What a month. February that is. Just when we thought we had got through the worst of the weather and had avoided being flooded- a crazy windstorm hit the area. Two trees on the property were blown over… right onto the power lines supplying the houses (ours and the landlords). Our power was cut off, and because of the flooding problems in the region, it took 3 days for it to be restored. But we survived- thank goodness for gym showers and kind friends…! And to be honest, I shouldn’t complain, as a development studies student I think should just take it as preparation for future work in developing countries!

But anyway, that is all now behind us. We are back into the routine of work and study. My thesis plans are coming along… I now think I have a topic (more about that another time) and a supervisor. One scholarship application is in, and I’m now awaiting the outcome. I should have started work on the proposal this weekend but got sidetracked updating this website instead. Hope you appreciate the effort!
I have started my final paper- last one before the thesis. “Personal and Community Health”. Not a Development Studies paper exactly but a cross-credit from the Health School. Shock horror- for the first time since nursing school I am studying with nurses! It’s very interesting to observe the difference in focus between nurses and development studies students. Both disciplines require an interest in others lives and a certain amount of compassion and caring, yet the focus is quite different.

Yesterday I handed in my first assignment for this course. We had to look at disadvantage and health status using a disadvantaged population group to focus our discussion. I chose to look at New Zealand Maori as a disadvantaged group- at all income, educational and occupational levels they have significantly poorer health than non-Maori in New Zealand. This is a very topical issue here at the moment, as the leader of the Opposition, Don Brash, has recently made a speech slamming the so-called preferential treatment given to Maori and calling for all funding to be needs based rather than race-based. He has hit a nerve here and soared in the polls. However his approach seems to me to have stirred up big divisions and serves to create the very atmosphere he was trying to avoid. It seems to me to show gross misunderstanding of the concept of inequality, and of the equity approach the current government has been trying to take (to some extent!). And the fact a majority of kiwis agree with him make me worry.. I’ve already had minor disagreements with friends about this. But how can the concepts be explained to Joe public in a way that they are understood- after all Brash does sound reasonable on the surface! It’s taken 3 years of post-graduate study for me to come to grips with it. I’m not sure what the answer is. What I am sure of is that it all makes me very uncomfortable. And of what I think of Don Brash… but please don’t ask me about that, I’m not sure it should be written down!