Ka Pai Farnes!

My Dear Princess & Dear Fellows,

Today was session 3 of "Beginner's Te Reo". 

I missed session 2 because I was SOOOOOOO ill. Did I mention that I was ill? I'm not sure. I tend to keep these things to myself because I am very brave.

It was, as before, a lot of fun. Piripi our teacher is a very nice, very encouraging man and he encourages us to make mistakes. Today we learned our "mihimihi" - our introductions - and I find it interesting that in Maōri, you don't just introduce yourself by telling people your name and where you're from, you also say things like -

Ko Arthur's Seat tōku maunga ("My mountain is Arthur's Seat") 

and 

Ko the Water of Leith tōku awa ("My river is The Water of Leith")

or

Ko O'Hagan tōku iwi ("My tribe is O'Hagan")

Piripi said he liked my pronounciation today. I think he means I am good at rolling my R's. I said R's, so behave.. 

I expect you would all be good at it too. Apparently the Scots do it a little bit as well, so I am going to thank 23 years of exposure to you people* for helping me pronounce place names like "Porirua" like a local.

When you get things right, Piripi says "ka pai!" meaning "very good" and he calls us all his "whanau" (family) when we are in a session. You pronounce "whanau" as "farno". But he's not above Anglicising whanau occasionally, and sometimes refers to us as his "farnes". As in "Ka pai farnes! Well done!"

So in that spirit, ka pai farnes for getting through another week. Mine has not been too bad but I'm aware the same is not so true for all of you. And as part of my iwi I am sending you aroha, with a rolled R.

S.

* El Parsones - proudly exposing himself to Scottish People for 23 years.