Aaron Kirk, 28, grew up in one of the most isolated parts of the country, north of Gisborne on the East Coast. To him, home is where his whānau is – his friends, and the people who matter to him. Home is where he is most comfortable, and where he feels like he is contributing to making the world better.
With Tainui and Ngāti Porou heritage, Aaron studied in Auckland. He’s spent some time in Christchurch, and was there for both quakes. “My family spans across New Zealand, and some are in Australia. I would never consider Australia home, but in either Tainui or Ngāti Porou, I can fit in comfortably. I can exist, and be happy.
He’s now back living in Gisborne – in town, not on the whānau farm a couple of hours drive up the coast. He’s surrounded by people who know who he is, and where he comes from. “Everyone knows your whānau, your whakapapa. Sometimes, I like to go travel somewhere I haven’t been before and just kind of be unknown.”
"It was still new Zealand because we knew those kind of places existed. Just not in our backyard" Photo: Unknown
He was surprised by how diffierent Christchurch was to home. There, he felt like it didn’t matter who he was, or where he came from: he was still just a ‘someone’. At home, his whakapapa is always there, whether he likes it or not. “But I know my whakapapa, or my marae, my awa, is what connects me to not just our land, our whenua, but to our people as well. And living in Gisborne just kind of reinforces my love for our whenua.”
Aaron Kirk says the tikanga, at home, on the marae, even out on the farm, is what connects him to home. Though that tikanga might be different, depending where he is, the principles stay with him.
“Home, for me, is where I fit in, and where I am contributing – where I’m planted, like the totara tree. Some of my whānau, they’re in Australia, but they’ve made it home. They’ve planted themselves there. So if that means every Friday they have fry bread, and boil up, despite the ingredients being expensive, then so be it.”
Gisborne, and the East Coast in general, is removed from most parts of New Zealand. Jobs are scarce, as are educational opportunities. That’s why Aaron left to study, he says – there were things to learn, and experiences to have, and he could bring that tohu home.
“What surprises me is that most of my cussies, aunties and uncles are more inclined to go on a computer and find out about what’s happening outside of Gisborne and Ngāti Porou, so that they can call up Radio Ngāti Porou and have something to kōrero about,” he says.
Aaron remembers, as a boy, seeing advertisements for products like Weet-Bix and Marmite that seemed to represent what it meant to be ‘Kiwi’. But that didn’t represent his life. “The reality of it is that we woke up, and we had to go out and milk the cows, so that we had milk – we didn’t have a delivery man coming and dropping off milk,” he says.
He says the ads felt like they were of different New Zealand – “But it was still New Zealand, because we knew those kind of places existed. Just not in our backyard.”