Christchurch

Christchurch Quake, 10 years on

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

My 9 and 10-year-old students filed into the room today. 

“Where’s William?” one asked.

“He’s gone to the earthquake memorial,” I answered.

“What earthquake?”

I explained about the series of quakes Canterbury had endured, starting in September 2010 and including the one on 22 February 2011 that killed 185 people. These children had been babies at the time, or not even born yet.

“People died?” Fear shone in the girl’s eyes.

“Was it scary?” asked another child.

I paused, the memory of that day and the days after it playing through my mind.

“Yes. It was scary.”

“Even more scary than Covid? More scary than lockdown?”

Well … different.

These children were born into a quake-damaged city. A broken Christchurch is all they’ve ever known. They do not understand the ‘before’ and ‘after’ we adults do. They grew up in a landscape slowly settling into quiescence, and don’t know the sudden rupture of the solid foundation of life beneath them.

Or perhaps they do. Covid has shaken their world as much as the Canterbury quakes shook ours ten years ago. Perhaps they are not as physically rattled as we were, but their lives are disrupted, and life as they knew it is gone.

Ten years on from the quakes, the city’s scars are still visible. Empty lots remain where buildings once stood; the cathedral stands half-collapsed; in some places, shipping containers still protect passersby from the risk of building collapse.

But the quakes gave us opportunities to rethink the city. We now have more green space along the river. We have a spectacular central library that serves as a community hub. We have the Margaret Mahy playground, the High Street eateries, pocket parks, art and community spaces that didn’t exist pre-quake. We’ve got the Dance-O-Mat!

Covid hasn’t brought down our physical structures, but it has devastated social structures worldwide. It has shone a light on our ‘essential’ workers, highlighting that many are the most underpaid and overexploited people in society. It has emphasised the critical roles played by schools and preschools, whose staff are historically underpaid and poorly supported. It has highlighted the importance of local communities, science-based decision making, and disaster planning. It has reminded us painfully of the imbalance in gender roles and expectations in our society.

We need to allow Covid to change us as much as the earthquakes did. We need to let it drive us to rethink our values, our society, our expectations. Encourage us to find new ways to live our lives, to reflect upon those things we should be valuing more.

In the days and weeks after the February quake, help poured into Christchurch, much of it grassroots efforts by individuals or small groups. As a community, we remembered what we had perhaps forgotten in our daily rush and bustle. What is the most important thing in the world? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata! The people, the people, the people.

Disaster allows us to rise again, remade. Let us remember the lessons of the past as we move forward and envision a post-Covid world in which we remember what is most important. 

Why I Write

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

When my year eight students first learned I’m a writer, they wanted to know why I was teaching, since I must be rich.

JK Rowling, you have a lot to answer for.

Of course, the reality is, most authors need second and third jobs to make ends meet.

So why do we write?

I can’t answer for other writers, but truth is, I’m trying hard to turn my writing into a viable business. I would love to be able to make a living as a full-time writer. 

But that’s not why I write, nor is it the most important measure of success in my opinion.

More important to me are comments like these from readers and readers’ mums:

“I haven’t seen my son this excited by a book since Harry Potter!”
“I read your book in one day!”
“Three generations of our family read and loved your book.”
“My son’s not a big reader, but he’s devouring your books.”
“My kids sat with a map, tracing the travels of your characters.”
“You brightened our days.”
“Your books are as re-readable as Harry Potter.”
“You’re my favourite author.”

To me, one positive comment from a satisfied reader is worth a thousand sales. As a writer, I want to share worlds, introduce new friends, and communicate ideas. I want to make people feel things. If I’ve done that, it is enough.

Would it be nice to also be able to pay the mortgage with my writing? You bet. Maybe someday I will.

New Zealand punches above its weight when it comes to writers, and there are lots of local authors writing great books for kids. Come out and support them at the Tamariki Book Festival on 22 November. Who knows? You may meet your next favourite author!

Stand Together, Every Day

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

It has been a difficult few days for all of us here in Christchurch. Shock. Horror. Sadness. Fear. Anger. We have been through so many emotions, it’s hard to know what we are feeling at any given moment.

But one emotion has come to the fore—love. 

Even before we understood the full scope of the horror unleashed in our midst, ordinary people were mobilising to help. Within hours, there were community Facebook groups organising walking buddies and rides for those who felt unsafe on the streets. Other pages were organising meals for the families of victims. Donations poured in on multiple Give-a-little pages (when I went to one of them to donate, less than 48 hours after the attack, the total was already well over $3 million). The NZ Red Cross quickly announced they had plenty of blood after being inundated with donors. People from all over the city left flowers at the police cordons outside the mosques.

Everywhere, people stood together in love.

It’s something Christchurch is good at. We’ve had a lot of practice coming together in the face of adversity in recent years.

It’s tempting to focus on this outpouring of support, to acknowledge the love, and reject the attacker as the enemy. It’s tempting to look at the last three days and pat ourselves on the back for how we’ve responded.

But no matter how good we are at standing together in adversity, the fact is, we’re not good at standing together in the normal times.

We still speak of the Muslim community as though it is separate from the rest of the community. And it is. We need to ask ourselves why. What unacknowledged biases keep us apart? What unacknowledged prejudice prevents us from reaching out to one another in friendship in the good times? Why do we use our differences as an excuse to stay separate, rather than as an encouragement to enrich our lives by learning from one another?

Facing these questions may be uncomfortable—the answers will reveal things we may not want to acknowledge about ourselves—but we must confront them. The man who attacked on Friday may not have been a New Zealander, but there is no question the same attitudes are present here. They are fed by our separateness, fed by our unwillingness to stand up against the little things—the racist comments, the perpetuated stereotypes, the marginalisation of those who may look different to ourselves. These little actions nurture hate. Only by vocally and visibly standing together in the good times can we prevent this from happening again.

Today, wherever you are in the world, step out of your comfort zone. Reach out to someone different from you—make a new acquaintance, a new friend. Shut down an off-colour joke. Push back against a racist comment. Show your love. 

Kia kaha katoa.

Stay strong. Stand together, every day.

Upcoming Events!

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

This Saturday, 24 November, will be a great day for book lovers in Christchurch! Two great events will be running all day. I’ve teamed up with author Jo Carson-Barr, so we’ll both have a presence at each event.

Jo will be meeting readers and selling both our books at the Wham Bam Author Jam, at the Addington Raceway from 10 to 4. Lots of other authors will be there, too, from New Zealand and Australia. It’s a great chance to discover some new authors and books!

Get tickets and more info

I’ll be at the Tamariki Book Festival in Raoura Park from 10 to 3, along with a bunch of other local authors. The Festival includes readings (mine is at 10.20 am), activities for kids (including a scavenger hunt with prizes!), and opportunities for kids of all ages to do a little creative writing of their own. I’ll have live insects for kids to check out, and will talk about how I use science in my creative writing. I’ll also be selling my books and Jo’s.

Get more info about the festival

 

Geek 1: Fear 0

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I was in Christchurch for an all-day workshop on Saturday. The closest all-day parking was in the Art Gallery carpark. I resisted the idea of parking there. I never liked basement carparks, even before the 2010-2011 earthquakes, and I like them even less now.

Stupid, I thought. Time to get over this fear. Thousands of people park in multi-storey and basement carparks every day in this city. I can do it for one day.

I dove into the carpark, leapt out of my car, and practically sprinted to the exit. I was dismayed to find the pedestrian exit was through a couple of doors, down a corridor, and up a flight of stairs.

But just as I was about to climb the stairs, I noticed one of the seismic base isolators the building is equipped with. The geek in me overrode the scaredy cat, and I had to stop to snap a photo.

These isolation units are a cool piece of technology. They essentially decouple the building from the ground, so that when the earth shakes, the building stays still. In a quake, the top and bottom plates of the unit slide contrary to one another—the building’s inertia keeps the top plate relatively still while the lower plate jiggles around.

The isolation units were retrofitted to the art gallery (along with lots of other repairs) after the 2010-2011 earthquakes.

According to the manufacturer’s website, the Triple Pendulum Bearings like those installed in the Art Gallery are designed to dampen the wide range of lateral vibrations from small, medium, and large quakes. They don’t make the building completely quake-proof, but they did make me more comfortable leaving my car there for the day.

22 February 2011

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

100_0076 smToday is the fifth anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake that killed 185 people and brought life as we knew it to a grinding halt.

It was the day my husband insisted we get cell phones.

It was the day I started posting details of my whereabouts on the fridge every morning, just in case I didn’t make it home.

Our house was fine (anything vulnerable to quakes had been destroyed by the September 2010 quake), and we watched in dismay as news of the destruction and death in town trickled out to us. We watched the rescue helicopters fly over, ferrying patients to Dunedin.

When we loaded the car with tools and food and drove to the eastern suburbs two days later to do what we could to help, we were stunned by the destruction.

Five years later, those eastern suburbs are still struggling, and life for all of us is fundamentally changed.

New Zealand sits on the Ring of Fire. It was built by the Ring of Fire. Earthquakes and volcanoes are simply what happens here.

Do earthquakes frighten me? I don’t know if frighten is the right word, but I will admit to a surge of adrenaline with every tremor. I admit that whenever I enter a new room or building now, I immediately assess earthquake hazards, shelter, and exits. I’ve lost my love of cliffs and caves, replaced by wariness and visions of falling rocks. I still pause at the sound of a loud rumble, poised to dive under the table until it resolves into the sound of a truck.

I suppose we could leave New Zealand. We could move back to the U.S., to live on firmer ground.

But, much as I hate to admit it about my homeland, there is an ugly culture of fear in the U.S. When a presidential candidate can preach a doctrine of hatred, misogyny, and racism and gain in the polls, that feels like a betrayal. When schools are patrolled by armed guards, it is an outrage. When violence against each other is considered normal, there has been a failure of humanity and society.

But in an earthquake, there is no malice. Though it may cause great destruction, it is impersonal. It is simply the earth doing what the earth does. An earthquake is not a betrayal. It is not an outrage. It is not a failure of humanity and society.

Not that bad people don’t do bad things in New Zealand—there is racism, sexism, and violence here, too. But here I need not wonder who is packing heat on the street. Children walk to school. Fear of each other does not pervade life.

And so I choose earthquakes. I choose the destruction and stress, the uncertainty, and the inconvenience. And if someday the earth should shrug me off as it shifts to a more comfortable position, I’m okay with that.