I’m Pākehā so I will always feel like a guest in Aotearoa. However, I’ve never lived anywhere else. This land has always been my home. Te reo Māori is the first and only language heard by this land, from the mouths of people, for hundreds of years and is interwoven throughout this place in the deepest ways. It is undeniably, as people say, a taonga. Learning to speak te reo helps me feel a deeper connection to Aotearoa. I feel more tethered to this place. I share my enthusiasm for this taonga with my children and the young children I teach in the hope that they will feel the same way, and the future of Aotearoa will involve a more connected people.
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