Canterbury at the beginning of the year

I would love to start my blogging in a more positive note than this but I just can't. The Cantabrians have endured enough lately. Mother-nature shook the ground violently beneath them twice and the second time was so violent that many lives were lost.

On the morning of 22 February 2010, I was attending an auction in Auckland. Then just after 11.30pm, the auctioneer announced that there had been an earthquake in Christchurch and the iconic cathedral had been badly damaged. I must say that at that moment, none of us showed any signs of shock or grief and we continued with the auction. None of us knew the gravity of the quake.

It was when I returned home that afternoon and switched on the TV that I realised what had happened to Christchurch and its people. All of a sudden, I was overwhelmed by shock, fright and grief. Watching the news day long became a daily ritual for me, for the next one week. The lives of the quake victims became the topic of discussion with friends.

There have been moments when I used to feel like crying, but as a man, you always try to portray strength. Eventually a few days later, my heart just gave in and I wept for 30 minutes. I was not sure why I was weeping, was it due to my current emotional, financial and family circumstances, or was it the troubled beautiful faces of my fellow Kiwis, my fellow species that I see on the TV? I don't know.

As New Zealanders, we are very friendly and empathetic. But most of all we are a family. We are there for each other in times of need. That is what we Kiwis saw in ourselves in the wake of the quake. We are one small country but one very strongly bonded population.

I am now prouder to be a New Zealander than I have ever been before !