FMD, University of Waikato Issue No: 108 – November/December 2012
Well here we are, less than two weeks out from another Christmas break, and once again it’s been a year of much activity. There have
been a lot of great things done by many people and there have also been some sad moments. Included in the sad moments are firstly the death of Noble (very unexpectedly in May) and many will remember him for his quiet presence around the campus, and particularly around the Hillcrest Road area. Fairly soon thereafter there was the death of Charlie in July. Charlie left late last year recognising that his illness was terminal and made the most of the time he had left. Quite a number of us went to the ceremony in Raglan and it was clear he had a big impact on a wide range of people. From everything I hear he had a very big impact on the people in FMD and around the University as well. Additionally, during September my wife died while we were overseas in Samoa, and she had been a presence that was seen around the division quite frequently by many, and I wish to reiterate my thanks to all who assisted in whatever way over what was, and frankly still is, a difficult time. To finish on a more positive note, both Karleen and Ray have won awards this year. Karleen has won the Health & Safety Award for 2012 and Ray has won an Administrative Excellence Award as well as the Vice‐Chancellor’s Medal for Staff Excellence. They are both to be thoroughly congratulated and in Karleen’s case the H&S work is over and above her normal duties and as such it’s really great she performs it so well that it gets recognised in this manner. In Ray’s case the award is for his work in security, parking and Incident Management and if I had to pick one word to describe Ray’s approach it would be “professionalism”. There are many other words as well but that word really exemplifies the way in which he performs this frequently quite arduous task. Karleen and Ray exemplify the peak of the recognition of FMD staff during the year but everyone has contributed to the year and I thank you for it. A trip down South ‐‐‐ By Tony Dicks My wife and I recently had a two‐week trip to the South Island – what wonderful scenery! We also got to visit our son and friends in Christchurch as well as friends in Oamaru and in Dunedin. Of course some of the most dramatic scenes were those in Christchurch – all those empty sections, broken buildings, uneven roads and sidewalks, detours and deviations – they all give a little insight into the devastation that the people of that city have endured. Christchurch – in one of the sections left vacant when the house was demolished the community have used a disused fridge to establish a community library – just place and take as you wish! We are supposed to be having a very good summer so go and enjoy it, and we will return in the New Year, hopefully refreshed and with new challenges once more, in the year leading up to the University’s 50th Anniversary celebrations in 2014. The very sad sight of the cathedral which is almost Best wishes for Christmas & the New Year. ‐‐‐ Regards, John beyond saving – see the shipping containers which are being used to support the side walls. Picture taken at the Staff Excellence Awards Presentations 4/12/12 – L‐R: Craig & Karleen Purchase and Maxine & Ray Hayward
This used to be a very even and tidy asphalt driveway serving a row of houses, now it’s a real adventure to traverse. Reflections on Laos ‐‐‐ By Rachael Goddard Laos is a landlocked country of 6 million, boarded by China, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. Luang Prabang is the largest town in the North with 50,000 population, and a mix of almost 200 different ethnic hill tribes. It is also a UNECSO world heritage site. On first impression it is a dusty run down town with old French colonial architecture, stalls and markets on every main street and mangy dogs sprawled across the footpaths and roads. Explore a little further and there are over 30 ancient 15thC wats (temples) painted white red and gold, huge statues of Buddha’s covered in gold leaf, surrounded by candles and offerings of sticky rice balls, and hundreds of shaven headed orange robed monks collecting alms, and children playing and laughing in schools and riding scooters side saddle. A trip on the Mekong in slow boat took us to the Cave of a Thousand Buddha’s. I don’t know if there were 1000 Buddha’s, but there sure were a thousand tourists! We were also taken to a small village that made whiskey. Unfortunately the flagons of whiskey also contained dead scorpions, cobras, centipedes and snakes, and to my utter dismay, bear paws. The Mekong is a heavily polluted river, with chronic erosion and rife faecal input, sewage flows untreated into the river, and is then used for washing, cooking and cleaning. We should have made this connection with water quality and sanitation when before having ice in our drinks! We visited waterfalls and swam in the delightful cool, clean turquoise waters, or so we thought. We weren’t to realise until we leaving, that tourists were given rides on elephants straight into the water where we swam, and promptly used it as a latrine (the elephants, not the tourists). Huge green football sized elephant poohs floated and bobbed in the water right past the swimmers. The highlight of our trip was a day at Elephant Village, home to 11 elephants that had been rescued, or given a few years reprieve from logging. Elephants are bigger close up than you think, especially when you are expected to jump onto one of them from the ground. The mighty grey Chang (elephant) is trained to raise its leg for you to step up onto, then supposedly nimbly fling yourself onto its back. Alas, my first attempt failed in a fit of giggles as I slid all the way back to the ground. The elephants are trained to spray you with water in the river, and dunk under the surface to tip you off. This of course was great fun until we realised the water was thick as soup from all of the Chang’s poohing and we were getting a face and mouthful of it! We trekked through a village and forest and then back to camp where I fed May Hmong (my elephant) sugar cane and banana. I had mixed feelings about the experience. It was fun and wonderful to be perched on top of a mighty patient beast whilst it plodded along and bathed in the river. On the other hand it was a monotonous existence for these intelligent animals, yet it had to be better than logging. After three days, the untreated water of the ice got me, or it could have been the elephant poo in the mouth, or even the meat I consumed which was likely left in the sun whilst flies crawled all over it. Anyhows I was prostrate in bed, doubled up, stomach churning and burning with turds turned to water. Laos is a complex country with many issues and an ugly history. It is the most heavily bombed country in the world. US Bombers Great names in business dropped 260 million bombs on Laos during the Vietnam War. Bombs were dropped every 8 minutes, 24 hours for 9 years,  ‘I Stand Corrected’ would be a great name for a costing $6.5Billion over the period of the Secret War. Even now bombs are still exploding as innocent farmers and their children chiropractic business. plough their fields, or paths erode and bombs are stepped on. Of the 75 million bombs that failed to detonate, less than 1  A soup company whose slogan is, ‘We do what we can percent have been cleared. Around 300 Lao people are injured or killed every year by these weapons, with 50,000 amputees and we can what we do’. since the Vietnam War from UXO (unexploded ordinance).  There is a Chinese restaurant in my town called ‘Wok on In 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War, the communist government banned tourists until 1990. The communist regime also burnt most of the books during this period, which means now that books are still rare and highly prized. I took a bag of children’s science books with me a distributed them to schools and a library. We met a young woman from NZ who was a vet. She had left her job to try to save bears from bile harvesting. This is a nauseating and cruel practice where bears are incarcerated in tiny I’m Obi, here I cages and drained several times a day for their bile which the am eyeing up Chinese believe has powerful properties. Blair’s supper, I worry for Laos culture with mass tourism expected to change things yummy dramatically in the next few years. Casinos and strip clubs are Christmas cake, I anticipated. just about had a free treat but got Laos is a beautiful country which has been racked by an inane caught at the last political war, corruption, and is fenced by a bureaucratic flawed minute, Oh well, systems and an uncertain future that relies on tourism, which better luck next I suspect will be to the detriment of its unique culture. time!
Facilitation will be produced monthly. This publication is available online (where the pictures are a lot clearer) at http://www.waikato.ac.nz/fmd/
For communications relating to the FMD newsletter please contact Judy Swetman, ext 4980, email [email protected].