I hate being a te reo failure

Ihate Ma¯ ori Language Week. Not because I dislike the language, the people or the culture, but because it reminds me of how much of a failure I am.

I identify as Ma¯ ori, always have. My grandparents and my parents are both Ma¯ ori, although they don’t look it from their skin colour, and I’m proud of both my iwi – Ka¯ i Tahu and Nga¯ Rauru, a mix of both North and South Island.

When I stayed at my Nan and Koko’s most weekends as a child he and his brothers would speak to each other in te reo Ma¯ ori around the kitchen table, a mixture of korero, laughter, countless cups of tea and cigarette smoke.

I’m immensely proud of my wha¯ nau’s heritage. Their accomplishments and struggles have helped shape the person I am today. Yet inside I feel as though I’ve let them all down.

The reason for feeling this guilt is simple: I can’t speak my own language. Te reo is the foundation of what it means to be Ma¯ ori and the basis of the culture itself, yet I can barely string a sentence together in it.

And it’s not like I didn’t try; I took Ma¯ ori at Ha¯ wera High School up until Year 11, then it got a bit hard and stupidly I thought where in the hell am I ever going to use this? Why should I bother?

Despite my parents’ protests I dropped the subject and it’s a decision I regret. To this day I often wonder if I had stayed on and done the hard mahi (work) where it would have taken me.

As it turns out, in my work as a reporter for Stuff there have been countless times where speaking te reo would have helped. Instead, I’ve often ended up either confused, bluffed my way through or not quite got the gist of some things that were said.

I know a few words and can sometimes pick these up when people are speaking te reo, but for the most part when I go to a marae or a function instead of knowing the tikanga (protocol) and what is being said I’ll often sit there feeling like a total stranger, isolated in an environment where I should feel the most comfortable.

When my 6-year old son comes home from school some days and sings a waiata (song) or the words to a haka he has learnt, I should be able to sing along with him or show him the meaning of the haka and how to perform it but I will often end up just feeling really guilty that I can’t.

My wife and I try to tell both our children they need to learn te reo Ma¯ ori and to be proud of who they are, but what use is that if we both can’t speak it? What sort of role models are we really?

However, on Tuesday my nearly 2-year-old daughter and I are going to Taiporohenui Marae, near

Ha¯ wera, on a visit organised by her early childhood centre.

And while I may not know what is being said I am hopeful it may be the catalyst I need to get back to learning the reo and in the process help reconnect both wha¯ nau and I with our culture. Because you never know when you’ll need it.