Happy Mother’s Day to all of our beautiful, loving, badass mothers! We are forever grateful for your incredible sacrifices and unconditional love. Today, as we kept our mothers close to our hearts, we learned of the Maori people’s respect for the sacredness of the womb. For Maori, the womb is our “first house” and should be vehemently protected. During our initial, informal welcoming ceremony, the women in our group formed a line and walked in front, with the men flanking them close behind for protection. We passed through four wooden, carved pillars that mark the entrance to the Maori land, as one of our hosts, Madi, was singing a beautiful and powerful Maori welcoming song, Upon approaching the big community house, the men rotated to the front, and our guide, Tiaki, gave a welcoming speech in Maori, which was followed by a Maori song of support for his words from the “home side”. Our designated speaker, Nick Goulding, came forward, gave a speech of gratitude in English, and set our gift, one of the magnificent glass ornaments made for us by the amazing Mrs. Tessner, on the ground in front of our hosts. The gift was accepted by Tiaki, and our group presented the University of Portland Alma Mater, as a way of backing up Nick’s words, which were spoken on our behalf. The ceremony concluded with Madi blessing the food and traditional New Zealand tea, which had been prepared for us, and sharing the meal together. After being received by the Maori with open hearts, I felt a humbling sense appreciation for this unique opportunity and am tremendously eager to absorb all the knowledge I can in the days to come. We will approach each day with the Maori phrase, “mät te wä”, which, in this context, as Tiaki explained, means “all in good time”.
-Shannon Munn
