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I am in Central North Island for work, and I'm staying at the house of the girl I'm mentoring.  I'm definitely not used to 'saving money' for work trips--usually I get a hotel room all to myself, my own rental car, and the time when I'm not working is my own to do what I want with.  I'm also used to having a company credit card to use for food and incidentals.  Not here!  We're doing this low-budget styleeee.

Luckily, the girl I'm mentoring is my age, as are her roommates, and they are awesome, so I don't mind at all (except when one of the roommates brought an *ahem* friend home and they were pretty noisy all night!  That was awkward.  I accidentally talked about 'getting lucky' the next day, which was pretty funny!).  I feel like I've made new friends here in NZ, pretty easily too!  I wish it were this easy in Auckland.

I was pretty lucky, also, that the girl I'm mentoring is a member of a local maori iwi (tribe) and she and her kaumātua (elder, like a grandfather but not blood related) were very welcoming to me on their land and marae (like a sacred tribal house).  He talked of spirits in NZ, similar to the menehune in hawaii, which plants can be used for what ailments, and while his 'scientific explanations' for everything were full of holes, erroneous, and didn't make much sense to me, the fact that he cares about his land and NZ came through loud and clear. 

They have an organic garden at their marae, and to feed me, they let us pick strawberries, blackberries, all sorts of salad and beans, corn, etc. to cook for breakfast, dinner, or lunch.  It was so yummy!!  It makes me want to have a garden and house and all that even more, even sooner!

So yeah, I've been pretty blessed.  They don't have internet at the house I'm staying at, and I don't even miss it.  Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I just got rid of my internet, TV, etc. altogether!