TAMARA’S INTERVIEW
This week, we have the pleasure to interview Mrs. Tamara Waugh, a native from New Zealand who studied psychology and has many remarkable projects. In this article, we are going to summarize what was said in the interview, which includes facts about her academic and professional life, New Zealand's Culture and her experience as a citizen and finally how the coronavirus affected her daily life.
We asked Tamara what her favourite things about New Zealand were, and she told us about the Maori culture and the fight to make the country a bilingual one to be supportive with them. She also explained to us some Maori words and said she felt proud of coming from this culture. What is more, she mentioned some really interesting places to visit there.
Talking about the government, the Prime Minister of New Zealand is Jacinda Ardern, whose husband is Tamara’s friend, so Tamara met her a long time ago. Jacinda is the third female Prime Minister ever in the country. Moreover, even if they are part of the Commonwealth, the influence of the British Monarchy in the country is not so important.
What about the environment? The families take care of it taking action with the rubbish and separating it, making compost, using sustainable lines, reducing the time in the shower, etc. They also reduce electricity consumption in the streets because the lights are only on when someone’s walking along.
People call New Zealanders “kiwis” because they are quiet and only comes up at night.
To introduce the topic of her professional and academic life, Tamara was asked how the educational system is there. There are both public and private schools, and the levels are divided in primary school, secondary school and the high school. The education is quite right, but she said that improvements could be implemented, as the world is constantly changing, the teachers need to be updated more often. Also, the students should be prepared to face the problems of social media.
Tamara recommended New Zealand as a place to study. She spent her childhood and adolescence in New Zealand, preparing herself to go abroad for University. When she came back, she had a postgraduate degree. Last year she did a year at Yale of transformational leadership. Tamara decided to study that because of child traumas in her past, and after attending to many psychologists, she also wanted to understand how the mind, and her mind, works. She found in meditation and therapy a mental stability, and she admires human behaviour.
The interviewee told us about the “3 good things” project, which consists of writing, at the end of the day, 3 good things that have happened in our day.Tamara got into the Airbnb world because she wanted to know and share other cultures apart from New Zealand's culture.
CORONAVIRUS IN NEW ZEALAND
With Tamara, we talked about the COVID-19 in New Zealand. She told us that they were all locked up in the quarantine at the beginning, but now they are in level 2, so they can go to the supermarket and do other things, such as going to school. In level 3, we were told that only essential activities were allowed. After the first days of the lockdown, they passed from label 3 to label 4, which was a complete lockdown. Tamara told us that she was an essential worker, and when she went to the streets and roads, there was no one there, except for the police.
In public transports and public places, everyone must wear a face mask. She told us that, speaking about the economy, the quarantine was hard, millions were lost, and that is how bad it is going to look in this capitalist system. Economy help was given to the ones that needed it. What Tamara does to prevent the virusis to wash her hands many times a day, leave the house as little as possible and have no contact when it is inevitable to leave. A lot of known people from her have suffered from Covid-19. As far as the quarantine affected her life and the future repercussions, she told us that there are people who have realized that the real fight is about survival.
CONCLUSION
We ask all our interviewees closing questions, and this time was not an exception. The first one was “What piece of advice can you give to the students who don’t know what to follow in the future?” She said: “I would say look into the things that you do and make you feel alive. When you do a task, or a project, or something and you feel alive like the time passes faster, go there” The second question was: “If you would have the possibility to change something in your life, would you change it or not?” She answered that at that moment of her life she was working as she has wanted, but she values very much the process of learning and. She added that changing constantly is something that we do, so the answered was no and yes. She also added: “Now I’m very happy and I wouldn’t change anything”
The interview was exciting and enriching. Now, we know a lot of things about New Zealand and about Tamara. We like a lot this activity proposed by our teachers and school and We are very grateful with Tamara because of her time and goodwill.
This article has been written by PEREZ Catalina, SORAIRE Juan Ignacio, WISSNER Máximo, FRECHEL Luna, GAROMPOLO Facundo, SERRAIOCCO Micaela, LUKJANIEC Juan manuel, ORTEGA Lautaro and SÁNCHEZ Santiago.