I shared this on Facebook:

The pronunciation probably hasn’t improved but here’s a song in Te Reo and English I wrote some years ago for a mental health conference.

I’m a inconsistent beginner in the indigenous language of the country I live in and until I moved here would have raised a colonial eyebrow at efforts in my own country to proctect and celebrate the indigenous languages of my Celtic ancestors.

Despite my accent, I was born to a Scottish mother with Irish ancestry and an English father of recent Welsh/Irish ancestry.

A kaumata I workers with in my first year in Aotearoa told me two things. Give te reo a go, even if it feels awkward and you feel you’re getting it wrong. And if I wanted to understand his culture, I might benefit from understanding my own.

At the time I didn’t even realise I had one! I’ve been on that journey ever since.

Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori #tereo

Kaua e mate wheke mate ururoa!

Don’t you give up now

Though the struggle is hard

Just keep on going somehow

You’ve come so far

Don’t you give up now,

Just push on through

Keep on going somehow

With what you know is true