Mt. Maunganui: an ART Desert

It´s been already 6 months since I settled at the Mt Maunganui. A long time for a traveler like me whose plan is to stay in New Zealand for just a while. Many will disagree with what I´m about to say, others might happen to coincide, but the Mount is not particularly popular for the Art it has to offer; it´s more regarded as a cultural desert, a place where no green sprouts naturally from the ground, but has to be mindfully planted.

I had the fortune of running into my artistic friend Vanessa as soon as I arrived to the Mt. After three unsuccessful check outs of different flats, all discharged for not liking the flatmates to be, I finally went to take a look at this last house. With my hopes to the ground, I arrived to this moldy one storey house, leading to a noisy road, with the loan up to my chin and bushes growing wildly in the front. Discouraged by the facade, I was just about to turn round and leave, when this girl with short brown hair in her mid twenties greeted me with a broad smile. She was using crutches and had a plaster in one of her feet because she had tore her ligaments a couple of months ago. Now, did you ever have this feeling of connecting with somebody from the very beginning? Did you ever feel this comfort with another person as soon as you locked eyes with them?

Vanessa and I got along from the very start. I moved into the moldy house that same day, no matter the funguses on the carpets nor the noise and cold coming from outside. I quickly got to know Vanessa more and discovered that she loved writing, just like me, and had recently created the Mount Writer´s Circle, precisely for not having enough artistic events or groups to attend in the Mount. I was her first member, and Monday after Monday, more people joined us and nowadays the Mount Writer´s Circle is flourishing, blooming and glimmering as well.

We have moved out from the moldy house and left two lovely flatmates behind, but we are now residing in a more inspiring place, full of light and fresh air, just two blocks away from the beach. If the Mountain doesn´t come to Mahomet, then Mahomet will have to walk to the mountain himself, and that´s what Vanessa and I are doing at the Mount Maunganui in regards to Art. We are currently writing a theatre play, apart from continuing with the Mount Writer´s Circle. We´ve organized Readings and Word Games in a café nearby, which have been very successful and might be repeated in the near future. We are trying to attend every artistic event that miraculously is held in town, such as “Story telling”, or “Improvisation nights”, such as “Poetry jam” or “Open micks”.

In the meantime, we are meeting very interesting people, all concerned about the lack of Art offered in the suburbs. And just like us, they are all initiating their own groups and organizing their own events. No matter your age, no matter how you express it, ART is meant to be conveyed, and if there are no means available out there, well, then you´ll have to create them yourself. If we follow this path, hopefully, the Mount with soon stop being a desert in between oceans, and will be known as the colorful Mt. Maunganui, where music sweeps you off your feet, where pictures and paintings dazzle your eyes and where words and stories just caramel your ears and drift you to a magical world.