I am halfway through term 1 of Te Wānanga Taikura o ngā Kura Kaupapa o Aotearoa, a tertiary education course dedicated to the revitalization and celebration of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori. The course I am doing is called Rumaki reo, a 1 year crash-course programme to learn as much about my culture as possible.

Rumaki: to immerse, to drown.

Tika te kupu rumaki – several days so far have been full of drowning. A lot of those days spent drowning have felt avoidable; balancing home-life with school-life, worrying about things that are out of my control until early hours of the morning, frustrated with change and how much of all of me this course requires. But it serves a good reminder of the sacrifices all of us have to make in order to regain what was lost.

And I imagine that’s how so many feel on their reo journey, no matter what your upbringing and how surrounded you may or may not be with te reo. Simply put, it’s really hard. And there’s no way to learn te reo without giving more of yourself than you’d expect. I’m sure several of us wish it was as easy as just learning new kupu and putting them together in a sentence.

I am lucky to have two fluent parents. I am also lucky that te reo was my first language, before I lost it attending a pākehā speaking school; so I know these words have existed inside me and on my tongue before. And while some things are familiar, others are shockingly foreign. Things that I am perhaps ashamed to admit that I don’t know (no, do not wash your tea towels with your normal towels – even if you are as water-conscious as me).

Sitting in our cramped classroom of 35 in week one, with broken aircon and crying babies, we learnt our first whakataukī:

“Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.” Manawanui – to have patience. Literally translated as manawa – heart, nui – big.

Most of my time here so far, I’ve had to constantly remind myself to trust the process. Whether that is when we’re going too slow and I’m worried about the huge amounts of kupu hou I’ll have to learn in my own time, whether we’re going too fast and I can’t keep up or whether (the worst one…) we’re going just the right pace but my brain is in overload and no more information could possibly fit no matter how hard I try.

We’re lucky at Takiura to have the best of the best pouako. Teachers with seemingly unlimited gold nuggets to keep spirits high in class. Yet another good reminder that pouako are at the core of what make or break the learning journey. And why what we do as educators is so important.

Week two’s whakataukī:

“He toka tū moana ahau” – I am a rock, stood firm in the ocean. No matter what storms come my way, I will remain.

To date, this is still my favourite. It’s the one that keeps me sitting in an hour and a half of traffic every morning, and the one that keeps me looping that new waiata, and the one that keeps me learning kupu on the weekend when I’d much rather kick a ball around with my tāne.

And instead of thinking of it as the price to pay, we can instead be grateful for the chance to invest in ourselves, ka tuku iho ngā hua mātauranga ki ngā tamariki – and pass on the fruit of wisdom to our children.

I am so excited to share my mātauranga, new games and most of all, beautiful new waiata with our tamariki. Kaua e wareware – wherever you are on your te reo journey – kia manawanui, kia manawanui, kia manawanui. He toka tū moana koe.

Te Huamanuka