“I speak the reo like a newborn,” writes Michelle Campbell about her first few weeks in immersion learning. (Photo: Te Wānanga o Raukawa)

Michelle Campbell reflects on the crippling shame and moments of courage in her first few months of immersion reo learning.

It’s an ego-smashing experience being born again into Māoridom as a 42-year-old woman.

I speak the reo like a newborn. I make shapes with my mouth and hope the correct sounds will come out.

Early on, I compared my reo to that of a toddler. But then, actual toddlers — the children of my classmates — came up to me and said things in Māori, to which I could only smile and nod my head. I made half-hearted attempts at asking their names but seemed to spook them away with my pidgin reo that can only be likened to the prose of Pingu.

I’m now eight weeks into this journey, and it’s been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. There’s no way of telling how I might feel and when. I understand something, and just when I think I can relax, I have no idea where I’m meant to be or what is being asked of me. Chaos reigns.

During a recent group check-in, I attempted to convey this feeling with much nauseating flapping of hands, and the words: ”Āe ko ki runga ki raro ahau,” a fumbling sentence which sort of put me “above and below”. I was quickly and politely corrected: “Ngā piki me ngā heke,” a phrase which neatly expresses the ups and downs of a journey.

The moment captured the dizzying highs and lows of this immersion journey.

After a particularly bad day, I was ready to give up and return to my desk job with a government agency. In a fit of frustration, I shamefully told my therapist: “I think I’d rather go back to doing the token karakia at the beginning of a work meeting.”

Keen to unpack this illogical thought and give me some practical tools to help, she asked an apt question: “Tell me, Michelle. At wānanga, when do you not feel anxious?”

I had to think about that.

There are mornings when the opening karakia makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, hopefully waking some sleepy orator gene. A mōteatea that follows can make my eyes spring a sudden leak. These words calm something in me. They soothe.

So my answer was: “Between 9 and 9:20am.”

The rest of the day is spent contending with a taniwha that scratches against my ribcage and threatens to tear apart my reo immersion.

When I speak in class, which is rarely, my patient fellow students tilt their heads to the side and nod, gap-filling as best they can to try and understand the blunt words my mouth is smashing together.

During lunch breaks, not-so-patient students simply walk away from my attempts and seek out more proficient speakers to spend their time with — those who can probably make te reo sound like poetry.

There can be deep shame with almost every interaction. My inability to communicate and understand creates an anxiety that often spirals into feelings of unworthiness. It’s easy to believe you have no business being somewhere when 80 percent of what is being said goes straight over your head.

Early on, while we were still allowed to use English, I remember saying to a fellow tauira: “I don’t think this is the place for my hinengaro. I have to keep it out of the process.” I was hopeful that my heart space instead held the key to absorbing all this reo — that simply being emotionally open in an immersion environment was all I needed to make this magic language come out.

I’d once been told, while pushing rākau around at Te Ataarangi during my first attempts to learn the reo: “It’s in your DNA, it’s yours.” It was the only time I heard our kaiako, Raihania, speak English. I’ve always wanted to believe that his words were true. But right now, in immersion learning, it feels like my reo DNA is irretrievably dormant.

Returning to class after these most recent holidays feels like a duty, one I’m not sure I’m capable of undertaking. I’d spent the first week of the term break unpacking — both literally and figuratively — having split my life during term time between the central North Island, where I live, and Wellington, where I live Monday to Thursday with a good friend.

I thought my situation was tough, but then I discovered there are plenty of us moving mountains just to be in immersion. I’ve met students who’ve moved from Australia, quit jobs, sold businesses, or shifted entire families across oceans. Some of them are returning home every weekend to run businesses, check in on whānau, and take care of staff. We do all this for something that doesn’t always make us feel good about ourselves. But in many ways, it just feels right.

There’ve been plenty of times that I’ve thought about quitting — most recently during noho week, when we stayed on campus and spent long, 12-hour days speaking only in te reo.

During the noho, I woke in the middle of the night. I’d dreamed that I was surrounded by my tīpuna. I’d turned to the left and seen a row of men — all of whom had died in my lifetime. My dad, cousins, and uncles, standing there expectantly, as if they were waiting for me to receive whatever reo I could. As if I could somehow pass it on to them.

The dream left me utterly distraught. I stumbled around the next day feeling lost and unable to absorb anything. I had neither the words nor the understanding to explain how I was feeling to anybody. Surrounded by a sea of 200-plus students, I felt completely alone. I started packing my things to leave. Who would notice I was gone anyway?

Walking through the wharekai for one more coffee before the long drive home, another student noticed I was upset. She grabbed my arm and gently asked: “Pēhea koe, e hoa?” How are you, friend?

I could only manage to say, in my mangled reo: “Kino rā.” Day bad.

She hugged me, knowing there was nothing to be done, but showing me that she cared very much. And so, I stayed.

I’ve kept showing up. Either out of fear that quitting might be the worst decision of my life, or knowing somehow that the 20 minutes between 9am and 9.20am might be worth everything. Maybe, too, it’s enough to simply be there and to keep trying.

There’s a saying at wānanga: “Patua te taniwha whakamā.” Beat the taniwha of shame.

But the taniwha is me. There’s no point clubbing myself over the head. I’ve realised there can only be surrender, over and over again.

Sometimes I look around the room in the middle of a waiata, and I can’t think of a better place to be. I’m learning to relax — and so is the taniwha in my belly.

This is the childhood I never had. A place to learn about what belongs to me. The place so many of my ancestors longed for and never found.

Perhaps immersion is less about acquiring te reo and more about reclaiming the things that so many whānau could not.

Perhaps, after all, the least of the things I will learn this year is language.

Michelle Campbell (Ngāti Rakaipaaka, Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Porou) is a creative non-fiction writer, yoga teacher and kairomiromi currently in her first year of te reo immersion. She has worked in government compliance for the last 10 years graduating with a Bachelor of Health Sciences from Massey University in 2013.

E-Tangata, 2025