A surprise appointment!

June 24:
TodayI had a surprise visit with a school principal in Remuera, at Meadowbank Primary school.  Val discovered it for me.  I took the bus out there then walked through a lovely neighborhood to what appeared to be a rather small school.  I had to wait a bit for recess and the staff meeting to quit, then Peter Ayson came out to greet me. we exchanged some basic information about our schools, then he shared some interesting facts about how NZ schools function financially and ideologically.  they get basic funding from the government and some guidelines on what to teach, but are given self-governance.  They are free to raise money as they wish.  so this school actually is it's own business in order to do all they are able to do for the students (PTA raises $100K annually etc.)

what I was there to see were the gardens and sustainable practices.  so we went for a walk...or a hike!  It was a much larger campus thAn it appeared to be from the street.  There are about 750 students in 2 sections of the campus divided by the "bush-gully."
yes:BUSH-GULLY!  Or more like a bush-gully-jungle!!!  so we first toured the upper campus with it's light open rooms, compost, recycle and reg. Trash containers everywhere and the wood fired oven on the field for baking pizzas with veggies from the gardens.  everywhere they had gardens, tucked into every little nook.  the kids tend them with help from three part time staff members.  trekking down the far side of the buildings, we started to descend into the bush-gully.  A well-built trail took us into a jungle of tree ferns, vines, many species of trees I am unfamiliar with, redwoods, etc.  It was raining, but it could hardly be felt under the canopy. Peter gave me a run for my money through the winding trail while he explained how students over the years had planted more than 7000 trees to create this nearly native forest. There was a wonderful jungle amphitheater, a Maori medicinal garden, a stream with fish at the bottom, a suspension bridge over the top!  when we hiked up the far side, we came upon the buildings for K-3. I was taken around the far back side to find old bathtubs suspended on wooden frames with wooden, hinged covers.  Peter quickly opened one and dug through new half-eaten apples and banana peels to show me the worms in the enormous worm compost trough!  the drain allows a rich compost tea to leak into large buckets that can poured into the garden soil.  WOW, a garden dreamer's dream!  I also saw a portable building that was being turned into a garden kitchen!  Two days per week kids already help prepare lunch with food from their gardens!   Peter suggested that we may be able to make an online partnership between his school and some elementary school in my district....

Definitely a blessed appointment!  More later about my difficulties with the NZ English language :-)