Wooden Arms

By: Sarah Johnson
Location: PIC JOH


This is a great story, a story of an emerging nation, a small Marae that has arms that embrace its whanau, a gathering point, a place of fun, warmth and laughter, but this building then goes on a journey as it continues to embrace all its colourful inhabitants, and as they move on, another user comes and feels the security this building gives. It ends up like our own nation, as the home for many, a rainbow of cultures, feeling the safety and history of the building whose wooden arms have nurtured the past and now the present. It is a story about a settlement, that grows into a town, then a city and reflects the nation, but always reflecting back to it origin, a gathering place of people to be together. Nau mai, haere mi.