A Dubai-born beauty queen and nurse
I am Valentine and I am 27. I was born in Dubai, because my parents lived there after they got married, and I lived there for 10 years before we moved here.
But I’m actually Indian. Oh, but I’ve got Portuguese ancestry.
Mum and a couple of friends travelled to Dubai for work, they worked in office accounts and Dad works in the oil field, which brought us to Taranaki.
So just before my 11th birthday, we moved to New Plymouth. That’s probably about the age that you probably want to move children, I’d say now.
Back then I kind of didn’t really understand very much except for, I won’t get to see all these people again, you have to go to a new school and all of that.
But it was good. It was very different. Because in Dubai there are high-rise buildings and people everywhere and then to come in here, and you see green everywhere.
So it was definitely a culture shock to begin with. But I really enjoyed it as a child coming here and making new friends.
I was always shy, so I was unsure about how I was going to talk to people to make friends, but it seemed to work very easily, people were really, really accepting and really nice.
I started off at St John Bosco before I went to Sacred Heart.
Once I finished at Sacred Heart, I went to Dunedin for a couple of years, kind of still testing waters as to what I wanted to do, before I returned to New Plymouth to study nursing.
So I’m now a qualified nurse, a theatre nurse at Southern Cross.
When I returned from
Dunedin I did a bit of pageant work for a little bit. Which I never thought I’d do, because it’s totally opposite. I hated wearing dresses when I was little.
I did it through Turning Point with Lois Finderup and I did
Miss World New Zealand and went to South Korea and was also crowned Miss India NZ.
I was actually forced into it by Lois and Mum, and I was kind of like, it’s a bit much. It involves being around a lot of people, but I ended up winning that, which was, you know, how did that happen?
But it was, it was definitely a good experience.
Because you’re meeting people from different places, when you go to the national level, the international level, and you just see how differently people are brought up. It was a huge learning experience, and it definitely boosted my confidence.
I prefer to stay in Taranaki now, this is home for me with my partner Ryan. I like that it’s a lot smaller now that I’m used to small.
Everyone’s really friendly, but it’s just a lot more family oriented here, you don’t see a lot of people my age, I guess.
I mean you get the school kids, and then a few people sort of after that, but most people have gone to bigger cities to work.
I visited Dubai once about four or five years ago, and India every so often because I’ve got family there.
But when I went to Dubai, after all those years, everything was different. Completely different, everything had changed. I couldn’t recognise very much.
Taranaki has changed a lot in 16 years, walking down the street, you meet so many different people of so many different cultures.
So it’s actually quite amazing to see, you know, how diverse we are, we do have a lot of cultures living here.
As told to Stephanie Ockhuysen.