Tania Brett

SUE WARDS

From happy and humble beginnings growing up in Wanaka’s deserted paradise, Tania Brett is inspiring a new generation of Wanaka young people to learn about Maori culture.

One of the few Ngai Tahu residents of Wanaka, Tania grew up on Warren Street in Wanaka, opposite the old school.

"It was just like Paradise - with nobody around,” Tania (42) said. Tania grew up barefoot and "always outside doing sporty things”. She remembers the school playground as her own backyard, having fun with the neighbourhood kids, and splashing in the old swimming pool at the Dinosaur Park.

"I used to just go down to the lake, that was my escape. Now I have to go all the way past Penrith to escape.”

She attended the Wanaka Area School before moving to the "brand new high school” (Mount Aspiring College) from form 2 (Year 8), when the roll was about 200 students.

She and her husband Lachy really were childhood sweethearts: they met at age 10 (in Noelene Pullar’s class). "I used to move my desk in line with his so I could see him,” Tania said. They started going out when they were 14. 

Now with three children (Melia, 11, Rahana, 8, and Kahu, 6), and a double degree from Otago University, Tania still has a special connection with Wanaka and a special role supporting Te Reo in the area.

Growing up in 1980s Wanaka there was a tangible contrast between the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy, Tania said. Her father Dave (who worked for the Pest Destruction Board) and mother Lyndal raised four girls: Nadine, Teneka (Bop), Tania and Cholena.

Tania remembers the "little things” - like wearing socks on her hands in the winter, not having an extra school blouse when hers got ripped, and having to front up to the school secretary to say she didn’t have the money for school ski days and suchlike.

"I think I grew up thinking ‘I want more than that’,” she said.

There was an extra stigma as one of Wanaka’s only Maori families, Tania said. "People expected us to speak Te Reo, sing it.” But the family had lost touch with their language. Tania’s maternal grandfather, for example, was strapped for speaking Maori at school and didn’t pass it on to his children.

"There was always something missing for us. I really wanted to get back to my Maori roots.”

Tania followed Lachy to Otago University and studied education papers with a Te Reo component, but struggled. "It’s never been an easy road for me, I’ve struggled with discipline. We were party people, not into education. There were times when I just wanted to give up. I was always on the back foot.”

Lachy suggested she take a year out to work for his father, dentist Steve Brett, back in Wanaka.

"His parents helped me heaps, I got inspired by both of them. They introduced me to this other side of life.”

Tania was motivated to return to university and earn a degree. "I loved learning, once I learned that I could actually learn! I always thought I couldn’t do it.”

Tania said her self-confidence came through sports (she has excelled at netball, basketball, softball, surfing - the list goes on), but with her new maturity she returned to university to take on a double degree (Bachelor of PE and Education).

Seven years later, in 2000, Tania graduated. She was the first in her family to attend university. "To me it was a really big milestone in my life - it was just a hard road. That was a huge thing for the whole whanau.”

She earned her black belt in karate the same year. Studying karate, which she took up as a teenager (Lachy started even younger), helped give her focus and discipline, she said.

After a few years teaching in coastal Otago, setting up a karate dojo with Lachy, and getting into the property market, homesickness for Wanaka became too strong.

"Lachy and I used to come back home in our university holidays. We’d go rock climbing; we used to bike up Mount Maude and we could see the area growing. I always wanted to come back. I missed the lake and mountains. I have a real sense of whanau here.”

The couple had planned a year of climbing in 2004. "Lachy and I got right into rock climbing and mountaineering.” (They had climbed Mt Aspiring in 1998.) She resigned from her teaching job and they prepared to move, then she became pregnant. Melia was born in 2005.

The couple lived next door to Tania’s parents when Melia was a baby, before moving to Tarras, and now Hawea Flat - opposite the school. "Because we grew up beside the school, that section was quite appealing to me.”

Tania has four lines of Maori blood: Ngai Tahu, Waitaha, Kahungungu and Katimamoe. "It’s been a huge journey for me to try to track it down.” She is mostly self-taught in Te Reo: "I’m still learning. I still feel like a beginner.”

Tania taught Te Reo part time at Tarras School for a few years and loved it. She is now relief teaching at MAC (PE and home room - she taught Te Reo last year) and teaching kapahaka with fellow teacher Kaz Saunders. "We take the kapahaka students every Wednesday at lunchtime and last period, supporting them in their waiata and haka.”

"Wanaka is monocultural, so it’s important to get the group out performing. It gives them a sense of community and belonging, it gives them the relationship with the community. I don’t want it to be tokenism, but if we’re just out there doing it, it will be part of the culture.”

The kapahaka group has become an impressive fixture in the community, with notable performances recently at the opening of the Wanaka Recreation Centre and the opening of Cardrona’s chondola - in freezing conditions.

The group is growing in popularity too, with as many as 35 members now.

Tania sees her role as supporting the group in the background, but she strongly believes in the visibility of Maori teachers. "I think it’s really important for Maori kids’ confidence. I’m Ngai Tahu: going into the classroom, being up there and being confident and happy, that can help other Maori people rise up.”

"I’m not the best Maori speaker, but I just do it. Often I say ‘yes’ to things that are way out of my comfort zone - it’s for my family, my kids, those others.”

She’s working with the college to incorporate the Maori values of aroha (love), whanau (family), and manakitanga (being a good host) in the school’s strategic direction. The well known Maori proverb sums it up best, she said: "He aha te mea nui o te ao - what is the most important thing in the world? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. It is the people, it is the people, it is the people.”

Tania is also the Maori liaison person, representing Ngai Tahu, on the Festival of Colour board of trustees. "I’m passionate about the Maori side. I really enjoy supporting them in that role, and I’d like to get more local Maori involved - we’re bringing in the kapahaka group as well.”

Tania’s doing her best to change that cultural aspect of her home town. Meanwhile the quiet town she grew up in has grown and changed in other ways. "I’m trying to embrace it, grow with it. I’m just learning to accept the changes.”

PHOTO: Supplied