After my last post about my trip to New Zealand, it was brought to my attention that there might be some confusion around me using the term “sea of All Blacks” in reference to the rugby team/fans. So, I wanted to clear that up for you non-rugby folks:

The All Blacks is the name of New Zealand’s national rugby team – a name that was popularized during a 1905 tour of the British Isles, according to Wikipedia. In fact, you can learn a lot about the history of the team here. (Likely most of it is true, but hey, anyone can edit that site soooo… That said, it’s still the name of the team.)

As you can see from my video below, the teams’ colors are black and white, and the fans tend to wear black and white in support. If you look into the bleachers across from where I was sitting, you can easily spot Ireland’s fans, and of course a woman in pink. (That’s not me, I was the one filming, so I’m on the opposite side. However, I’m now a little sad that I never noticed I had a twinsy. We could have been waving our hot pink arms at each other the entire time. Opportunity missed. Moment gone. 😦 Until next time, my hot pink twin!)

Thanks to my friend Elizabeth and her quick/dextrous fingers, we had some amazing seats. I’m not zoomed that far in. Anyway, below is my video of the opening haka.

What’s the story behind the haka? I’m glad you asked. Here’s even more fun info here and also here.

And for those who want to understand the words/lyrics: the All Blacks perform multiple hakas, but I believe this is Ka Mate (please someone correct me if I’ve got that wrong) Note: some directions are being called out ahead of the Ka Mate telling them to stomp their feet and slap their thighs. This was seriously cool to see in person.

The Words of Ka Mate

Maori	English
Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!	I die! I die! I live! I live!
Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!	I die! I die! I live! I live!
Tenei te tangata puhuru huru	This is the hairy man
Nana nei i tiki mai	Who fetched the Sun
Whakawhiti te ra	And caused it to shine again
A upa … ne! ka upa … ne!	One upward step! Another upward step!
A upane kaupane whiti te ra!	An upward step, another.. the Sun shines!!
Hi

All that to say, I wasn’t describing anyone’s skin tone. I’m not actually “pink” – well, unless it’s 105 degrees in Texas and I’ve been outside more than two minutes. Oh wait…

In fact, I can’t tell you much about the other people, other than: there was an overzealous wee girl behind me (easily under 10) who really wanted the All Blacks to get in the game and they kept profoundly disappointing her; she let them have it. There was also a very rude man at the end of our bleacher who seemed pretty insistent that he was not about to stand up to allow us to easily slide into/out of the row (he lost that battle of wills at least twice), and a really sweary guy who I’m pretty sure swore at me as we tried to make our way through the wall of people getting beer in order to get to our seats – I gave him my disapproving meemaw face, which I’m sure made him rethink some life choices or had no impact on him at all – one of those. I think they were also wearing the colors that supported New Zealand’s team.