Tēnei te mihi ki a koutou katoa,

This weekend Te Wairua Pūhou have their first noho of the year. Noho means to stay or live somewhere. From 7:00 p.m. this Friday night until 4:00 pm on Sunday we will be together to learn, practice and perfect our social relationship skills - whakawhanaukataka. Shared activities like games and kai help us to bond as a rōpū. We work on items we are performing at Te Hautonga (regional kapa haka competition). We have a sleepover at school - which sounds super cool but when you’re being woken up at 6:30 a.m. to run shuttles up View Street, it’s not exactly “cool”. In all seriousness, being in Te Wairua Pūhou is like having a whole other family and gives you a strong sense of belonging.

We’ll let you know how the noho went, but in the meantime, we are all backing our favourite groups and picking the winners at Matatini. Tonight the top twelve groups will be chosen from the fifty teams that are competing, and they will perform on Saturday. Check out the final day of Matatini prelims here: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/te-matatini-herenga-waka-herenga-tangata-prelims/episodes