Vignette 14
The Hard Bits
When we settled in New Zealand, America was not winning many popularity contests around the world. Growing up I observed my fellow countrymen criticize the U.S. government on a daily basis, but if given the chance would never even consider living anywhere else in the world. It is true that a person can bag on their sister or brother, but will do battle with anyone outside the family casting the same aspersions. I have felt this kind of defensiveness. From comments overheard on the ferry describing the unbelievable arrogance of the U.S., to the lady in yoga class who couldn’t understand why the people of New Orleans weren’t all just put on buses and evacuated during Hurricane Katrina. Her finale, “They are ruining the entire world.” Defensiveness and yoga don’t go hand in hand so for the next hour I decided to witness firsthand what a big girl I have become. Immigrating to another country has forced me to learn new terms of engagement.
The patriotism that we were taught in school is laughed at here. My Kiwi friends label it weird that we make our students stand up each morning in class to pledge allegiance to Old Glory. I sense a subtle disconnect when I try to explain about how Americans always make a big show of supporting our troops no matter what: even if we don’t agree with the war. One friend here actually told me that she thought Disneyland was really scary; that she couldn’t stand how they shoved the Main St., U.S.A patriotic thing down her throat. I love Disneyland. It felt as if she had in some way defiled my Grandmother. My other Kiwi friend agreed that Disneyland was the last place she would ever want to see. And here I thought everyone agreed that the Magic Kingdom is the “happiest place on earth.”
Trying to fit into New Zealand life has been very important to me. Lying low, observing, and refraining from saying things like, “in the U.S. we do it this way,” seemed like the best approach to take. That doesn’t mean that I don’t bend this rule from time to time. I have had to bite my tongue when someone sitting near me in the coffee shop makes a statement laden with anti U.S. rhetoric. I never say anything directly to the perpetrator but I let fly my righteous indignation, when I retell the story to Scott. My problem here is that I take being an American too seriously. Since President Bush has become so hugely disliked around the world I have felt it necessary to become some sort of ambassador, always attempting to put my best foot forward to show the world what really good guys we are. But sometimes I think that a target appears on my chest as soon as my accent is revealed. “Are you Canadian, or are you from that horrible place south of Canada?” a lady in my life drawing class asked after being introduced. I didn’t return the following week. I might have lessons to learn about where my responsibilities about being a good American start and end. My son Brett was a waiter for several years in Auckland, and experienced this brand of prejudice on a regular basis. One man asked him to please go down to the other end of the long table to take orders because he couldn’t stand hearing his accent. Brett refused to wait on him, but gave the rest of the group great service. The man did apologize at the end of the meal. I now have a healthy sense of empathy for anyone with a heavy accent who gives living in a red neck town in one of the southern states a whirl. They would have a long row to hoe.
I am a person who hates confrontation is a very big way: run the other direction is my motto. Scott on the other hand stands up to anyone, anytime. He tells the person on the phone exactly what he wants and when he wants it–I begin everything with a damn apology. “Sorry to be such a bother,” or “Would it be too much trouble to…” I say. I freely admit to this short coming in my character, and would give anything to be able to do that little I Dream of Jeannie move to inject myself with courage when under verbal fire. Little did I know that when we settled in New Zealand I would have to face this demon in such a public way.
The back of our property opens onto what used to be called, The Blue Heron Lodge. It is a long, rectangular, two story accommodation built out of cinderblock. The guests are required to walk down to the shared toilet and shower facility, but Kiwis like to rough it a bit when on holiday so that isn’t a big deal. Although the structure is a bit shabby, the land around it is anything but.
When we entered the scene, the Lodge was closed for business and had recently been sold to a man who planned to subdivide the property; our real estate man showed us the plans for five custom homes. We liked the idea of five new custom homes raising the value of our recent purchase. The development was scrapped shortly after we moved in for what ever reason, and a family moved in to resurrect the Lodge, and said that they would like to turn it into a backpacker accommodation. They signed a seven year lease and on top of that, the property owner became their partner in the venture. Thus the Orapiu Bay Resort was born.
A load of their extended family moved into the old lodge; lots of cars, lots of parties. The proprietor kind of reminded me of a used car salesman or maybe a politician. He would walk out and shake hands with everyone walking along the beach and spin the big plans for the Lodge; sewage upgrade, room renovations, restaurant, bar, events–even a barge out in the bay for concert weekends. We didn’t really pay too much attention to all of this talk until we had to endure an all night birthday blast, including loud drunken singing and a finale of crashing metal followed by a big fight at around 5 a.m. Our involvement in what was to become facing my worse nightmare began when Scott bluntly told the proprietor the next day, that he did not take kindly to the prospect of “those kind of people” becoming a regular part of the neighborhood. Referring to, “Those kinds of people,” Scott meant drunk and disorderly people, but what became the often repeated phrase, taken out of context and believed by many, was that he meant Maori people.
The people who had previously owned the Lodge immediately stopped speaking to us. One of their relatives quoted me as saying, “They should call it the Black Heron Lodge, instead of the Blue Heron Lodge.” Hey wait a minute there…New Zealanders have sports teams with the name “Black” in them: the Black Caps – cricket, the Tall Blacks- basketball, the All Blacks- rugby. Since the new leases were Maori, I thought that it would be cool to see them lose the old fashioned Blue Heron name, (there are no blue herons around here anyway), and come up with something with black in it or maybe a Maori name. It was an innocent conversation that I had with a friend on the beach, which after being partially overheard, twisted and passed around, ended up in a ridiculous letter to the Mayor of Auckland complaining about the racists living in Orapiu Bay. I don’t fancy being called a racist.
The name changed from, The Blue Heron Lodge, to the Orapiu Bay Resort. There were several events held on the grass along the foreshore; that to put it mildly, were very loud and lasted way into the night. The backbeat of the music rattled our windows, and it dawned on us, that maybe the backpacker’s business wasn’t really their intention all along.
In the beginning, every time the resort planned an event they applied for a one off liquor license. Rules and regulations dealing with the acquisition of a liquor license is a tangled web indeed. The resort applied for a permanent liquor license, for up to one hundred and twenty events per year. An application of that magnitude required the surrounding neighbors be notified: now giving us a chance to oppose on legal grounds. And oppose we did; along with our friends up on the hill. This oddly enough was the first time in my life to actually step foot in a courtroom to stand up and fight for my rights as a resident. I must admit, that Scott was the one who stood up and spoke for our rights. I signed on the dotted line, and stood behind him all the way. This proved to be an experience that taught me how to hold my head high in the face of alienation by my neighbors. It also taught me to get over the idea that everyone needs like me in order for there to be happiness in my world.
The resort held a gathering for all the neighbors to come and talk about the issues. It was really a kangaroo court set up to crucify us as outsiders by some of the long term residents that the resort people had spun up. We chose not to attend the gathering. Our friends on the hill got up and walked out during the middle of the meeting. They were disgusted by the fibs that were being told. We had been invited over to Stoney and Rei’s wedding celebration after the meeting. It was such an awkward party to attend. When the wife of the resort arrived, I decided it was time to leave since she was the one who had painted the most damaging portrait of us. Stoney’s niece told me the next day that the wife had made a declaration to the entire party that she knew us to be racist. After that, the lies took on a life of their own, and the neighborhood became firmly divided. All told, I think there were five households that opposed the liquor license application, we were not alone, but we definitely took the most heat from the resort in terms of malicious gossip.
Auckland City sent people out to record sound levels during the next few events. The rules required that the recordings be collected from just over the property line. We invited them to record from all the way up on our deck, which is quite a ways away from where the functions were held. Auckland City Council’s data showed that the sound levels were over the legal limit. The base beat (the kind that you hear when coming through the rolled up windows of a young person’s car when you are stopped at a red light) gave them a penalty of ten points. Our friends on the hill began collecting data from their yard as well. This combined data was presented in court, and the ruling was in our favor–the resort was not granted a liquor license. You can imagine how all of this went over. Stoney aligned himself with the resort; they allowed him to keep his boat on the premises and drive across the lawn to launch it, and William went to work in the kitchen.
As soon as William stepped foot in my car to get a ride into town, he would began a ritual diatribe against the wife. He called her the “dragon lady.”He would repeat things that they said about us and it took all my resolve not to get sucked in. A couple of times I lost my grip and threw in a couple of jabs, followed by a left hook, only to feel remorseful as soon as the words left my lips. All of the ugly things that were said about us, made me very aware of my own conduct. Acting with integrity became a kind of obsession, but the worst thing for me was not being accepted in the community–very hard to handle. I wondered if it was because we were American.
One time at the height of the drama, Stoney was having a bowls tournament in his backyard. Scott went down to turn on the bore to water our vegetable garden. Stoney shares the bore with us and Scott had to step into Stoney’s yard to open the door to the little shed. He politely said, “Hi everybody, who’s winning?” Everyone turned to look directly at Scott, but not a word was said in reply. Stoney’s niece spoke up and said, “Hi Scott, how ya goin?” Scott amazingly was unphased by the whole episode, I felt hurt and indignant all over again. I really pondered whether we shouldn’t sell up and move away.
Not too long after the ruling, we received notification that this issue had not yet been laid to rest, and had been taken on to the High Court. Back we traipsed, forced to sit in the same room with our seething resort neighbors. Their legal representation spent all morning trying to convince the judge that the first judge’s ruling had been in error. Right before lunch recess the judge told the council for the resort that he hadn’t yet heard anything that would be changing his mind, and that they had only fifteen minutes after lunch to sum up their arguments. Then it would be our turn. During lunch their attorney approached us with a deal. In exchange for our support of a liquor license they would reduce their late hours of business, and keep all their clientele within the bar and patio areas. We agreed and that was that. The lodge was now free to do business—but no big events on the lawn. I felt so relieved that the time had finally arrived for all of us to get on with things, and start living our lives again.
This was not to be the case. William kept me informed of all the trash that spewed forth from the husband and wife into the community. It was hard for me to remain silent because I felt that we won fair and square under the law, and a good solution had been reached; in everyone’s best interest. I picked up a hitch hiker one day who needed a ride into Ostend to work. After the small talk was over he asked me if I was the American in Orapiu that had caused the resort owners to lose their two homes and go out of business. It was a long ride into town.
Unfortunately the Orapiu Bay Resort never made it off the ground. It was two years ago that the resort was given a liquor license and the right to run an accommodation with food and bar. They went into receivership and will be moving out in November. Last month there was an article in the paper about the resort closing its doors. It was reported that they had been put out of business by difficult neighbors and ill treatment by Auckland City Council. All they wanted the article stated was five or six events a year. The article went on to say that they were considering taking legal action. Scott was once again immune to the stuff they shoveled, but I still felt frustrated that the article was so far from the truth. They were not the only ones to have suffered thoughout this four year ordeal.
Since the resort has given up the last three years of their lease, the owner has now decided to go ahead and develop the property. Instead of five custom houses that had passed resource consent seven years ago, he now wants to put in five houses across the shoreline and two rows of stacked condos up to the border of the kauri tree line. Naturally there will be a tennis court, swimming pools and boat sheds. The road in to the development will run across Stoney’s big bay window and obliterate his view. I bet you can guess who is being blamed for this. Fortunately, this time the entire neighborhood is opposing, along with Forest and Bird, New Zealand Heritage and other eco groups.
Ironically, in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago, a portion of Scott’s and my opposition to the new development appeared. The following week a letter to the editor was published written by the wife of the resort. She described how “that man” (Scott) who was opposing the new development had “single handedly ruined her life.” Although it was sad to read, I had to shake my head and wonder how much energy had been spent blaming rather than taking responsibility and action. Just as choosing to face my confrontation demons by standing up for myself, and being able to handle criticism of my homeland without taking it personally: so too will the blamers have to realize that life sometimes unfolds according to the choices we make. The winner will be the one who finally “gets it,” and doesn’t have to repeat the painful lessons again.
Boy, it sure felt good to tell our side of the story and get this off my chest once and for all!
