Life inside an iwi provides many
reminders to beware of pride. This was a
lesson I finally and fully learned in 1975 when, as trainee nurses, my sister
and I did a two week Public Health stint in Whangarei.
This involved doing outpatient
work in people’s homes. Who knew that an
amputee could live in such squalor that his stump became a happy home for
generations of maggots? This spectacularly
gory lesson, and other more mundane ones, were firsts for us both. But there was more.
My sister’s then
boyfriend lived in Whangarei, and each night he’d take us out. At the time The
Big O was newly opened and The
Grand was still worthy of its name.
Of course, bearing in mind that the height of flash for us up to that
time had been a do at Davina’s in
Awanui, we were dazzled.
But it was
on one of those nights out in Whangarei that we both learned this great truth on
the dangers of pride; Kei riro ta
koutou taonga i te maminga a te tangata e mea ana ki te whakaiti i a ia, ki te
karakia ki nga anahera, ka noho i roto i nga mea e kitea ana e ia, ka
whakapehapeha kau noa, he mea na tona ngakau kikokiko. And this is
how it happened.
We were at The Settlers Tavern
when a stranger sat next to me and asked if I was a nurse. "Yes,"
says I. Then he asked, "Do you drop tabs?" I had no idea what he was talking about until it
came to me that he was speaking in code and tab must actually mean the T.A.B.
"No," says I happily, "I don't bet on
horses." He looked at me strangely and moved away.
Then he approached my sister who suddenly looked around,
sidled over to me and whispered, "Have I got my mate?" I checked and
told her, “No.” then asked, “Why?” "Because," says she, "that guy just
asked me if I dropped my tampon."
He may have thought we were a complete pair of nanas,
but we knew he was a real rorirori.
Later that
night he fell off the balcony and someone said he’d overdosed on pills. But when we took him to the hospital, all he
had was a very high blood alcohol reading and an empty prescription bottle for
amoxicillin in his pocket.
I always remember him when I hear men either talking up
themselves and what they’ve done, or talking down others and the mahi they do.
Like the tab-dropper they are so puffed up by their own
fleshly minds they wouldn’t know humility if it fell on them, reality if they fell
over it, or an angel if it blew its trumpet right in their ear.
I teach my mokopuna, when you see or hear such men personally attacking others, leave them
to it. They’re just tripping on a pill
called pride.
