9 (NEIGHBOURHOOD THEME MUSIC) www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 (SEABIRDS CALL) Mangawhai is a sparkling seaside town tucked into its own harbour on Northland's east coast. It's about an hour and a half north of Auckland. My first impression of Mangawhai was that it seemed like one of those towns you see on a postcard where the sun is always shining and people are really friendly. (LAID-BACK MUSIC) I'm bicultural, so I was raised with a Malay father, who was Muslim, and a Kiwi mum who was raised Catholic. I married into a family with a strong Maori heritage, so I identify with their culture too. My first summer I spent here in Mangawhai with my husband, who's from here, was one of the most magical summers of my life. We camped, we swam, he gave me dreadlocks by the sea, we ate fresh kaimoana and he told me stories of his tupuna. He introduced me to Mangawhai's colourful and diverse locals. Now it's my turn to make some introductions. On this episode of Neighbourhood, an Iranian and an Israeli join forces to make a Middle Eastern favourite. When people read the story on our product, you know, it warms their heart to see that Israeli and Iranian are making a business together. It's hope for people. It's a little thing, but it's hope, you know? We'll meet a local from Germany who's made a commitment to a sustainable life. Mangawhai is a famous city who shows solutions for the future. People very bright, very open-minded. It's possible. A local woman with Irish heritage delves into her past to safeguard her future. Once a year, the blessing, or acknowledgement of it, needs to be renewed. That was part of the tradition. So I think this is a nice spot to do it in. And a woman from the Netherlands finds inspiration in the great outdoors. Being able to use nature to make art is really a privilege, I think. I'm Sarikha Paikea. Selamat datang, nau mai haere mai and welcome. This is my neighbourhood. (THEME MUSIC) I was born in New Zealand, but I did struggle a little bit to fit in when I was younger because of my mixed cultural background. My Asian friends would say, 'You're Asian but not really,' and other people would say to me, 'What are you?' and I'd say, 'Well, I'm a Kiwi.' And they'd say, 'But what are you really?' I've always tried to see the positives in having a mixed cultural background as it's made me a really accepting person. But now that I've finally found my husband, someone who truly accepts me and always has my back, I really do feel like I belong. (FUNKY, LAID-BACK MUSIC) My name's Sadra Saffari. I was born in Iran and moved to New Zealand when I was 4. My name is Haim Baranes. Born in Israel. People call us the Bean Brothers, which is nice, you know, when you walk somewhere and people are like, 'Oh, it's the Bean Brothers!' We're like, 'Hey, guys.' (CHUCKLES) It warms the heart, you know? WOMAN: OK, so where are you guys from? Uh, well, I'm from Israel and Sadra is from Iran. OK. So how did you come together to be building this business? Just life takes you on a magical journey, you know? And I'm lucky to do it with him, so. Perfect. I've done the military in Israel, and doing the military in Israel, you really get into the mindset of us and the enemy, which is a really horrible place to be. You know, how it's perceived in the media that Iranian and Israelis and all this concept for me is almost like not real. I feel very blessed to have come here because of the diversity that's in New Zealand. And the exploration of what it means to be from somewhere else and still, uh, be able to connect in a meaningful way with everyone. When people read the story on our product, you know, it warms their heart to see that Israeli and Iranian are making a business together. You know, it's hope for people. It's a little thing, but it's hope, you know? Try this one. What's that one? This is adzuki and herb. Now, tell me something. Vegan? Vegan, yes. Gluten free? Very gluten free. And very yummy. It's gonna make you happy and silly all day now. You're gonna skip, hop, start singing. I was happy before I started. Oh yeah? Now even more. Wow. SADRA: We were jamming on what we could potentially do here, for fun and to support our families as well. HAIM: At the time, I was in a really, uh, hummus buzz. I just started making hummus a lot because that's what I like to eat, and it kinda clicked slowly, slowly together, and the one day we said, 'Yeah, let's do it.' Try this one. This is curry and blackcurrants. Wow, they're all really good. Do you make them? Yep, yeah. Yeah, we make them. SADRA: We embrace traditional flavours, but just being who we are, we like to tread on new ground as well. So we've really broken out of what traditionally is hummus as well, and that was kind of our intention at the same time, is to create something that is uniquely us. Here we've got tahini; um, we've got Bragg's, which is almost like a salt solution; we've got organic sunflower oil; we've got organic spices here. Got sundried tomatoes, um, this is our turmeric, actually, which is amazing. It's from Fiji. It's organic turmeric. And we wanted to even go a bit further and start to make it with different beans and different flavours and bring in different flavours from other cultures, so we decided to do a black bean one with chipotle, which is really good with nachos and it's got quite a bit of a Mexican feel to it. It's kind of like me and Sadra are really complementing each other, I think. He likes to do what I don't like to do, and I like to do what he doesn't like to do, I feel. So it kinda works really well in the kitchen, yeah. I like to make the hummus, to mix all the ingredients. And Sadra is like... He's neat and tidy, so he likes to put it precisely in the containers and to close them really well and to count them. It's an alchemy, though. It's just the best thing in the world to me to eat hummus. I love hummus, you know. Can't get hummused out. Quality control. (CHUCKLES) Try some. Yeah, what do you think? Just need to add this now. I think it's good. Good, eh? ALL SING: # Blessings on the blossoms, # blessings on the fruits. # Blessings on the leaves and stems and blessings on the roots. # (PEACEFUL MUSIC) I think we kinda completed each other in the whole process, you know? I feel like, yes, if I would do it by myself or Sadra would do it by himself it will look completely different. Of course, I hope that there will be peace in the Middle East, you know? Make hummus not war. My family lives there. Sadra's family, some of his family is still in Iran, so it's something that will be always there that, you know, that the fire can go off. Definitely our hope is that people will be able to connect with the story around what's possible when people come together, even from different places, and can make things happen. (MOODY PIANO MUSIC) I struggled to fit in growing up not only because of my cultural mix, but I faced a lot of other challenges too. When I was younger, I was sexually abused more than once. One of these incidences resulted in a pregnancy when I was 15. I experienced mental illness, homelessness. I ended up working in the adult industry and I started experimenting with drugs. I found it really healing coming to a place as naturally beautiful as Mangawhai, and I'm so grateful to call it my home now. To me, it doesn't matter how long you've lived in a place. As long as you respect the land you live on and you identify with it as your home, then that's what makes you a local. I got into photography when I was about 18. So it was a good way for me to have an excuse to go travelling and do my photography at the same time. I call myself a documentary photographer. I do photo stories. So I preferably go to faraway places like the outback of Australia and I sort of submerge myself in the local community. They get to know you, and then you can take out your camera and you're welcome in everybody's home, so that's how I work. I was given permission to spend time, a couple of months, with a group of young guys who were imprisoned. So they assigned me to this group and I went there every day just to hang around, talk to them, and get to know them. And eventually, same story, they couldn't wait to be in my pictures because, you know, it's prison so you're bored (LAUGHS) and you wanna be in the pictures. Yeah, that was interesting just to be part of that for a little while. It's not something that you would normally be able to do. (BRIGHT MUSIC) The first time I came to New Zealand was in 2002, I think, with my partner, Bart. We were travelling for seven weeks. Yeah, we really liked it here. We want to be closer to nature and to the beach, preferably. And so we just picked a place to be for the first three months to settle down. It was the summer holiday for Skyler. And we thought from there we'll just look around. So I rented a place through Airbnb here in Mangawhai. Yeah, and we liked it so much that we just stayed. We thought, 'Why look any further 'if this is such a nice place, such a nice community?' It just felt good, so we thought, 'Well, let's just stay here 'and build our house and live happily ever after.' (LAUGHS) We're at our section where we're going to build our dream house. Yeah. Um, it's on the ridge. We have a view of the estuary over there. We're gonna have a long house facing the ocean. My studio's going to be part of the house. Lots of windows. I think I like this place because I can go in the bushes and build a hut. Can't quite remember how, but I just came across the eco-printing, and, yeah, it just took off from there. Yeah, you work with nature and you get all the beautiful prints from the leaves itself, and it's just very cool to work with. It's a very unpredictable process. You can sort of steer it in a direction but you never know exactly what's gonna come out. You never look at your environment in the same way again because you're always scouting for leaves and plants and think, 'Ooh, would this print or would that print?' I was driving through Matakana five days this week, and there's this giant maple tree on the side of the road. So I just step on the brakes and I start gathering everything that I can find there and use that. I've got eucalyptus, I've got some oak leaves. They give nice prints. Pohutukawa seeds. Mix it in with what we found today and see what happens. So what I do is I wet my scarf, put the scarf out and lay a pattern of leaves on it. Roll it up tightly, put it in the boiling onion water, boil it for about an hour and a half and then see what happens. Sometimes you think you're gonna do this and this and this, and then you open it up and something completely different comes out. Might not have been the way I planned it, but it's really nice, what comes out, so you have to learn to go with the flow and not be so controlling. (LAUGHS) So that's my lesson there, to go with nature and let nature surprise you. Hi, Barbara. How are you? Good. Oh, they look great. They look nice and warm. Yeah, yeah, they're wool. They're 100% merino wool. Oh, lovely. 'Oh, all-important, the decision to live here, because we just wanted to be closer to nature.' And being able to use nature to make art is really a privilege, I think. Sometimes you go for a walk there and then you're alone on this kilometres-long beach, and it's just something you cannot imagine ever happening in Holland. It's just such a luxury, such a pleasure. I never got to know my grandparents on my dad's side, but some of my favourite childhood memories are of my Gran and Grandad on Mum's side. Gran would always sing in the kitchen and Grandad played harmonica, and he used to write stories about me and my brother and my sister and my imaginary friend and me. He taught me how to play keyboard. He taught me how to play one of his favourite songs, When The Saints Go Marching In. My grandad was my hero. I remember sitting on his lap while he smoked his pipe and watch the horse races on TV. And when I was younger, I had a tobacco tin of his. And I always used to open it and smell him, and the smell of it would remind me of him. And I remember one day I opened the tin, and I couldn't smell him any more. And so I remember feeling really upset. And that's when I realised that it's not necessarily the material item that we hold on to, it's all the memories that go along with that. I do believe that a gift from your past can give you the strength it takes to face your future. I'm real grateful for the strength that I've inherited from those who've gone before me. (ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC) I came up to work as a wildlife ranger for the Department of Wildlife Service. That was back in the '80s. So I came up to see what was going on and monitor the bird population. Mangawhai was a little coastal town with two dirt roads in. Probably 800 people lived here. It was a farming community. They'd just started to subdivide. The smallest blocks ` well, this was the first one ` 50, 60 acres. So it's enough land to have a few cattle and horses and planting thousands and thousands of trees. Pretty much everything here is grown from cuttings or grafts that I took. And then I've decided to go overseas, and I was away for 15 years. I was in the States and I got an email saying, 'Tapu's felt on your land. Get your arse home.' You know, being Kiwi, you sort of (LAUGHS) pack up and sell everything off and start coming back. I didn't really know how to handle it. It's not something you learn about, you know, how to communicate with spirits, land blessings. So I contacted the local iwi and asked them for their advice and guidance, three times, and I was ignored. Cos I, you know, couldn't get any other advice on what to do was to do the land blessing myself. And in order to do that, I had to stand up and say who I was. And all I knew was that I was an O'Brien from Dromoland in County Clare, Ireland. That was about it. So I went online cos I wanted to get four rocks from the county where my ancestors had walked. You know, sort of, outside the pub or by a river or wherever you go hiking. That sort of led to the rocks being picked up from the four points of the estate where my family has, sorta, lived for 2000 years, my bloodline. This rock is on the western boundary. In the family estate in Ireland it's bordered by two streams, the Blackweir stream, or black water, which this one definitely is, where it borders on to a neighbouring property stream, which this one does too. Um, the western portion of the estate, from memory, it does have a good view, sort of an overlook over things, which is why this rock was put up high on this upturned pine tree. As I understand it, once a year the blessing, or acknowledgement of it, needs to be renewed. That was part of the tradition. So I think this is a nice spot to do it in. I've always had dogs, really big dogs. And I took my dog overseas with me. So I've been away for 15 years, and I came back and there were all these signs up, 'no dogs' or 'dogs on leash'. You can't even take your dogs down on to the beach here any more. So I went online and asked if anyone wanted to bring dogs here, thinking I might get one or two large dogs. And it just went viral. It was, 'OK. I'll put the land up, and with volunteers we'll create the dog park.' So now we're at the stage of registering a charitable trust, and I'll be signing over a good portion of this land for the next 100 years for the dog park. When I bought the land, I promised that it would be kept for future generations to have and enjoy. I just didn't think it would happen in my lifetime. Here we go! There haven't been any further negative spiritual issues here since I've been back. It's been very peaceful, very calm. Whatever happened, um, the spiritual imbalance no longer exists. There is... balance here again. (FUNKY, RELAXED MUSIC) Mangawhai is a beautiful place, but it can be difficult for some of the young people who live here. There's no high school, so every day they need to travel to and from town. I started Mangawhai Youth Club in the hopes of creating a safe and supportive space, and also a workshop called My Voice Matters with the aim of giving young people their voice and showing them how to use it. One thing I'd love to see is a lot more youth participation when it comes to community decision-making. I believe it's so important for all communities to listen to all the diverse voices around them, because we all have something worth saying. (ACOUSTIC GUITAR) I have the background on the building site. Architect, town planner. But I have also a house-building company in Germany. To understand the dimension, 25 people employed. Makes the beginning of eco buildings, all this kind of stuff. My partner and I, we have made some projects in Africa. The main part is about waterless sanitary systems. African people who lived 30 years in Germany ` this was a typical situation ` and get retired and say, 'Now I want to do something for my village.' And they have seen what jobs we have done in Germany, and so they asked us, 'Can you have a look, 'and what can we do in our village to develop our village?' And this I have enjoyed to do. You know how many people have proper toilet system in the world of our seven billion people? Less than half. (FUNKY, LAID-BACK MUSIC) My feeling when I think, 'What can you do in many countries of Africa?' it's so much trouble that it is difficult to do something. And we have here a very peaceful society. The first thing you have to do is that we have peace, otherwise you can't develop anything. This one is our emergency toilet when you have nothing. Set it up all in one. Has the same feature with the separation. And... has the vent and has a urine pipe that you can collect in the container. And has a container for the faeces that you can easily pull out. Two people for a couple of months. And then you can exchange it as a new one. This one is sitting up when you want to sit on it. I think it's not so complicated. And you feel a little like a king. (LAUGHS) This is a waterless urinal. We think that it will be very interesting now for Australia, where a lot more problems with water. So we think that this could be a market. We now produce this beautiful one also in` To start, we produce them in plastic in a cheaper form. Sorry, this is a piece of art and a little expensive. (CHUCKLES) Why use timber? Timber is the easiest form to make samples to start with. From the hygienic side is no problem. Just the opposite ` it's perfect. Dry timber kills all bacterias. We want to make it simple, affordable. The sewage system in Mangawhai, when we counted down to each connection, cost us $40,000. This costs $1000. It's now, I think, was it 50 international organisations working on it, but when we could set up here in our village, it could spread all over the world with all the things becoming lighter. How to break down the compost, how to make it hygienic, how to use urine as a fertiliser. All things that need to be developed in a proper way. Mangawhai is a famous city who shows solutions for the future. People very bright, very open-minded. It's possible. My dream is that we show here the systems of the future. This is good for young guys, have nice jobs. How many interesting jobs do you have? It's all about it ` to resolve your own problems. (SIZZLING) On the whole, Mangawhai is a really accepting and welcoming place to live. It's my wish that we can live in a world where your skin colour and your accent don't matter. and we can build a safe and supportive environment to prove to our young people that it doesn't matter where you or your parents or your grandparents came from. We all belong, we're all the same. (INDISTINCT CHATTER) Thank you! (LAUGHS) With more young people moving to Mangawhai and all of these diverse voices, I know our community can only get more awesome. Captions by Tracey Dawson. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017