Samantha's first post

We have arrived safely and things are going well. We feel very welcomed to the area. Gore is a charming little town and we are taken with the colour and the vibrant downtown. We have been to some of the stores in Gore thus far. New World is a new grocery store but we have also been to Woolworths too. Things do taste different here, the meats especially. I ( Samantha) was never a dairy fan but have fallen in love with the yogurt and cheeses down here. The juice is also wonderful. We are living at a camp, Camp Columba (you can see the website if you wish) and the chair of the board is a farmer as well. We found that our deep freeze was filled with beef and pork and veal! Our cupboards were stocked as well. Now we go to second hand stores to get the items that we still need.
We are in the market for a "runner" car. I call it a julopy, but the salesmen call it a runner. A board member has given us his car until we buy one of our own. We have been driving for 3 days now and it is not bad at all. I love the turn-abouts in town. The speed is quite fast but the opposite side thing has not proven to be a problem.....yet, anyway.
I have visited Gore High School and met with the Head of my Department, things seem to be okay there. I was surprised to hear that I would be teaching a grade 12 English class, however it is an alternative class for kids who are not really into school. So, much of the content will be junior material anyway. I will also be teaching year 9 English, year 9 computing and year 10 Food Tech.
The kids school is Pukerau Primary and we have been for a tour and met the Principal/teacher. Both kids will be in the same class, Abby Year 4 and Sam Year 6. We'll see how this goes???? Their school is an enviro-school and this is interesting as they have a worm farm, and many cool things that they do besides sitting in desks and working. It seems really hands on. Each student has a laptop at their desk too.
The weather is nice, but unpredictable. We arrived Sunday to hot, sunny weather. Monday was also beautiful, the kids swam in the pond on site. Tuesday we awoke to misty rain and cold temperature. It down poured many times that day. Today we woke to sunny skies with giant dark heavy clouds. When the sun was out it was warm and when the monstrous cloud came overhead it rained and became cold, then the sun returned and it was nice again. They say that this weekend will be warm, sunny and beautiful. We may go to the ocean and explore. Sam has yet to see a hedgehog but we have been told that they live in the hedges around the camp.
Our house is very cottagey. It is spacious and has the things we need. Nothing fancy and fits in really well with our new philosophy to DO MORE AND HAVE LESS. We have been to a party already and we are fascinated by the classless attitudes. The clothing and decorating in homes is not as superficial as `home`. It is refreshing to see people not care about what they look like, the couple that hosted that party were sincere and not consumed by what their house looked like. It certainly is a different feel down here. A few things that I have noticed and like are: scented toilet paper, the constant sweet smell in the air, the wonderful smell of laundry soap and fabric softener, no dryers so everything hangs out, the breath-taking mountains, hills and the laid back attitudes, and the shorty shorts worn by the Kiwi men! I seem to be only struggling with the letters a and e. When they speak here I often cannot understand a word and have to ask them to spell it. A bank card, like and ATM card is called a EFT POS card here. That took me a while to get it. Finally I had to ask the sweet bank employee to write it down for me.


Enjoying the sweet smell of New Zealand,
Samantha