Ragahavan’s NZ Visit

Raghavan Thangasamy is the Correspondent of DHAN Karunai School and was a dear friend of Jean Watson and supporter of the Karunai Illam, since its early collaboration with the DHAN foundation. In 2019, I visited the Illam for a second time, this time with my mother, Christine Brown. With both of us being teachers in New Zealand the intention of our trip was to spend time at the Illam and also work alongside the children and teachers at DHAN Karunai School. After our trip, we kept in touch with Raghavan and he often expressed an interest in visiting New Zealand.

In early 2024, Christine offered to sponsor Raghavan, and after a flurry of logistics, passport renewal and visa paperwork, he was on a plane to Christchurch in late April. He arrived in the school holidays, with a week to spend enjoying the sights of Christchurch and the greater Canterbury region. Wrapped up in merino layers and a down jacket for the first time in his life, Raghavan was eager to learn and experience everything he could about life in New Zealand. He was fascinated and delighted by the things we take for granted - our weekly rubbish collection, road rules that everyone respects, the helpful nature of strangers he encountered.

Once the school term commenced, he spent time with Christine visiting multiple different schools, from early childhood settings at Playcentre and Kindergarten, to primary schools, both English medium and Māori medium, and even an afternoon at a ‘nature school’ where the children’s classroom is the bush. He experienced an ANZAC dawn service, attended a Kapa Haka festival, stayed at a quintessential Kiwi bach and soaked up the magnificence of Castle Hill.

One of Raghavan’s concerns before visiting, was his severe hearing loss and the challenges this might cause during his travels. Upon hearing about Raghavan’s antiquated hearing aids, one of Christine’s friend’s generously donated a pair of hearing aids she no longer needed. Raghavan had his new hearing aids fitted pro bono by Triton Hearing Papanui. It was quite something to see the astonishment on Raghavan’s face as he visited a school the next day, with the ability to hear the children, the birdsong and everything in between!

As Ragahvan so eloquently put it, when I asked him at the end of his trip, ‘Has the trip gone quickly or slowly for you?’ He simply looked at me and in his usual philosophical manner and smiled, “It has passed meaningfully.” Our family felt the same way, privileged and grateful that Raghavan had embraced our way of life so fully and given so much of himself to our family.