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Whale tails
Whale tails will be on display around Auckland for the next four months. Image: Supplied/Archi Banal

SocietyJanuary 24, 2022

A PSA for Auckland parents: Whale tails are here to save your school holidays

Whale tails
Whale tails will be on display around Auckland for the next four months. Image: Supplied/Archi Banal

Sick of screen time and snack packs? Then get your kids to go hunt some whales. 

My feet move, like a robot, to the pantry. The chips are on the second shelf: ready-salted for the boy, salt & vinegar for the girl. Don’t mix them up or they’ll reject the whole plate. Open the fridge and cut cheese to add to the crackers. Add some Shapes, some popcorn. Is that too many fried, salty things? What would Nadia say?

The thoughts continue. Am I a bad parent? Are we still in lockdown? Where have all the chocolate biscuits gone? Oh, that’s right: I stress-ate them. Hide the packaging from the kids or they’ll complain. Another question: When will these school holidays fucking end?

These are all thoughts that every parent — especially those living in Auckland — are asking themselves right now. After a blessed, hot, mostly Covid-19-free summer break, parents are returning to their homes, their jobs, and their lives. Children, however, are not. School doesn’t return for weeks. My son doesn’t go back to his classroom until February 8. With the threat of omicron looming, I can’t see that far ahead. 

whale tail
The Guardian, by Faamele Etuale, one of 80 whale tails on display around Auckland. Image: Supplied

In Tāmaki Makaurau, most of the second half of last year was spent in various stages of lockdown. Home schooling was sporadic, and when schools did re-open, it was a day or two a week. Right now, returning to the same patterns within the same four walls feels like more of the same. It’s too much. It’s The Neverending Story of school holidays, a constant, endless parade of screen time and snack packs, with no Falkor to save us.

That was going to be the point of this story, another missive from a stressed out parent sick of paying his son’s Xbox subscription fees. Yes, I’ll take you to the pools once I send this email. Yes, I’ll help you make another pot of buttery pasta once I respond to this Slack message. Send help. Send grandparents. Send anyone, or anything. Please.

The answer landed quite by chance. During a recent trip to Auckland Zoo, my daughter spotted something fishy: a colourful whale tail poking out of the ground. She snapped a photo, came home and told me about it. I — quite literally — shrieked.

Whale Tale
Our Hands, by Issac Treblico, one of the whale tail exhibits displayed around Auckland. Image: Supplied 

Is it … could it be … a saviour for these interminable school holidays? “You’ll be saved,” promises Livia Esterhazy. “The last few weeks will whizz by.”

It’s true. Esterhazy is responsible not just for the zoo’s whale tale, but for 79 others placed around Auckland. It’s all part of Whale Tales, a public art trail involving huge tails painted by famous artists. They’re placed around Auckland for people to find, and log, via an app. It was supposed to happen last year, but lockdown postponed it. Now it’s here, and it’s a beautiful sight. 

For anyone who doesn’t remember the last time this happened with owls, a quick recap: Whale Tales is like a real-life treasure hunt. On every whale tail is a number. To collect them all, you’ll need to download an app, then head out, find each tail, and check them off. They’re all over the city: in the botanical gardens, out at Piha, over on Waiheke, in the zoo. There’s one in my home suburb, Te Atatū.

Kids love it. Our kids get obsessed by it. Last Christmas in Christchurch, the search for giant painted penguins dominated our holiday. The kids would not rest until we had found them all. It was a great way to see the city, find spots we wouldn’t otherwise visit, and keep the kids entertained. In Auckland, it will undoubtedly do the same.

When I called Esterhazy, I wanted to congratulate her for saving my school holidays. But WWF New Zealand’s CEO tells me there’s another, much bigger and more serious point to the whale tails. Each represents a Bryde’s (it’s pronounced “Broo-dus”) whale, a native of Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. “Not many Aucklanders know they’ve got a whale in their own back yard,” she says.

Whale Tales
Kaitiakitanga, by Stephen Njoto, one of the whale tail exhibits displayed around Auckland. Image: Supplied

They’re endangered, with just 135 left. Those dwindling numbers are threatened by plastics, food supply, boat strike, climate change and over-fishing. “They’re eating a lot of zooplankton, which is … filled with microplastics,” says Esterhazy. “You can imagine what’s happening to them internally.”

None of that sounds good. It’s not. “A healthy whale is an indicator of a healthy ocean,” she says. “We know the species isn’t healthy, and the Hauraki Gulf isn’t healthy. We’ve got to reverse this.” How? One way is money: once Whale Tails ends, they’ll be auctioned off, and proceeds will be used to help save the whales.

But educating everyday Kiwis is also important. “We’re bringing everything to life in a nice, enjoyable way,” says Esterhazy. “Hopefully people learn as they go, open their eyes, open their hearts and realise that the beautiful shiny body of water that they see and they interact with … it’s not healthy.”

Find a tail, save a whale. It’s either that, or it’s back to making snack packs. I’m choosing the whales.

Whale Tales kicks off today. For more information, visit whaletales2022.org.

Keep going!
Manurewa marae’s family fun day saw 338 people across the day including 104 children get vaccinated. (Photos: Justin Latif, additional design by Tina Tiller)
Manurewa marae’s family fun day saw 338 people across the day including 104 children get vaccinated. (Photos: Justin Latif, additional design by Tina Tiller)

SocietyJanuary 24, 2022

‘We’re here if you need us’: Manurewa marae gets South Auckland boosted

Manurewa marae’s family fun day saw 338 people across the day including 104 children get vaccinated. (Photos: Justin Latif, additional design by Tina Tiller)
Manurewa marae’s family fun day saw 338 people across the day including 104 children get vaccinated. (Photos: Justin Latif, additional design by Tina Tiller)

As the country prepared to move into red, the Manurewa marae held one final mass vaccination event.

“Get boosted” was the recurring message from staff and locals at Manurewa marae’s mass vaccination event on Sunday. 

The event, which saw 338 people across the day – including 104 children – get a jab, combined a Ratana church service with music, dance performances, free food and the chance for whānau to get vaccinated in a fun, family-friendly environment. 

Among the attendees was South Auckland health and fitness proponent David Letele, aka the Brown Buttabean, who took the opportunity to get his booster shot. Those still feeling hesitant about getting the Pfizer jab for themselves or their children should start by staying away from Facebook, he said.

“Get boosted but don’t get your information online,” he said. “Instead, come down here and talk to a nurse or a doctor and have a conversation with the experts. But don’t go on social media or just talk to your mates.”

Phyllis Latu and David Letele at the Manurewa marae mass vaccination event on January 23 (Latu and Letele are in the same bubble). Photo: Justin Latif

Letele, who also runs a large food bank service, said moving to the red traffic light setting will have a massive impact on both his social service and fitness programmes as he expects a number of his clients to catch the highly transmissible omicron variant. 

“What’s stressful for me is knowing the extra pressure that will be on us to provide the food parcels to those self-isolating – and we’ve already got some requests coming through now.”

Valentine Hala was another who took the opportunity to get her kids vaccinated at the event. 

“I work in the community and I’ve seen how quickly people get sick,” the mother of three said. “I’m fully vaccinated but I thought I’d bring my kids down. I gave them the freedom to make up their mind and they decided that they wanted to do it.”

Manurewa marae has been at the forefront of Auckland’s vaccine rollout, being one of the first sites to offer immunisations back in April 2021. And much to the relief of the marae’s 20-strong team of nurses, vaccinators and support crew, they were finally able to take a two-week holiday over Christmas. 

But marae chief executive Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp said it was hard to switch off knowing they had to be ready for vaccinating children and providing booster shots by mid-January. 

She said while she was pleased to see a number of children being vaccinated, parents shouldn’t feel pressured or shamed into vaccinating their kids.

“We vaccinated just under 60 children on the first day but the big thing for us as a marae is that we will awhi or support you with whatever choice you make,” she said. 

“There’s lots of hesitancy with vaccines for our tamariki, and you see it especially on social media. But what we say here is this is your choice, as parents and whānau, whether you want to get your tamariki vaccinated or not. We have clinicians and kaumātua here if you want to korero and to have karakia. But our approach is a very soft one – we’re here if you need us.” 

Valentine Hala with sons Hesi and Brandon at Manurewa marae vaccination event on Sunday, January 23. (Photo: Justin Latif)

Kemp said the Manurewa marae has hardly been touched by the anti-vax protests that have affected some other centres.

“We’ve just had one protestor,” she said. “But the craziness of it was while he was handing out anti-vaccination letters and flyers, his wife was inside getting vaccinated.”

The centre’s clinical nurse lead Nicole Andrews said her team are doing everything they can to allay fears for children and parents alike, and thankfully there have been no serious adverse reactions for children. 

“We’ve dedicated a whole section to children and we have two mums and some grandmothers as well, who are experienced with children with disabilities and those with intellectual disabilities, and we have them as the first person the child will see after their vaccination,” she said. 

“We are trying to stay away from sugar and instead they get a little gift and a little certificate.”

As upbeat music blared, more people of all ages filtered through the gates to get their jab. Kemp said despite a lot being made about the need to increase vaccination rates in South Auckland, and particularly for Māori, she’s never felt the need to pressure people. 

“For us here, we work under King Tūheitia’s mantle: ‘Amohia ake te ora o te iwi ka puta ki te whaiao – the health and wellbeing of our people is paramount.’ So that basically means we do whatever it takes to get our people across the line, in a culturally safe way, using te ao Māori approaches like tikanga, karakia and waiata. 

“And when they come, we don’t ask why. We just say: ‘good on you’.”

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