Timaru man ‘trying to be patient’ in wait for family
‘‘My plan was to bring her here, but she can’t come here at the moment because of the virus.’’
Stringent border controls mean Taubukintaai Kaaboka has no idea when he will get to hold his son for the first time.
The 27-year-old Timaru man is ‘‘trying to be patient’’ as he awaits the day he can bring fiance´e Meretia and their 7-month-old son, Tiotaake, from their home country of Kiribati to live with him in New Zealand.
‘‘It’s really hard for me. I don’t want to leave them behind,’’ Kaaboka said. ‘‘We talk every day.’’
While it had been about 10 years since Kaaboka left Kiribati for New Zealand, he met his partner online two years ago.
Connecting over their shared birthplace, they chatted for a long time before agreeing to meet in Fiji, where Meretia was studying. The first and last time they saw each other was towards the end of 2019, when their son was conceived and months before Covid-19 shut down the world.
‘‘By the time I got back, she said she was pregnant. I was so happy,’’ Kaaboka said.
‘‘My plan was to bring her here, but she can’t come here at the moment because of the virus.’’
Meretia had since moved back to Kiribati, a country in the central Pacific Ocean with a population of about 110,000 and no confirmed cases of Covid-19.
Kaaboka said he wanted his son to experience all the opportunities there were for children growing up in New Zealand.
His parents, four brothers, and four sisters also live in New Zealand. Last in Kiribati in 2017, he stayed for about three weeks and caught up with extended family.
Kaaboka, who moved to Timaru five years ago and works as a boner at meat processing plant Alliance Smithfield, became a New Zealand citizen during lockdown.
He was one of 26 people to be welcomed at a citizenship acknowledgment ceremony in the Timaru District Council chambers on Tuesday, for all those who received citizenship by mail during the Covid19 lockdown.
An Immigration New Zealand spokesman said Meretia would need to apply for and be granted a partnership visa, which INZ resumed processing in September, in order to be exempt from border restrictions.