Who the f*ck is Mareana Toi

Chapter 1

My name is Mareana Toi, I'm 28 years old, half maori on my mums side and half pakeha mostly English on my dads side. I'd moved from West Auckland in New Zealand or now known as Aotearoa to Brooklyn New York city in America where I'd met my boyfriend Matias Romero. Matias was Guatemalan mexican with a hint of Spanish. He was fluent in Spanish and English and we had first met at a latino food festival me and my friend Maria went to. Him and his grandma and mum were running a stall together there. I filled up on Chuchitos and Rellenitos which were insanely good.

Me and him had hit it off only within 10 minutes of talking and he'd asked me if I wanted to go on a date. I said yes because I was super attracted to him and the chemistry and banter and food was exquisite and he made me smile like a giddy teenager.

We exchanged phone numbers and it went from there. Dates every other week. We both were both career driven and had a strong emphasis on culture and family but we were also hopeless romantics and had different sense of humours that complimented one another's perfectly. 3 months later of casually dating it then turned into a relationship and after a year we moved into a place together.

We worked in different fields; Matias was a lawyer and sometimes helped out with his family's small businesses which was mostly in food. Matias was an excellent cook, so he was a big help. I was a Journalist and we found it easy to commute to both of our workplaces from where we lived. We'd chosen it with that in mind, someplace that was convenient for the both of us. It was in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, living in Brooklyn was on the pricier side though because it was one of the 5 boroughs of New York. It was $3250 per month or $812.50 per week which was the average you'd pay for a place in Brooklyn, with both of our incomes we could afford it and could afford a place with more bedrooms if we wanted to, but we decided we'd just get a small one bedroom place and keep it cheap.

America was a lot different from New Zealand, I loved it and personally I loved New Zealand too but for different reasons. America had better job opportunities for jobs in Journalism and there was also a lot more things to do and food to try here. There was also something that felt so free here, I couldn't describe it, it was a breath of fresh air. The people were very talkative too, whereas New Zealand was more reserved and chill which was nice because even the clothing , makeup and hair just walking outside your house in America was definitely not chill. I also liked that people supported you when you tried to do your best in America whereas NZ had tall poppy syndrome so it felt harder to grow and progress in jobs without someone making you feel like shit about it.

I had Maori artwork up in our home. A giant greenstone koro that had it's own stand that it was mounted to and multiple paintings of Maori tattoo tools and Maori people from the past with Ta Mokos and Moko Kauae face tattoos wearing the traditional Pari and Maro – womens tops and loincloths for men and women with beautiful Korowai – Maori cloaks to go along with everything.

I loved looking at them as it was just apart of my identity as American culture was. I'd been living in America away from New Zealand, apart from going back for Christmas to see my family, for about 3 years now and looking at the artwork this time felt different today, as if something was amiss. It dawned on me that i felt uneasy looking at these art pieces. Emotional in a forlorn way. As if I was missing out on something while being here in the U.S.A and maybe my Maori roots were slipping away. Eventhough I'd looked at these pieces all the time and hadn't seen them that way until today and I'm not sure why it hit me so suddenly that I felt homesick and disconnected from my Maori heritage but I did.

I brought it up over dinner with Matias and he said maybe to sit on it for a week before skyping my mum about it.

A week passed and I'd been emotional the whole time, tears escaping my eyes at random moments whenever New Zealand or maori culture came up at work. Which was quite a lot because I was the token kiwi in my workplace and people always brought up New Zealand when they were talking to me, like they were super fascinated with it that in a way that kind of slightly perplexed me. Or I got emotional when I looked too long at the maori artwork in my home so much so that I had to cover them with a sheet.