JOIN THE KUPU C A FÉ WITH WH A E A LUCY B Y J A N I N E J AC K S O N
L
ucy Haru feels right at home at the Raglan Community House.
The day we meet Lucy is working on a jigsaw to make sure all the pieces are there before it goes up for sale at the op shop. “People ask me why don’t you just count them but I like to do them. It’s good for my brain,” she laughs. Community house manager Mike Rarere reckons Lucy also provides a calming influence and outstanding mediation skills.
4 | Raglan Chronicle Magazine Issue August 2022
“For me, it's awesome having another pair of eyes and ears on situations that can be quite challenging at times,’ he says. When she’s there, Lucy is under the watchful gaze of her kuia Herepo Rongo, whose portrait hangs in the community house’s lounge. Herepo was the last woman with moko kauae in the Poihakena community in her lifetime. She fought alongside Tuaiwa Hautai ‘Eva’ Rickard and others to have their ancestral land returned after it had been taken for a wartime airstrip and then turned into a golf course by the council.
Lucy’s not just the puzzle lady; she’s is the go-to for ukulele lessons, works parttime as a special needs teacher at Raglan Area School and more recently she’s hit the radio waves teaching conversational Māori at the Kupu Café on Fridays from 11.30am-12.30pm. The radio show morphed out of the first iteration of the Kupu Café at the community house. When Covid made gatherings a bit complicated, Whaea Lucy was still keen on sharing te reo with the community. “I thought there had to be another way and then I met Yvonne Scully, and she said - why don't you go on the radio.”
