It’s been a month since we left New Zealand.  Yet we are still thinking about the perseverance of the Kiwi of Christchurch.  In September of 2010 and again in February of 2011, their city was devastated by earthquakes.  Almost the entire central business district was destroyed.  As you walk around you can see condemned buildings with stores that were left pretty much as they were at the time of the earthquake.  In other parts of the city there are just piles of rubble.  Yet the people have not given up, they are rebuilding.

The plucky spirit of the people of Christchurch was evident in the clerk at the hotel at the base of the ruined cathedral.  We had several heavy bags and there was a set of stairs from the parking lot up to the main entrance of the hotel.  The clerk was a girl no taller or bigger than Lauren.  I told her that I would carry the bags.  She insisted on carrying several pieces of our luggage up the stairs, proudly proclaiming, “I’m a Kiwi, this is what we do.”

All around Christchurch, the Kiwi spirit was evident.  The people of Christchurch built a downtown mall out of metal shipping containers and a cathedral, to replace the namesake Christchurch, out of cardboard tubes sheathed in aluminum roof. They commissioned artworks throughout the city to deal with their loss.  But, while we were there, they were gradually reopening parts of the city, rebuilt to survive an even stronger earthquake that they know is coming.

Did we mention that they have some of the best coffee in the world?

We hope to return to visit the rebuilt Christchurch.