s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

One of the more interesting aspects of living in another country is looking for the little cultural differences. In many ways NZ and America are similar, in that way that English-speaking/English-settled modern western democracies that all watch the same television programs have attained a baseline of homogeneity. But there are differences. Here you will see people walking around the grocery store in their bare feet, either having arrived that way or after having left their muddy boots by the front door. And then there are the myriad ways in which race relations are different, with Maori culture and language still being alive.

This Wednesday was the commemoration of one of the big cultural differences- ANZAC day. This is the day that marks the landings at Gallipoli in 1915, that ill-fated campaign during WWI that resulted in the deaths of so many Australian and NZ troops.

They start with dawn ceremonies, which draw thousands of people. Many of the TV and radio stations do all-morning or all-day ANZAC-only programms. It is not a celebration of victory or martial prowess, rather it is a remembrance of the cost of war. The fact that Gallipoli was a defeat is an important part of that. NZ had the highest per-capita casualties of any nation during the first world war, and that is saying a lot. Almost every town has a war memorial, and when you count the number of names on the memorial and compare it to the size of the town in 1918, it is a sobering moment.

Very, very different from Vertern’s Day or Memorial Day in the States.

While we were on holiday down south, we looked at a skillion alpacas, some of which were for sale, some of which we, yes, actually bought. One of the places we looked was just out of Picton, where a couple who had a small mob of alpacas were selling the farm and moving to town. They were offering the whole herd at a very reasonable price if you took the whole herd. Some people were interested in cherry-picking the nice-looking young girls and leaving the older ones and the wethers, but the owners really wanted the herd kept together. “We can do that,” we said. “We’ve got plenty of space & don’t mind a couple extra wethers.” All up, we got seven females and two wethers (and one of the wethers has a reeealy nice fleece), plus four of the girls come pregnant to a nice Totara Grove stud. We’ve added half again the size of our existing mob, and almost doubled our number of breeding females (not counting the three babies). We think this might do us for a while. :^)

Here are some pics:

Bonus blurry pics of cria spazzing, because that’s what they were doing this morning: