My Marae Recount

On April the 6th 2011 it was a breezing,freezing and cold day, Miss Hansell took out the roll and began reading names out.When she was finished she said “Line up quietly in two lines.” Our class and the rest of the senior syndicate went down to the hall, we were the last ones down at the hall. Mrs Hansell yelled “Tena koutou Tamaki Primary!” We all replied “Tena koutou Ms Hansell.”

We sang and sang until the bus came. Lavinia finally came and whispered to Mrs Hansell that the bus had come. Room 8 and Room 7 went out first. We were walking to the bus. Me, Sam and Darwin were “stick’n together.” We sat on the bus together too. We were practicing our wonderful singing, but I didn’t think the bus driver liked it. We kept on singing until we got there.

When we got there, we hopped off and I was looking around. We went inside and sat in our lines, then went out on the deck “Men first.” Mrs Hansell said. We ran down to the small building. I stood next to Koi, then the others came.

The woman called a karanga and Khylie replied back to Whaea Celeste.I liked the carvings and the eagle. We took off our shoes and went into the marae. Me and Koi sat together and looked at the beautiful carvings around the marae. We watched Matua William. He told us that the roof from the inside are the ribs and spine. They sang a song and so did we. Arapeta went into the front and said a whaikorero. We all clapped for him as though it was his first time. Matua William said that he will take us to the marae practice room.

We went back to the deck for morning tea. I got my bag and tried to find Koi. I found him and tried to find Sam and Darwin. Koi spotted them and we ran to them. We started eating and when we had finished we had to line up. Koi and I were standing together. We went down to do the haka.
We tried our haka and Matua William made us do the actions for the All Black haka. Then we mixed it all up. We were good at the end.

We went back into the marae and we did the haka. I saw Mr Lintott and he had a camera! I spotted it halfway through the haka and then we sat down to watch the girls do their poi. We sang our waiata to each other. Then we gave them the koha to say thank you for our trip.

We walked to the bus and it was raining. Koi told me to sit with him. I disagreed and Sam was talking to Darwin. I went to sleep. When I woke up we were back at school. I hopped off and ran to the teacher. We had to line up and then we walked silently to class.