is rainbow colored and has pictures of ferns, penguins and other birds, mountaineers, and the queen of England. The dollar is a golden coin with the kiwi bird on it. My favorite coin is the ten-cent piece with a Maori carving. The ten-cent coin is also the smallest. Everything is just rounded up or down at the registers.

  Marie and I made pasta in the hostel kitchen together tonight. The pots and pans looked dirty and rusted. About thirty people were all cooking different meals at the same time. Everyone looks to be in their late teens or early twenties and trying to figure out how to cook. The smell of food combined with smoke from food burning in filthy pots and pans made me gag.

  As Marie and I ate our pasta, a nineteen-year-old English boy sat next to us. He looked at me strangely and asked how old I was. When I responded twenty-six, his eyes almost popped out of his head, and he said, “Wow! You’re the oldest person here!”

  THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2010

  I took a bus to the Auckland Domain with a German girl I met at the hostel. At the bus stops are electronic boards that show when the next bus will arrive. Our bus was running two minutes late. The German girl said, “I don’t understand, where is the bus?”

  “It’s late.”

  “How? Where is it? I don’t understand how that is possible.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Two minutes,” the German girl said very seriously.

  On the bus I met a little, old, American lady traveling around New Zealand and couch surfing. I hope I’m a couch-surfing granny when I get old.

  I walked around the Auckland Domain with the German girl. She told me, “It’s strange to see people walking or sitting on the grass. In Germany, nature is just for looking at.”

  SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2010

  The sexual-energy volume is on mute in Auckland. Walking down Queen Street, the busiest street in the biggest city in the country, all the guys are wearing scarves and don’t make eye contact. I feel invisible for the first time since I grew boobs. No one looks at me. It’s like I’m in another dimension.

  I grew accustomed to getting harassed everywhere I went in California: school, work, walking down the street, or going for a run at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa. It didn’t matter what I did or how I dressed, guys in California were like dogs in heat. Once a guy asking me out followed me for blocks. I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended I didn’t speak English and told him, “No habla Ingles,” over and over. After a few blocks, he said, “I’ll learn Spanish!” He eventually stopped following me.

  In Auckland, even the construction workers don’t whistle. I stopped at a construction site and stared at a group of beefy-looking workers with tattoos covering their arms and wearing hard hats and orange vests. I gawked at them

  in the same way one would stare at an animal at the zoo. They just looked down at their shoes.

  MONDAY, JULY 12
, 2010

  Before I flew solo to New Zealand, I spent a month in Samoa with my aunt who works as a doctor on the island. Her house is directly across the street from the beach with the best snorkeling on the island. I volunteered at the art museum on the island and helped save ancient artifacts from being destroyed by termites and humidity.

  I’m feeling extra buoyant due to my Samoan diet of piña coladas, beer, coconuts, hamburgers and fries, and homemade ice cream. Every time I ordered a salad, it had something fried on top or had a thick, creamy dressing. My extra buoyancy helped me snorkel; I barely walked for a month because I mostly floated all day. Floating is not exactly a cardio work out. I’m surprised I don’t have a permanent imprint of a snorkel mask on my face. It feels shocking to be in winter in New Zealand and to have to wear shoes, jackets, and jeans again.

  TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2010

  Maori words are on public signs. I’ve see people with full facial tattoos and in suits walking down the street to work.

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2010

  Growing up in America, I learned ABCs that ended with Z, pronounced Zee. In New Zealand, Z is Zed. The one and only time I heard Zed before traveling was in Pulp Fiction when Bruce Willis’s character explains to his girl that they’re riding Zed’s chopper, and “Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.”

  When I arrived, I got an orientation in the Global Work Abroad Network office where we were given information about New Zealand, “A through Zed.” They told us about different options while working aboard. My visa only allows me to work temporary positions. Some other participants have picked kiwi fruit or worked on farms for accommodations.

  In the hostel, I told the German girl, “We don’t say Zed in America; we say Z.”

  “What is Z?”

  “Z is Zed.”

  “What? If go to America I am going to have to learn whole new set of English?”

  She was using all sorts of Kiwi slang, like “knickers” instead of “underwear,” “heaps” for “a lot,” and “sweet as.”

  “Yes, some of the things you say I had never heard of before I came to New Zealand. If you go to America and say the Kiwi slang with your German accent, Americans might think you’re saying German words, and then they will go to Germany and start speaking Kiwi.”

  THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2010

  There’s a guy from Texas at the hostel. He told me, “Last night I went to a pub and drank a few beers. I had to walk down a hill to get back to the hostel, and I was like ‘Whoa!’” He put out his hands like he was surfing. “I’ve never walked down a hill before when I was drunk.”

  “I hear Texas is really flat.”

  “It is. I’ve never walked on hills like this before.”

  “You probably shouldn’t tell anyone else that.”

  SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010

  I found a used condom in the shower at the hostel. I really need to find somewhere else to live.

  MONDAY, JULY 19, 2010

  Matador Temp Agency interviewed me today. After completing a series of tests on an outdated computer, I was questioned about my resume. A woman not much older than me and wearing a tight skirt and too much makeup sat across the table. With my resume in hand, she looked up at me and asked, “What did you do as a chocolate artist?” She gestured with her hands in a circle and said, “Did you arrange it on platters?”

  The word chocolate is not on my resume. I went to San Diego State University, where I studied art and art history. My first job after I graduated was working as a chalkboard artist for a fancy grocery store called Health Nuts.

  I looked back at her puzzled. I had an easier time getting around Costa Rica and Peru without knowing more than, “Donde esta el bano?” (“Where is the bathroom?”) than I did in New Zealand, where we were theoretically speaking the same language. The people who live in New Zealand are called Kiwis. Kiwis are also a flightless bird and a fruit. The Kiwi accent is like nothing I have ever heard before. They end their sentences in an upward tone, so it always sounds like they are asking a question or singing while mumbling. The vowels are all mixed up. E is I, I is U, and ER sounds like A. “Yes” is “Yis,” “Chip” is “Chup,” and “Peter” and “Beer” are “Peta” and “Bea.”

  “Chalkboard,” I said to her, praying they use that word

  here. Everything has a different word in New Zealand. “Elevator” is now “lift,” “garbage” is “rubbish,” “cookies” are “biscuits,” “to call” is “to ring,” “fries” are “chips” and “chips” are “crisps,” “sweater” is “jumper,” “pissed” isn’t “angry” but “drunk,” “crazy” is “mad,” “apartment” is “flat,” “roommate” is “flatmate,” and “resume” is “CV.”

  “Chocolate?”

  “Chalkboard. I was a chalkboard artist.”

  “Chocolate?”

  “Chalkboard.”

  “Chocolate.”

  Slowly and loudly, I said, “Chhhhhhaaaaaalllllkkkkkkkkbbbbbbbbooooooooaaaaaarrrrrrrdddddddddd!”

  As I enunciated, I gestured with my hands as if I were drawing on a chalkboard in front of me. Maybe sign language would be more effective, as a blank stare was my only response.

  She looked down at my resume, again studying it with furrowed brows, and then down at my feet placed in my teal shoes, “You’re going to want to get some black pumps.”

  With no more questions, she stood up and walked out of the room in her generic black pumps, stating, “I am going to hand over your CV to my colleague. You can wait at reception.”

  I anxiously sat on a gray suede couch in the sterile office, wondering if I had made a mistake coming to this country. Another woman called my name and took me into a nearby room.

  “I see you volunteered at the museum in Samoa. There’s a position opening up doing data entry in a basement. Does that appeal to you?”

  “Sure, that sounds fine,” I sighed. Relief swept over me; the job sounded painfully boring, but at least I wouldn’t have to talk to people.

  TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010

  I’m on the verge of tears while sitting in my cubicle at my new job doing data entry in a basement office at Council. I can’t understand anyone’s accents, and they can’t understand me either. I tell people I came to New Zealand for an adventure living abroad, and now I’m doing data entry in a cubicle. I’d never been in a cubicle before I came to New Zealand. Everyone wears black, white, and gray. I hate how gray the walls are and how boring my job is.

  Between October and May, I received three final warnings at my job in California at Health Nuts, an overpriced grocery store. I managed to squirm my way out of all three. Aside from the chalkboard art, I also managed the floral department. But I was complacent and not challenging myself. I’ve noticed that whenever I’m in a situation like this, not valuing myself or my talent, the universe has a way of kicking my ass out of it. I’m too complacent to leave otherwise. Most of the warnings were bullshit, like for dead flowers on my floral set on my days off, or picking out the wrong vases for Valentine’s Day. By May it had got to the point where I either quit or I get fired.

  Back then I had one major regret: not living abroad. I had let the opportunity slip by me in the past because I worried how it would affect the relationship I was in. After spending the last few years constantly getting dumped and only attracting total freaks, and the past few months almost losing my job, I suddenly felt very free—more liberated than I ever felt in my entire life. I realized I was free. I was free to do whatever I wanted—I had no man, no kids, soon no job, and my place was month to month. I had a free place to stay in Samoa and a great recommendation for a work-abroad program. I knew I had to do it all right then because these opportunities would never happen again. In four years I hadn’t taken any vacation time so I cashed it all in at once to pay for my flights. It had never dawned on me that I could go on a vacation by myself. This was more than a vacation. It was my great escape. The sun shone the day I was forced to make my decision at Health Nuts. About five minutes a
fter a store manager screamed in my face telling me I had until the end of the day to take the final warning or step down from my position, it started raining while it was still sunny. There was a giant rainbow in the west. Samoa and New Zealand are west of California. I took it as a sign to go—to jump in face first. Within a few weeks, I disassembled my life and was on a plane.

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 2010

  There’s a woman about to go on maternity leave sitting next to me in the office. As she rubs her swollen belly, everyone in the office comes around and tells her birthing stories. The other day at lunch, I almost fainted. A man who always seems maniacally happy said, “It is just amazing how elastic they are! My wife’s got bright red and the size of a football!” Ever since then, I have been having lunch by myself behind the building.

  THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2010