Naturopathy

Today we met at our new venue for the first time, the Te Nikau Chapel, and just like the Women's Centre it is a lovely place to meet up in. Although there was just little toys available (thanks to Yossarian for the ones she provided), the kids soon found games to play and entertain themselves - you wouldn't believe what joy a ball and a few soft toys can bring. Thanks to Annie they were also supervised at all times so we could listen to Kerstin's talk about Naturopathy.

 

After Kerstin finally found the chapel - it is indeed a bit tricky :) - we got a brief but valuable insight into what Naturopathy is and how it works. In a world so full of technology and new inventions we forget to treasure the simple things. Doctors are neither gods nor magicians and sometimes going back to what nature provides us with - unless we exploit it too much - is just what we need to do. For our bodies' sake.

I really appreciated Kerstin to take some time to talk to us today. For me it was very informative and I'll definitely keep Naturopathy in mind the next time I feel unwell.

 

Enjoy your weekend and keep well! Eva

 

Oxfam's Biggest Coffee Break

One of the first things you notice after moving to New Zealand is Kiwi's love affair with the roasted coffee bean. New Zealand is one of the largest per capita coffee consumers in the world and not only are there cafes and coffee kiosks wherever you go, there are plenty of roaster's producing their own blends too. It seems most of us from the group have grown a big 'coffee tooth' since moving to New Zealand as our regular monthly children free 'coffee and cake' event is usually super popular.

Last Friday night we tried to blend into this Kiwi coffee blend craziness again - this time with a bit of Fair Trade flavour sprinkled on top.  We met at Branka's place to mark Oxfam’s Biggest Coffee Break http://www.oxfamcoffeebreak.org.nz/. This is an annual event which takes place during Fair Trade Fortnight (May 7-22), and aims at raising awareness of Fair Trade in New Zealand as well as money for Oxfam's work.

While there appear to be almost indefinite ways you could have your New Zealand cuppa - late, soy late, flat black, long black, flat white, mochocinno, cappochino, espresso - we joined with a standard homely 'coffee with milk' style. For the ones whose 'coffee tooth' still didn't come out, there was a fair trade hot chocolate and of course some homemade cakes.  We also watched "Living with Coffee", a documentary about Colombian coffee producers and NZ coffee roasters and have raised NZ$60 for Oxfam.

Felting in the Sunshine

Last Friday we had the Felting workshop, hosted by Ursa and run by Ursa and Mae.  Thanks so much both of you and thanks Ursa for writing this week's blog entry.  Think this may be a good recurring theme - one of us take turns to write a wee paragraph to add on here.

On our get together on Friday we were blessed with sun so we could do what we had planned - making felt balls. After short tea and snack time, we rolled up our sleeves, filled our buckets with some hot soapy water and started with the making of our own wet felted balls. Kids were enthusiastically the first ones on a mission to form the balls from raw unspun wool... and after some time handed it over to mums. In the company of nice people the time just flew and then it was again time to say "see you on the next meeting"!