Humanity Has a Chance

The rest of the world could learn a thing or two from the Kiwis.

We're liking our new campsite. A lot. It would probably be a bit more accurate to call it a trailer park. Or perhaps a holiday (Kiwi for vacation) trailer park. Then again, it's not exactly a holiday for everyone there; one tenant is going on 17 years. They're not alone, as many of our neighbors call this park home. Nevertheless, most of the tenants, part time and otherwise, are Kiwis. And they are making a believer out of me.

When strangers are nice to me, I'm a bit suspicious; "What do you want? What are you after?" So when "Dan the Man" chatted with us two nights ago, I thought he may have been hitting on Betsy. "What are you after?" In the end, he wanted nothing from us, and even offered us a place to stay should we ever make our way to Rotorua. Hmm. I'm still an American though, humanity is not getting off that easy. I also found it strange when a guy two trailers down, named Paul, brought us two lawn chairs to sit on. He said sitting on the dirt would give us piles, so we should just keep these chairs that he didn't need anyway. Who are these people? Then he brought us a little rolling table. "You can set your chips on this!" he joked. I was eating salsa flavored chips at the time (yum!). Does he want something from us too? Hmm. I'm starting to believe; I'm starting to take Kiwis at their word. I'm starting to think they are this strange breed of homo sapien that thinks it is their duty to be kind to perfect strangers. Time will tell. I need more data. Later that evening Betsy and I had dinner in our new chairs. Toward the end of dinner, a car pulled by our site and stopped. A man inside waved me over. "Where do you sleep?" Oh, we've got this great station wagon see, and this mattress in the back makes a great bed... "We've got a spare bed in the trailer. There's no point in you two sleeping out here." This was how we met Treav, as in Treavor. "You're welcome to use the place whenever you like." Huh? Use your place? What do you want? Is this where you say you just need my credit card number? Treav turned off the engine and got out to explain. Meanwhile, Angie went inside to get us a pair of keys to the place. "Just come in whenever you like. Actually, come on in right now. We'll show you the spare bed. There's also a DVD player you can use..." Goodness gracious. Betsy and I laughed with humility, embarassment, disbelief. "You'll have to excuse us," I said, "we're not used to this kind of raw generosity." Sure enough, they were just being that generous. Today when they left, to head back to their home, they instructed us that it made no sense for their trailer to "just sit there." We are to keep the key, and use their "bach" (holiday home). We are to sleep in the spare bed, use the DVD player, or "just get out of the sun." To be clear: they left us a key to their vacation home, to use at our discretion, when we're not sitting in our lawn chairs, or at Dan's house in Rotorua.

I'm humbled by these people. Maybe humanity has a chance after all. We're thinking of staying in Tauranga, at the Beachgrove Holiday Park, for awhile. If we stay long enough, I'm thinking maybe someone will give us a boat.