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Roger Rabbits with |
It’s not a ghetto. Not yet. Not a slum. Not quite. Not teeming with disadvantaged and displaced.
More of a shantytown – makeshift dwellings from assorted “crap” – cardboard, corrugated iron, pallet wood, plastic sheeting. Anything scrambled off the street and thrown together as a shelter in a crazy, chaotic and sad attempt to keep warm and dry.
At best ugly, and an eyesore. At worst, a sad statement about how some of us live. “Hovel-ton” is a pathetic array of shacks wedged into a copse of trees, a thicket, on a tight corner bounded by the Kopurererua Stream that spills into the Waikareao Estuary on one side, and the 40,000 or so cars and trucks powering up and down Takitimu Drive on the other.
At 80km/h they might get a glimpse of the problem at the gateway to the CBD. “Haere Mai – Welcome to Hovel-ton. And homelessness.”
Unwashed, empty belly
If the squatter settlers turned east and looked up over the motorway, they’d gaze on very expensive Avenues real estate on top of the cliff. But they probably have no need to do that. Why kick yourself when you’re down? The “have lots”, and the “have very little or nothing”. There’s probably no envy. I’m told they’re happy roughing. They just want to be left alone. Don’t want to be bothered.
Except ... “You got any of those vouchers?” She’s perhaps in her early 20s, a tousle of tumble-out-of-bed hair and desperately protecting her dignity by grabbing at her grubby oversized trackpants. She needs a hot shower, clean clothes. And food vouchers. And a little love, care and understanding perhaps.
She points to her “home” in a thicket. “No, it’s not cold.” She doesn’t know how long she’s been squatting there. No, she doesn’t feel unsafe. She just wants the vouchers. That’s her immediate need.
If she turned west, there’s a sight that won’t fill an unwashed, empty belly, but it’ll warm the spirit. The sun’s dancing and shimmering on the waters of the Waikarearo – “sparkling waters of the new day”. It’s a sight that would sit comfortably on the cover of one of those real estate supplements. “Fulfill your dream, magic estuary views, riparian rights …etc.”
A gazillion times (sidehead)
At least one of the shacks is right at the water’s edge. It’s a privilege the squatters have assumed a right to. However, you and I just walk, run and cycle right on past. We don’t get lulled asleep by a lapping tide, or wake to a twinkling light show on the mudflats, and the squawking and shrieking of the marsh dwellers.
Their neighbours could be those who live eternally on Motuopae Island – the forbidding, deeply sacred and spiritual burial ground. I wonder what the spirits might make of the interlopers among the trees? Hopefully, they’re welcoming, understanding and protective spirits.
I have walked, run and cycled the 9km Daisy Harwick loop a gazillion times. At dawn, at dusk, in all its moods – to exercise, wander, ponder, to reflect, clear the head, or draw inspiration. You don’t need a prescription. A dose of Daisy Hardwick works every time. Sui generis! On its own!
Huddle of the luckless
That was until shantytown, until “Hovel-ton”. Until a brush with a squatter. I had approached the huddle of the luckless from Waihi Rd on a walk one day. A cluster of ramshackle lean-tos, bivouacs, huts, tents, whatever, all semi-shrouded in the thickest parts of the thickets. They hide but they can’t hide.
I did a double-take at of a vehicle, with an awkward awning structure attached, in a carpark off the Waihi Rd ramp to Takitimu Drive. At the time, a temporary structure gaining permanence. How long can someone live in a carpark, even if self-contained, before being deemed persona non grata? Before being moved on?
There was stuff everywhere, accumulated stuff. Junk. Other people’s junk that had found usefulness. There were even road cones staking out the claim – a nod to health and safety.
Raised middle digits
A guy spied me watching and started yelling and waving like a tarmac marshal. I waved back … until I saw two raised middle digits. Menacing. Suddenly I was an intruder. “What’s your f***ing trouble?” he yelled.
Once upon a time I would prattle on, to anyone who would listen, about the waves beating a tattoo on Daisy’s seawall, the birdlife recital through McCardles Bush, the cotton wool fog on the mangroves at dawn, and the country’s fifth biggest city careening to work down Takitimu Drive. It’s an experience. Was an experience. Now I’m being told to “f*** off”.
I suppose the copse is their copse too, public land, their public land too. Just be nice, be respectful, and enjoy it for as long as need be. Live and let live.