2007. 2 Newzeland Auckland  Kim Sang Soo Photo

 

from TIA WOODS -

 

I never met my dads mum, Ngaire Woods ,my grandmother, infact my mum didnt even meet her. Nana died with cancer when she was in her 50. Too young. I felt alittle unfortunate at the time, because a lot of kids my age grew up with both grandparents, a nana and a poppa. To make matters even worse, I didnt get to meet my mums mum either. Mums mum died when she was only fifteen. I often saw my mums dad when I was in Rarotonga or at his current home in the Bluff, down the bottom of the South Island in New Zealand. I went through my childhood only having two grandfathers and only seeing Grandpa Don the most because he lived in Hamilton. So I basically saw only one grandparent throughout my childhood. I loved spending time with my grandpa Don, he was always on the farm, so slow on the farm bikes and speedy behind the wheel of the car. He ate too much chocolate, Ie never seen anyone attempt to eat a hole king size block of chocolate, but grandpa did it, he could chomp it down within minutes. Grandpa was terrible with names he couldnt pronounce my name so he called me liz instead, which is my shortened second name. Often he was forgetful with names, calling me either my mums name or my sisters name. Very shocking. In the summertime after my dad and poppa finished milking cows in the afternoon, they both come down to the house and have a beer, my god my granddad could drink a lot of beer. It was a bit worrying when he had to drive home. When I was little Waikato was the place where we took our rugby seriously. I remember going to watch the games at the waikato stadium in Hamilton when we used to sit on the banks with mum and cheer like crazy for our red, black and yellow shirted team. We rang our mooloo bells, the atmosphere was so much fun. Dad could never go to the games because he was too busy on the farm, so he missed out on a lot of the afternoon games. Rugby is a very big sport in New Zealand, every kiwi in New Zealand took the game seriously and still do today.(3)