Captions by Amy Park. Edited by June Yeow. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015 BREEZY MUSIC WIND WHISTLES Two lanes in, and two lanes out. This winding road leads all the way from Wellington over the hill to Wainuiomata, or Wainui, as us locals call it. MUSIC CONTINUES I lived here from the ages of 3 to 18, so my earliest childhood memories were formed right here in this valley. There were 20,000 of us living here back then. Now the population is around 16,000. Lots of Maori and Pasifika families and a real mix of other ethnicities. Now, Wainui has never been a wealthy suburb, but for me, it was a safe and accepting place to grow up. So come with me as I reacquaint myself with my old neighbourhood and meet some of the diverse and welcoming people who call Wainui home. We'll meet a local hero, who has become a voice for Pasifika people living with a disability. Having the wheelchair can be a` a role model for others who may look, 'Wow, that guy is on the stage and he's performing in front of all these people.' A Wainui woman mixes up a traditional herbal brew in the same copper boiler her Native American grandma used. I` I believe that Grandma would absolutely admire being practical with something necessity calls. So you use what you can, where you can. We'll savour a traditional dish from Laos. This is the dish we made for My Kitchen Rules, a pork larb. This is going to be really good tonight, and we got two 10s on the night, so it's gonna be a winner. And a local couple tell us what brought them from South Africa to a handmade house in Wainui. We thought, 'My goodness, what have we done?' We were on top of` top of this very windy hill and weren't too sure if we had made the right decision. I'm Sonia Gray, and this is my neighbourhood. THEME MUSIC CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC My dad is from Zimbabwe, but I was often mistaken for Maori or Pasifika. But that wasn't a big deal. In Wainui, no one really worried about differences and ethnicity. We celebrated the best of all cultures as though they belonged to all of us. Whether it was kapa haka, Samoan church service, Indian festivities, we took part in them all. Looking back, it was a very inclusive time. They were a few families who really held the community together. The Umagas were one. Now, I actually went to school with Tana Umaga, and in our final year of school, he and I were voted best bodies. Hmm. Tana's cousin Pati is another member of the family who is passionate about helping Wainui and the broader Pasifika community, despite the challenges he's faced himself. CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC People look at disability and think ` especially if they were able-bodied and they become disabled ` that others may see that as the end of the world, but it's not. It's the beginning of a new journey. If you can carry that attitude with you, you can overcome anything. My parents were born in Samoa. My mother was born and raised in Mulinu'u and my father was born and raised in Leulumoega. We moved to Wainuiomata in 1964. We were little young kids. We did have a traditional upbringing as our father was quite strict. He was a chief back in Samoa, a matai. For him, culture was everything, and he wanted to make sure that we actually kept true to the culture, which didn't really, uh, rub off on myself at the time, because I was quite influenced by my friends and going out and wanting to be a bit more hanging out in town. My father set us down, my brothers and I, and just said, 'You're gonna make a band.' LIGHT, JAUNTY MUSIC My brothers and I, we formed a family band to play at social events, at family functions, weddings and 21sts and all that kind of stuff so that our parents could show us off in terms of our musical abilities. But I believe that is the only reason why Tana became the first Samoan to captain the All Blacks. I'd turn and say, 'Brother, our music career made you the first Samoan to captain the All Blacks.' I'm sure he'd appreciate that. (PLAYS THE HOLIDAYMAKERS' 'SWEET LOVERS') I was actually setting up a music course at Whitireia Polytech, and I also joined The Holidaymakers. # We could be sweet lovers in the night. I'd never heard the song 'Sweet Lovers' before. It is originally written by Bill Withers. # Ooh, baby. We could be sweet lovers in the night. # Oh yeah! The Holidaymakers had performed it as one of their songs. There was a part in the song where there's a gap. In that gap, I put a pop in there, and that became a feature of the song. # Holding on to you. # BASS STRING POPS So, we recorded it in 1987. We hit number one, and we stayed number one for six weeks. We got Song of the Year, and we won eight gongs at the NZ Music Awards. EERIE MUSIC In 2005, May 26th, at approximately 10 past 8 in the morning, I was having a shower at home, and I bent down to pick up the shampoo, and the bath mat slipped out from under me. My` My... butt hit the floor, and the back of my head hit the wall, and all I remember was feeling this crack in my neck. EERIE MUSIC I didn't think I'd wake up, but when I did, all I could move was two fingers and I could talk, but that was it. When you're that vulnerable that you can't do it any more, you just think... Just think that you` sometimes you wish you hadn't woken up. Mm. (SIGHS) POIGNANT MUSIC I guess it took a couple of years to climb that mountain. You know, it was like, um,... peaks and troughs. A couple of close friends came along and really, kinda, helped me to get out of that` that air as well. They basically came along, literally about to slap you in the face and said, 'Come on, wake up, man! You can do this.' And, uh` And yeah, in the end, you know, you could. There was not enough of our Pacific people learning the voice of the disabled people. So I specifically targeted the area to, basically, position myself to contribute a Pacific perspective to the developments of those policies, those programmes and those services. We're gonna get started straight away to our celebrations for today. I realise now that it's not often you'll see someone with a disability performing on the stage. Having the wheelchair, it provides me with, um, meeting my musical and creative needs, but at the same time, it can be a role model for others who may look, 'Wow, that guy there is on the stage, and he's performing in front of all these people.' APPLAUSE ECHOES I was awarded the Queen's Service Medal in 2013, and, um, it was for services to the Pacific community. When I give back to my community, it's` I give willingly and freely, and it's, um, just a way of, I guess, almost saying thank you to what Wainuiomata gave me when I was growing up. And now I want to give back to Wainuiomata. And I know that I'm not just giving on my own, that there are other people I'm working with, who are just as passionate as I am about giving back to the community, because we're all from Wainuiomata, and it's all about Wainuiomata, eh? Yep. JINGLY MUSIC Welcome to my old school. Well, actually, in my day, this place was called Parkway College. But in 2002, the two colleges in the valley combined, and Wainui High School was born. I was really sporty as a kid ` netball through the winter, athletics in the summer. In fact, the whole of Wainui was kind of sports-mad. Of course, we're well known for our league side, but we produced some great rugby stars ` Piri Weepu, Neemia Tialata and, of course, Tana Umaga. SPIRITED MUSIC I remember we were always so proud when someone from Wainui achieved, especially in sport. It was one way we could make our mark beyond the valley. Wainui resident Dal Philavong recently appeared on the national stage as a contestant in My Kitchen Rules. She was proud to fly the flag for the place she was born ` Laos. SOFT PIANO MUSIC I remember my first day in primary school I had fried rice for lunch, and I got bullied a lot for that, and I told Mum never to give me fried rice ever again. My name is Dal Philavong. I was born in Vientiane, Laos. When I came to NZ, I was a baby. I would have been about 11 months old. The reason why my mum and dad left was to try to provide me with a more stable life and just to get away from all the` all the dangerous stuff that was happening at the time. We had to cross the Mekong River, but we had to do it so all the soldiers and guards wouldn't see us, so we had to cross by night. Um, my mum had to give me some pills so I'd fall asleep. If I cried, we would probably be shot, and I wouldn't be here. We went to Thailand first to camp there, and we stayed there for ` I'm not quite sure ` maybe a few months before we moved` before we moved on to NZ. That photo of me in the pool, that was our neighbour's. I used to go over there and eat ice cream, I remember. (CHUCKLES LIGHTLY) We kept a lot of Lao customs going. We always have large parties. People normally just come over and help cook. Lao food is` it just` I think it just tastes better in every way. It feels like home. It feels warm. If there's one dish that I would have before I die, it would be definitely a Lao dish. LIGHT, BREEZY MUSIC My mum and myself, we're going to cook a dish called larb tonight. So we're here shopping, getting all the herbs and all the chillies and all the vegetables for that. We're cooking for quite a few people, so we need quite a bit. I'm pretty it means good luck. Um, it's a dish that everyone makes when we have large parties. The key ingredients to larb is galangal. We have lemon grass, mint. We have chilli, of course, and then we've got the meat. Today we're going to use pork. I have three sisters, so we all` we get together at least once a week, if not more, um, normally at my parents' house, because my dad likes to lie on his couch. (LAUGHS) He doesn't like to go anywhere on a Sunday. LIGHT, JAUNTY MUSIC Mum's gonna chop up the herbs now for the larb, and we've got, um, just mint. We've got Vietnamese mint as well. We've got Vietnamese mint as well. (SPEAKS LAOTIAN) We've got Vietnamese mint as well. (SPEAKS LAOTIAN) (SPEAKS LAOTIAN) That one is really good for the wind... inside. PRODUCER: The wind? PRODUCER: The wind? Yeah. If people got too much wind inside, they can burp. They can burp really fast. It's really good. Very good like medicine, that one. BLENDER WHIRRS BREEZY MUSIC My mum taught me how to cook. I was the rice cooker since I was probably in intermediate. That was my job after school. SIZZLING SIZZLING I'm just frying off the paste. Just gonna` Just for a couple of minutes. And this is before we add the fish sauce and the sugar and lemon and that and toss it up. Toss it with the herbs. We just wanted to, um, release all its... fragrance. This is the, um, the dish we made for My Kitchen Rules ` um, a pork larb. So, um, this is going to be really good tonight, and we got two 10s on the night, so it's gonna be a winner. Mains is served. To be on My Kitchen Rules and represent Laos was really special. Um... It was a` It was a proud moment for us. I'm scoring you a 10. My parents were so excited that I was going to be on. Dai's parents, they were really excited too. So we had the love and the support from our friends and family, and that's all that matters. EXCITED CHATTER Hi, babe! Hi, babe! (SQUEALS) How are you? Hello, darling. How are you? Hello, darling. Hey, it's mama. Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Ready to eat? RELAXING MUSIC Wainuiomata has changed quite a lot. It's a lot flasher. (CHUCKLES) When we were here, there was a handful of Asians, and now, you know, there's a lot more. Um... And it's` it's` it's good to see that too, and I think my parents made a good choice to start here. And I'm still here, so... I've tried to leave, but I keep coming back, so... Nah, it's good. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC Back in the 1850s when Wainui Primary School was founded, it was at the heart of a tiny timber town. It was surrounded by dense native bush, so the settlers had to work hard just to carve out a living. The Wainui Museum is housed in this 1908 school building, and it tells the story of that time right through to the housing boom after World War II. At that time, young families flocked to Wainui, and it became known as Nappy Valley, the epitome of suburbia. More recently, people have been drawn by the opportunity of an alternative kind of lifestyle. Shelley and Jeremy Gardner left South Africa because of fears for their family's safety. The home they've created in the hills behind Wainui is the culmination of a different kind of journey. CLOCK TICKS I describe NZ as` as like a lovely macaroni and cheese ` just your comfort food and you just` you love it, and it's your favourite. And South Africa is, kind of, like a hot, spicy curry. There's a lot going on there, but it's also you just` you know, it's going to burn a bit. Hi, my name is Shelley Gardner. Hi, my name is Shelley Gardner. And I'm Jeremy Gardner. And we were born in South Africa. And we were born in South Africa. And we came to NZ in 2006. I had a bit of an unusual childhood in that we travelled around a lot. So I spent my early years in Angola and France, but I spent my primary years and high school years in South Africa. I lived in a beautiful coastal location and just really enjoyed all the natural environment that South Africa provides. But also saying growing up in a country that's full of, um, violence and problems, sort of, um, does expose you to a lot and, sort of, does, um, change the way` your outlook on things. LIGHT, INTRIGUING MUSIC We have Ruby, who's our natural-born child, and then Leila, who we adopted when she was 4 weeks old. She's from Xhosa. I think with AIDS epidemic and, um, just some of the social economic problems, there's just a large number of children that need homes. And we made that decision that we want to make that opportunity, and it's a gift to us. She's an absolute gift and, yeah, she's our Leila. We love her very much. ALL GREET EACH OTHER ALL GREET EACH OTHER Hello. How was your day? I suppose the catalyst was when my mum's life was taken. You know, we had been committed to staying in South Africa, but we had to rethink, and we thought, 'Well, maybe this is a chance to, sort of, have new opportunities 'and go to a place we'd always wanted to go to.' BREEZY GUITAR MUSIC When we arrived in NZ, we were hoping just to have a simple life, have a trouble-free life. We did also have a goal that we wanted to get on to a piece of land, but cos we` before we left, we bought a house in Cape Town, and we left it and we said to ourselves, 'We'll get a piece of land, and we'll build a house again,' because we thoroughly enjoyed the process. And that we managed to achieve by coming out here. We moved a little bach on to the site, started the build process. It took two years. The first winter was very hard core. We were staying in the bach, which was, you know, shaking and moving in the winds and the rains, and we had an outside long drop. Yeah, we thought, 'My goodness. What have we done?' We're on top of` top of this very windy hill and weren't too sure if we had made the right decision. Our plan was always that it would be a special place that was almost hand-built. So we wanted` So we wanted to work with a builder who understood what we were into, which was handmade, old-school, sort of, approach to building. For us to build with recycle timbers was pretty much the way Shelley and I are, in the sense that we love scavenging, we love finding things. We love being able to find anything and reuse it. There are pieces in the home that we have reused. All our furniture that we have have all got, like, sort of, a story. We can tell you where we found it, who had it and if it was lying in a dump or, you know, somebody like my granny's house. We'll see how` Can you just hold that? Finishing process ` to me it's never finished, but it was good to be able to move in. That was a great` That was a great feeling ` moving in, having our first Christmas in it, um, finally feeling like... yeah, enough of it was done that we could be comfortable here. And the rest can just come with time... and just develop. Perfect, eh? Yeah, looks good, eh? For you. For you. BOTH CHUCKLE LIGHTLY The kids have adapted to being here in the way kids do. They are unbelievably resilient, and my children amaze me all the time. And I love the culture here, and they talk about being South African, and that's usually in the context of school or friends, but they see themselves as Kiwi, I think. We never look back, and we've never regretted the decision, and we've never, um, ever thought, 'Oh, we have to go back.' It's just been up and forward for us. We've thoroughly enjoyed the journey thus far, and the challenges we faced have all been enjoyable challenges. Hi! Nice to see ya! The mall! What's happened? What's happened? WOMAN: It's not what it was. Nice to see you guys. Oh my God! How long has it been? 20 years? Probably. Probably. You look exactly the same. You do. Probably. You look exactly the same. You do. Oh, I doubt it. We spent a lot of Friday nights down` pretty much every Friday night down here. This was the heart of our social world, and it was fun. It was pumping. It was. It was. Yep. What did we do, though? What did we do, though? We followed boys. What did we do, though? We followed boys. Yeah, exactly (!) I'm sure we did something more substantial than that. I'm sure we did something more substantial than that. Oh, we looked at the shops. Yeah. There were a few more shops here then. There were a few more shops. And it is a little bit sad to see so many empty now, but still got that same feeling. It brings back lots of good memories, doesn't it? It brings back lots of good memories, doesn't it? It does, yeah. Oh, for sure. Those were the days. Those were the days. ALL LAUGH HEARTILY Local woman Janice Denney grew up in a little town in Idaho, without much in the way of material possessions. But both her grandmothers made sure she had a rich knowledge of her Native American heritage. TINKLY MUSIC Oh, my life in Wainui has been absolutely fantastic. The brief period of time when I was the foreigner quickly broke down, and people are lovely and accepting and willing to look at the weirdo, you know, from the backwoods. Yeah. I've lived in NZ for about 28 years. My name is Janice Irene Denney, and you knew you were in trouble when you'd hear Mom yelling, 'Janice Irene!' (LAUGHS) My mom's mom is the lineage where the Cherokee comes from. She was not highly educated. Um, one of nine children. Difficult upbringing. So you learn to use everything around you. This is an old copper I got from my mom's mom. And this is what you boiled up the butchered pig, the laundry, the bottling, what we call canning ` but there are no cans involved, so I'm not sure. It's been replaced by the washing machine, the dishwasher, oven ` everything. So it's an amazing tool. I know people that are going to say, 'Oh my God! Food and clothing!' But when you had nothing, then one thing had to do for everything. So this was pivotal to my Grandma Mac's house, and when she died, it was, like, 'Yeah, I want that.' GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC I'm a very visual person. I see it. I remember summers, going to the spring house with a stick, cos the rattlesnakes like the cool of the spring house, and you were sent to get butter. My herbal knowledge, absolutely from my grandmother. She taught me how to watch how plants live. And this is not the where we put the plant. It's where the plants put themselves, because that gives you an indication of what component's in that plant. This one is a geranium. It's called Herb Robert. And it` you can use it to... (SNIFFS) rub, and it keeps, uh, sandflies off you. Or you put it in a tincture alcohol extraction, and it's one of the better immune-boosting plants around. You don't need echinacea. This one grows like a weed. SOOTHING MUSIC It's interesting, cos if you ask my mother about how we grew up, she was embarrassed as hell about it. We were the last family to get electricity in the valley and stuff. I thought it was bliss, you know. It was a dirt floor, so you were chasing piglets through the house, getting the kitchen` getting the chickens off the kitchen bench. That kind of stuff. As a child, that's fascinating. But it was so cool to wake up to the birds and the house-cow slop in your face, you know? I loved it. I loved it. We ran around like naked little shits, rode our horses in the` in the creeks and... ate crawfish out of the creek and stole apples from the neighbours' trees and stuff. It was a blast. It was a good life. GENTLE, UPLIFTING MUSIC I` I believe that Grandma would absolutely admire being practical with something. This would have normally sat out on a fire outside for doing laundry or bottling large batches of, like, tomatoes or whatever. But, uh, necessity calls, so you use what you can, where you can. American Indian has this at home. You were seen as a lower caste if you have American Indian. But abroad, it is seen as something fascinating, which I would love Americans to adopt. I think it's important to be proud of who you are. Um... That's who you are. That's whose shoulders you are standing on to become the person that you are. GENTLE REFLECTIVE MUSIC For 12 years, I lived just over that fence. So I spent a lot of time at this park. And being back here reminds me what a wonderful childhood I had here. Wainui has faced some tough times over the years, but some things haven't changed. There's still a simplicity, a sense of belonging, a sense that everything you need is right here in the valley. And it warms my heart to see the way this place has welcomed so many newcomers over the years. Wainuiomata still feels like home to me. Captions by Amy Park. Edited by June Yeow. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015