By Calkin Rameka
As the Digital Editor for Newshub here in Rio, many of my days are spent in front of a computer in a makeshift office space at our Rio headquarters. Today was not one of those days.
Melissa Davies asked if I wanted to join her and cameraman Bob Grieve on a shoot at a favela. Partly as an experience for me, but mostly for safety reasons as our team travels in threes whenever venturing away from Olympic venues. In hindsight, this time it was not necessary but I was stoked to be a part of it!
We were there to film a capoeira teacher and his students. I jumped at the chance.
I was immediately taken aback by the talented youth showing us their capoeira skills. It's such an effective fighting style cloaked as an emotive dance. I was instantly reminded of the poi and how it was originally a training tool for Maori warriors and now it's a beautiful dance performed mostly by wahine.
Their (the students) vibe and joy was infectious. The smiles on their faces reflected the love they have for their art and culture. Those infectious vibes had me choking up. I was so engulfed in their culture. Thoughts of my father and grandfather came to mind and how they believed in sharing our culture with others.
To me, sharing cultures is a showing of respect. I knew there and then that I wanted to repay them with some of our Aotearoa culture, so I did a haka.
They seemed to enjoy it and one of the students joined in with me a little which was cool.
This was a day I will never forget. I did that haka for me, for them and for both our cultures.
Thank you Rio for this memory.
Newshub.