Mexikiwi Day At The Rongotai Building

by chris cunningham

One of the biggest things that is lacking in Wellington is Mexican food. Since 90% of the imported workers at Weta are from California, they all have the same opinion about mexican food in New Zealand. It’s pretty much non-existent and when you do find it, it sucks. So instead of the usual Weta catering on Friday night, some Yanks got together and created a Mexican Fiesta for the lot. Not to shabby, and I got to act like it was all for my birthday. Which is today. They also had a birthday pinata for me… um, yeah. Lopsie tried to explain to the Kiwi’s how this pinata thing works. They just stared and found it funny at first. Then a kiwi got up to give it a shot… um, it’s behind you… See, the Kiwi’s just aren’t grasping it. Let’s see an American… Ahhh… there we go! Lance beats the little donkey into submission but doesn’t tame it. Another kiwi not quite getting it as the donkey taunts him. “I do what with this stick?” Upon closer inspection we found out the donkey wasn’t made of paper mache but of cardboard and cellophane tape. New Zealand can’t even make a proper pinata. Ya know how hard it is to break into a cardboard and cellophane tape donkey? Really friggin’ hard. Seriously, about an hour and 10 minutes later, and having roughly 40 people beat on the thing, its back finally broke. Just a handful of chocolate trickled out. Ay yi yi. It might as well been the blackbox of an airplane we were beating on. Eventually Tim, a lookalike for a singer of a Haysi Fantaysee tribute band, killed off the donkey with a blow to the back. And so ended my birthday, er, Mexikiwi day.