Tales of a Female Nomad (37 page)

I’m excited. I already have friends in the Maori community here; Raewyn has given me her phone number, and so have two other women. And the elder has invited me to visit him and his family in a nearby town. The next day I go to my first real estate agent.

Two days later, I’ve run out of agents and places to look at. I haven’t seen anything I want to live in for six months. I’m actually pleased that there is nothing in the central part of the city. It smells of bubbling and steaming sulfur. As a soak, hot sulfur baths are hedonistically delicious; as a smell, they stink.

I also look in the mountains and around the lakes that surround Rotorua, but I can’t find anything that’s right. Where now? New Zealand is a small country, but at the moment, it feels huge.

That afternoon, I am sipping tea in the B&B and consoling myself with scones just out of the oven. Pulling a scone apart, I slather butter onto the inside surface and watch it drip around the little peaks and sink into the crevices. Neville, the owner of the B&B, is a sympathetic ear. Like most people here in New Zealand, he feels personally responsible for my experience of his country.

I bite into another scone and breathe deeply. It is like a meditation on butter.

“Where else should I look?” I ask him.

“Have you looked in Coromandel? There are a lot of writers and artists up there,” he says. “I think you’d like it.”

Happy to have something to pursue, I open my Servas New Zealand book. There is one listing in Coromandel: Judy and Arnold Piesse. Judy, says the book, is a part-time journalist. Good. She won’t be thrown by a challenge.

“Please, use the phone,” says Neville. “Don’t worry about it.”

Judy answers and I introduce myself as an American Servas member. “But I’m not looking for a place to spend tonight,” I explain. “I’d like to rent something in Coromandel for six months. I’m hoping you can help me.”

I take another bite of scone.

Judy gives me Lisa’s name and number. She’s a real estate agent. Then Judy adds, “Please be sure to call me when you’re in the area. I’d love to meet you.”

I call Lisa and tell her my quest.

“Six months?” says Lisa. “When would you like to begin?”

“Tomorrow,” I say.

“I’ll call you right back.”

Before I finish the scone in my hand, Lisa calls back. One of her neighbors, Marian, is looking to rent her house.

The drive from Rotorua should take two and a half hours. I leave at nine for our twelve o’clock appointment. Two hours north of Rotorua, the road begins to wind like a double helix up the west coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. For more than an hour and a half, it twists with the whims of the rocky shoreline. With every sharp curve I worry that my right side is too far over the center, so I move to the left, worried then that my left side is going to go off the road, rolling me into the water. From time to time the road is so close to the water that waves, crashing into the rocks, spray my windshield. This is the New Zealand I’ve read about. It’s spectacular.

I am happy to discover that every few miles there’s a place for slow cars to pull over and let others pass. I do it whenever there is a car on my tail. I wonder what the drivers think when they see me driving this treacherous road with a red learner’s “L” on my rear window.

I arrive at Marian’s half an hour late. The house sits about a hundred yards up a gravel (the Kiwis say “metal”) road, and it looks out on a gentle bay surrounded by islands and hills and mountains. There’s a dock within view, where pleasure boats launch and mussel barges unload their harvest. The view is spectacular.

Marian and Lisa are sitting on the deck, waiting for me to share lunch—another spaghetti pizza!

Canned spaghetti was a part of my growing up (and my kids’ as well, I am embarrassed to admit), and I secretly crave that mushy, overcooked, tomato-soup-flavored pasta, devouring whole cans when no one is looking. My open passion for pasta has nothing to do with canned spaghetti; they are different species. It has been probably ten years since I’ve had spaghetti out of a can. I am happy to be in a land where I will not have to hide my bizarre craving.

Marian’s house has pine-board walls, three small bedrooms, a kitchen, and a deck with that fabulous view. It is a house that feels loved: there are interesting paintings on the walls and beautiful pottery on the kitchen shelves.

“It’s wonderful. I definitely want to rent it,” I say within one minute of my arrival. “Tell me about the community. Is it friendly?”

“Well,” says Lisa, “I live around the corner, and Judy, the woman from Servas, lives up the hill. We’re friendly.”

Marian says that she will be around for a couple of weeks while she sorts things out. There’s a small room attached to the garage where she’s planning to sleep. It feels a little weird kicking her out.

“We can share the house until you’re ready to go,” I say.

“It’s no problem,” she says. “The room is there for just these circumstances.”

“OK,” I say, “But let’s have breakfast and dinner together.” She agrees.

I’ve done it. I’m renting a spectacular view and a house that fits me. I already know three people in the neighborhood and I haven’t even tapped into the alternative community that Neville spoke about. All this for four hundred U.S. dollars per month, a lot more than Bali, but a lot less than most of the places I saw in Rotorua and Auckland.

When Lisa leaves, Marian and I have a chance to talk. She’s around my age with a strong, square body that has been tramping (that’s Kiwi for trekking) in the surrounding mountains on a regular basis, even though she has a bad hip. Her dyed red short hair is half grown out, the white roots considerably longer than my white roots. She tells me she’s growing it in; I’m just lazy.

Turns out that both Marian and Lisa were relieved when I stepped out of the car. They’d been afraid that I would arrive, young and svelte in heels and makeup. Instead, I arrived in sweatpants, sandals, and white roots.

For Marian, renting helps with the expenses of running the house. Just that week she had mentioned to Lisa that the place was available if anyone came along. She was thinking weekends or Christmas, but a six-month rental will give her a long visit with her daughter on the South Island, and money for the winter.

During the first week, before Marian takes off for the South Island, I discover that I have rented more than a house. I have rented—for the next six months—Marian’s life.

“The book club meets on the first Monday of every month,” she says. “Here’s the book for next Monday.” She hands me
Heart of the Country
by New Zealand author, Fay Weldon.

There is the cat, Blackie, whom I have offered to take care of (Marian is taking Nick, the dog).

There’s the vegetable garden (I plant tomatoes and basil and dill to add to Marian’s New Zealand spinach, silverbeet (Swiss chard), parsley, green onions, rhubarb, and mint.

And the Forest and Bird Society. I have a list of the lectures.

And Judy and Lisa, who are both accustomed to stopping by Marian’s for tea or a chat. They continue to do it, even after Marian is gone.

Only the name, shape, and accent of the occupant have changed.

When I stand on the deck of my house, I can watch the mussel barges en route to their mussel farms. The barges are small, gray boats about fifty feet long; the mussels are the succulent, sweet, juicy greenshell variety that New Zealand exports all over the world. Before I am settled in, I rush off to a little white shack about a mile away with a metal corrugated roof and a big sign: OYSTERS AND MUSSELS.

“Hi,” I say, standing in front of a table stacked with craggy gray oysters. “My name is Rita, and I’ve just rented Marian Williams’s house for the next six months. I can’t wait to taste your mussels and oysters.”

“Welcome, Rita,” says the young man in jeans and white, rubber “gum-boots.” “My wife and I stayed in a caravan on Marian’s property when we first got here. I’m Greg. Where are you from?”

He is being polite by asking. Three words are more than enough to tell anyone that I’m a Yankee. Greg gets his oysters from his own oyster farm just a few hundred meters around the bay. I buy a big bag of mussels and two dozen oysters.

“But I don’t know how to open the oysters,” I say.

“Then why don’t you take a tube?” He holds up a plastic container about the size of an olive jar.

I watch him insert the knife, twist it, and pop the oysters into the tube. Rushing home with a bag of mussels and a tube of oysters, I ecstatically devour them all, cooking the mussels in about a quarter inch of water, some white wine, garlic, and a sprinkle of herbs. Even if the people weren’t terrific, even if the geography weren’t spectacular, even if the town weren’t so charming, I could live forever in Coromandel, ecstatically consuming its seafood.

The next time I buy oysters and mussels, about five days later, Barbara and Ray are with me. They’ve come over on the ferry from Auckland for the weekend. I suspect they want to be sure that this foreigner they have taken under their wing is settling in OK. We pull up to Greg’s shack and get out of the car. Ray is driving, happy to be renewing his relationship with Old Blue; it is obvious that he still has an emotional attachment to her. We walk inside.

“Hi, Rita, how are you?” says Greg.

Barbara and Ray smile like proud parents when they hear him greet me by name.

That night, Judy, Arn (Judy’s husband), and Marian (she hasn’t left yet) join us for dinner. I feel as though I’ve been here forever. When English is the spoken language, things move more quickly, especially when everyone is as warm and welcoming as these Kiwis.

Over dinner, I mention that while I’m in New Zealand, I’d like to visit some schools and talk to kids about writing, words, my life. I’m thinking that I will visit a different school each week.

“Why different schools?” says Ray. “Why not develop a relationship with one school. You could sort of adopt them.”

“Is there a predominately Maori school in the area?” I ask.

“There’s a Maori community just over the hill in Manaia,” says Judy. “It’s ten minutes away. The principal of the school is a friend of mine.”

The school is a complex of white buildings with bright red roofs, sitting in the middle of bright green fields (called paddocks). There are sixty kids, ages six to thirteen, three teachers, and a pile of parents and paraprofessionals. I visit all three of the classrooms. The kids are beautiful, natural and relaxed, even in front of a strange-accented foreigner. Most of them have dark hair, bronze skin, and big curious eyes.

I talk about where I’m from and where I’ve been, and I pass around a pile of my books, which I leave with Vicki, the principal. I tell the kids that I will be coming in once a week. I’ll talk about writing, play games with words, fool around with poetry, and I’ll tell some interesting stories about the places I’ve been.

“You can ask me anything you want,” I say. “And I also want to learn about you.”

Before I leave each classroom, I share with them the fact that I’ve only been here for a little more than a week and I don’t have very many friends.

“One of the reasons I visit schools is to make friends. So I’m hoping that whenever you see me in town, you’ll shout, ‘Hi, Rita,’ even if you’re across the street. Can you do that now?” Everyone shouts out my name.

“I feel less lonely already. See you next week.”

I live in Coromandel, on and off, for twelve months; and nearly every time I go into town (ten minutes from my house) some little voice shouts at me from somewhere, “Hi, Rita.”

I make as many inroads into the community as I can. My plan while I’m here is to write a book proposal, but I don’t intend to be compulsive about it. I also want to become as much of a local as I can. I get a library card and I chat with the librarian; I subscribe to the
New Zealand Herald
and introduce myself to Jan, the mail and paper delivery person (who also will deliver stamps, milk, or emergency shopping items). Whenever I go into a store (the small supermarket, the butcher, the pharmacy, the stationery store, the craft stores, even the post office), I introduce myself and try to remember the faces and names of the people who take care of me. And I go religiously to the book club meetings and the Forest and Bird lectures.