Jairus – Henderson
“Spending time with a child; well I don’t have a child, but I’m a nurse by profession, so I’ve looked after children before.
It can be challenging but I think it can be rewarding at times, when you know when you looked after a sick child and you’ve done something, you know, good for that child’s recovery.
I think not worrying about what’s going to happen next. It’s just having fun, and just, you know, just play and don’t worry about the future. Sometimes most of the children are like that, and we old people think too much about what’s going on around you now; the news, the bad news and stuff like that, and get stressed.
I grew up in a small island, and you know the lifestyle there is different. It’s more relaxed, I would say, but when it comes to you know, earning money I think it’s obviously different from Auckland. Here you get to work and you get paid more, and you get to live a life that you’ve been dreaming. You know, when I’ve been dreaming when I was a young kid.
In my five years of living here there was one occasion; I was on the Shore, and I think, if I can still remember, I parked my car in a car park in Takapuna where this guy, about 40, and he asked me to move my car, because he wanted to park his car where I parked my car, and of course I refused, and we had a sort of a discussion. Not really a discussion, but an argument. I would consider that racism, but you know sometimes you don’t think it as racism as long as you know you’re right, and you know that you’re not stepping on other people’s dignity. You know, not degrading their dignity. I think everyone has fair go here in New Zealand. So I don’t really believe in racism.
I grew up in a family where in we have to take your house to build a home. I mean, you know, to build a family. In New Zealand it’s really difficult, so you have to save. So I’m saving a lot, and probably in 10 years time I’ll be having my own family and children.
It’s really because of this feminism thing in New Zealand, and in other Russian countries but it’s total different in my country. In my country a man is the cornerstone, or like the cornerstone of the house. It’s like the base. He has to work hard. Sometimes he has to ask the wife to stay at home, and to stay with the children, but here in New Zealand everyone has the right to follow their dreams, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman. So I think the role of a man in New Zealand is of course you have to work hard, maybe harder than the woman so that the woman won’t feel, you know, like he’s superior to you. So I would say, men has to work harder in New Zealand.
It’s changing these days, honestly. I think that was the thing in the past, where you can only see like one or two male in a nursing school, but nowadays there are a lot of men in the nursing profession and this job is really hard. It requires a lot of physical strength. Sometimes if you’re working in emergency department, or maybe in the community, I’m the only male in our company as a district nurse, but it can be tough as well. When you’re dealing with male clients, you know? Sometimes they tend to understand you more, or you can understand them easily because you guys have common interest. You can talk about anything, like All Blacks, and while you’re looking after them. So I think it’s fun and at the same time it’s challenging in its own way.
I think what we need to do is to remove cultural difference. I know there is cultural difference, but I think that should, and it’s beautiful, honestly. It makes Auckland more vibrant. You know, can learn from each other, but it shouldn’t deter us from interacting with each other. So, I think like Filipinos should actually mingle with other cultures as well, not just among themselves, and same with other ethnicity like Asians. I’m part of a church when I mingle with different people from different countries, and it’s actually satisfying to learn that you guys have commonalities as well, but those differences that you discovered along the way, are things that you can learn from them and might be positive or negative, but it’s up to you really to take them.”
