TRAVEL TALES. PEOPLE. KINDNESS.
The Friendly Kiwis
Our first interactions with local New Zealanders were intensely positive
As we were walking down the gravel road, a car was coming toward us while slowing down. David and I were worrying about him wanting to know something from us as he rolled down his window but all he said was: “I just didn’t want to throw dust on you guys” and then slowly rolled past us.
How nice of him?
And yes, we’re here now. In New Zealand. The farthest South we’ve ever been on this planet and we’re loving it from the first minute. The weather is very similar to either of our other homes in Namibia and Germany, currently ranging with temperatures between 8 °C at night and 20 °C in the sun at noon.
And yet, it’s very different. The valleys are green, but the mountain peaks are still covered with snow. The Kiwis (not the birds) are walking around in shorts while we still wear a jacket, and we see more campervans than normal cars.
While there is so much I’d like to share, in this post I want to talk about the people and specifically about the interactions we’ve had so far with locals.
“It takes courage to be kind.” — Maya Angelou
The Kiwi
While the flightless Kiwi bird is the national symbol of New Zealand, it is also a common self-reference used by the locals to describe themselves. Demographic labels must often be used carefully as they can be offensive but, in this case, the symbol of a Kiwi is being carried with pride.
And while we’ve been in the country for less than a week, we did have plenty of interactions with locals already, Kiwi or not — those kinds of meetings that stay in the mind for a while.
The following people created a short or longer interaction that made me smile more than once:
- The biosecurity officer
- The driver
- The bank employee
- The cellphone employee
- The landlord
“There’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” — Scott Adams
The first friendly encounter
As in any relationship between a German and a Namibian, the roles are clearly stated as: I’m in charge of stressing about everything and anything. David’s reaction is to calm me down and say everything will be fine.
This certainly makes me even more stressed as my other half isn’t taking the situation seriously enough. Or am I stressing too much? That can’t be, can it?
Friends of ours who had been to New Zealand just months ago told us about the biosecurity check we had to pass upon entry into the country. And they also told us how strict they are and what things they check.
Mental note. Don’t bring food into the country. That was easy.
But we also shouldn’t bring any items with leftovers of soil, grass or seeds. Well, we hike a lot and you can imagine what our hiking boots must look like. And we land with our parachutes and work shoes on grassy and muddy landing areas, the same goes for that.
While number two in our relationship said they wouldn’t check any of it, I spent three hours the night before our flight cleaning our hiking boots, sneakers, hiking poles and skydiving gear.
Arriving now at 4 am in Auckland at the airport and being forced to fetch our luggage, bring it through biosecurity and then check it in again for our last flight, certainly raised my stress levels again.
As we approached the biosecurity counter, the officer grabbed our passports and looked at David with a smile:
“You’re from Namibia, Swakopmund or where?”
While David often receives weird looks from airline employees or immigration officers as they don’t know his passport — and he had been asked before if he had a fake passport as a lady in Thailand didn’t know the country (if I’d fake a passport I would certainly not invent a new country for it but let’s just leave it there) — he was certainly surprised this officer didn’t just know where Namibia was but named the city David spent most of his life in and even had been over there already.
As the small talk continued, the officer enquired about the gear we had declared (hiking shoes, poles and our skydiving gear) and wanted to know if we’d cleaned them all. David nodded while I gave him a stare and that was it. The officer wished us a great stay.
We moved on to the scanners and put all our luggage on — they didn’t even ask us to remove our hiking shoes (as we were obviously wearing them, being the bulkiest of all our shoes) — and didn’t inspect any of our gear.
“I told you so,” was all David said as we proceeded through the airport building.
We were lucky. It was 4 am and they weren’t in a mood to unpack all our belongings. That was my opinion on the topic. But I kept quiet. For the sake of our relationship.
“Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give.” — Unknown
The driver
The next encounter we had with a friendly Kiwi was totally unexpected. As we were taking a walk down the gravel road past wineries and orchards, a car coming toward us slowed down remarkably, and while we worried that he needed to ask us something, the driver rolled down his window and said:
“I’m just slowing down not to throw dust on you guys.”
And continued on his way. Any of you who know the pain of walking through dust thrown up by cars driving on gravel roads, certainly know how nice of a gesture this was.
“Thank you,” was all I could say, still perplexed by the situation and friendliness of this guy. We’re definitely not in Germany anymore where everyone is always in a rush.
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” — Aesop
The bank employee
The company we’re working for had given us a bunch of instructions on what we should organize before flying over to New Zealand, and since getting a bank account was one of them, I did apply for one.
The Bank of New Zealand does allow a person to open a bank account while overseas, but as I learned later, there is no need to do so as it only takes about half a day to set up an account once in country.
While I had done this back in Germany already, we just had to go into a branch and get the account activated. In talking about the country we were moving from, I wasn’t expecting a smile from an employee of any company or officer.
But being in New Zealand, an overly happy and friendly bank employee helped us through the process of activating a bank account while apologizing that it took so long.
I think we were out of the bank within 20 minutes and so nothing took long at all plus we had all day to get this done, so this was an incredibly positive experience.
Thank you to this lovely Kiwi. I wish everyone was so helpful and cheerful at work. It would make all our lives so much easier and lighter.
“Kindness shines a spotlight on others without diminishing our own brightness.” — Adrienne Bankert
The cellphone employee
Walking out of the bank with a smile on our faces, since you know laughing is infectious, we walked into the next office, one.nz, to get a sim card and data plan.
As we entered the cellphone shop, a girl greeted us in a friendly manner, but then seemed as if she wanted to send us to her colleague. However, she quickly changed her mind and asked how she could help us.
Her instructions and explanations were straight forward, but as someone who’s traveled through countless African countries, where getting a sim card, setting it up and putting money on it can take half a day, I was more than happy this ended up being such a quick job.
“Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The landlord
The property where we’re staying is owned by a lovely couple who planted a vineyard on the surrounding land in 1990. Their daughter handles all the tenant duties and rental agreements.
This couple is now in their late 80s, still running the place and are our only direct neighbors. While we have our own little home, we do share the washing machine with them and have been invited over for tea and delicious cheesy snacks already.
They might be old but inspiringly fit and switched on still. Their constant smiles and kindness made our arrival and settling into our new home a lot easier.
“Sometimes it takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.” — Jackie Chan
Joy, friendliness and kindness all around
As the days go by, we do experience many more friendly encounters, even if small, which make our start in this foreign country so much more pleasant.
I’d love to give back what I’m receiving and hope I do share more relaxed smiles than stress these days — I will try to adopt more of this Kiwi-like mindset.
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” — The 14th Dalai Lama
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