May 19, 2013 in Tauranga, New Zealand
Bloody heathens? What did we do to warrant that kind of abuse? We mispronounced Mt. Maunganui, that’s what we did. “I can sell you the Mt. Maunganui Gold bread, but first I need to teach you to pronounce it correctly” he told us. We copied him, he congratulated us on being fast learners, and then we mangled it again, just because we’re rude yanks. “Bloody heathens” he told us as he handed us our bread. This made my day.
It was all in fun and all very good natured. The people in New Zealand are quick, smart and have an incredible sense of humor. They also have Maori names for everything that are very hard to pronounce – at least for us. Take “Whakarewarewa” for instance. That’s a town nearby. Lets see… ‘wh’ is pronounced like an ‘f’ and… oh, never mind. We just call it that ‘W’ place with the long name. -Rich, the bloody heathen.
