L-R: Lisa, Ella Vinne and Lily
Hello everyone, my name is Vinnie. I’m originally from the Kapati Coast, but I have lived on the West Coast for many years working as a chef in local cafes like Drifter’s Café in Granity from 2002 onwards and The Bayhouse café/restaurant in Tauranga Bay from 2005. I then went on to open and successfully run Round the Bed café in Ngakawau for three years. I then moved back to the Kapati Coast for four years to be with family where I helped run a successful café called Melt Café, which we unfortunately had to close and sell to make way for an expressway…
So, I decided to hit the road and travel around the rest of the South Island for a year and eventually landing here in beautiful Karamea where I look forward to making a new and exciting life with my partner Lisa and daughters Ella (4) and Lily (12) because we love it here.
I have a great chance to do that by making the “Global Gypsy” work and I seek your help. I want to purchase all locally grown organic produce and set up a farmer’s market for the community. So, if you have any excellent quality, excess garden produce, please come and see me and I’ll buy it from you for resale to others in the community who may need it.
I will purchase the produce at a reasonable price, mark it up to cover the costs of operating the store and the service, so the growers get paid, I get paid and the community benefits by being able to access locally grown, freshly harvested, healthy organic produce at a reasonable price year-round. I will also be looking at ways of turning excess produce into other products for people to enjoy, like pesto, hummus, conserves, sauces etc.
I would also like to showcase any Karamea produced art and craft products and will provide a display area where visitors to the region will be able to purchase locally made souvenirs.
By all means, please drop by the store and introduce yourself, I look forward to meeting you and being part of the Karamea community.
Oh, and I’m also helping Diana out at the Karamea Village Hotel as the head chef, so come on down and try one of my meals as well!
Vinnie
The Global Gypsy: Something for everyone
Organic foods, new and used clothing, jewellery, arts & crafts, scarves, mosquito nets and repellents, earthing sheets, endorphin mats, second-hand goods and much, much, much more………..
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Gerar Toye: Global Gypsy
Off the Top of my Head
By Paul Murray
A thirst for inspiration, wisdom, experience and understanding led Gerar Toye (52) on an international quest from his birthplace in South Auckland to Karamea at the top of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
The youngest of six children, Gerar spent his formative years in Manurewa––one of the most multi-cultural suburbs of Auckland and also one of the roughest and toughest––before moving to Borneo for a couple of years with his father Dallas, a school teacher, and mother Pauline, a volunteer nurse.
On returning to New Zealand and completing his primary education, Gerar developed a strong interest in photography and became a darkroom printer for New Zealand’s top professional photographers. The job satisfied his passion for photographic printing, but the formulaic style of the photography he was charged with printing and the sterile, safe and conservative images he constantly saw emerging in the developing fluid left him wanting to make his own images and express his creative ideas through photography.
Gerar quit the job that no longer inspired him and went to Australia in 1982 for a couple of years before returning to Borneo to hook up with childhood school friends there. The trip triggered his wonderlust and he spent the next two decades travelling the world and gaining the international experience, self-education and wisdom that travel affords.
Sri Lanka was next and there he met fellow travellers from the north, who had strange tales of India to share. “In Aragum Bay, I met people who had travelled through India who told me crazy stories about the country with sparkles in the eyes, which inspired me to visit the country,” he said. “I couldn’t believe the tales I heard and wanted to verify them for myself…I wanted to prove them wrong, but after seeing the country for myself, I found out that all I’d heard was true and more!”
His tourist visa allowed for six months in India, but that was in no way sufficient once his interest in the country and its diverse culture was piqued. He returned 10 times and travelled extensively all the while with his camera at the ready.
In 1989, he heard about the Kumbh Mela Festival, a Hindu pilgrimage that takes place every four years in four different locations in rotation. Hindu devotees flock to bathe in the sacred Ganges River and here he photographed the religious, cultural and anthropological spectacle of the largest gathering of humans on the Earth.
The experience was overwhelming, 30 million people assembled in one location, with 70 million attending the event over the course of one month inspired Gerar to return to participate in the Maha (large) Kumbh Mela festival in 2001, which occurs every 144 years and is held at Triveni Sangam the “meeting place” at the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the Sarasvat rivers.
There Gerar photographed the myriad people assembled in the largest-ever congregation of religious pilgrims with his unique “shooting from the hip” style that enables him to capture candid moments, spontaneity and genuine emotion in his subjects. The hand-printed images are now being exhibited at the Global Gypsy Gallery in Karamea.
With the travelbug’s teeth now deep into his flesh and Gerar ventured to numerous countries, travelled through the Americas, Europe and Asia, all the while with camera at the ready to capture moments of human emotion, joy, expression and life moments. With three cameras and 200 rolls of film each year Gerar had no room for cold or wet weather clothes so spent his time in constant warmth with only one winter in his twenty years on the road.
Opportunities abounded and he helped everyone he met basically woofing before it was invented. These led to some marvellous experiences, including being invited to tour America with Paul Kelly and Crowded House, which he turned down to follow an affair of the heart. Using his darkroom skills he built a darkroom on a 1910 Danish Gaff rigged ketch from Fremantle West Australia through Indonesia, Micronesia and Japan and on to Alaska.
He now had a body of work that he could share with others and market to finance his vagabond lifestyle. Years on the road had also furnished him with wisdom and spiritual understanding well beyond his years and he decided to mix both his spirituality and photography to create postcards, posters and T-shirts of his images matched with inspirational quotations and put his experiences out into the retail market. Despite significant effort and attempts to offer his cards to retail outlets, shop owners were not keen to stock his products, so he decided to go it alone and sell them himself.
He returned to New Zealand in 1990 initially to Mangawhai Heads north of Auckland where his now retired parents live. While there, he painted an ecological mural on the public toilets as a move to think globally and act locally. The mural was graffiti-free until it started to peel ten years later and he was commissioned to return to repaint it for the locals.
He later travelled in a purple 1956 Bedford bus called “Carpe Diem” with the Kiwi Gypsy Fair for five years, circling the country six times and selling his wares at markets, festivals and fairs. The response to his products was very positive and the feedback he received encouraged him to produce a book compiling his photographic images and quotations. However, finding a publisher to handle the idea proved frustrating as the idea was considered unsaleable. “The images and quotes were very popular with the public, so I knew a book would work,” he said. Publishers thought otherwise and he was forced to go it alone and using all his credit cards to produce his first book “Reality is for Those with no Imagination,” which was published in 1997.
The next challenge was to find book retailers that would stock and sell his book. This again proved frustrating as he wasn’t backed by a publisher and as a sole trader, retailers were less than helpful and he met with similar resistance from bookshop owners he had experienced when marketing his quote cards.
Around that time the Internet was gathering popularity and he set up a Web site www.globalgypsy.com to stock his own work and market it online. This proved a good move and his product started to move. Retailers gradually came on board and his work is now stocked in over a hundred outlets across New Zealand and Australia. His book sold out and has been translated into French, German and 16 other languages. He now has eight books on the market and has sold over 14,000 copies making him one of New Zealand’s best-selling authors.
In 2002, Gerar and his then partner Amla had boy/girl twins Kiva and Rimu. His nomadic lifestyle quickly changed and he became a father, settled back into life in New Zealand,
He decided to pursue his creative passion and enrolled in a fine arts degree at Canterbury University in Christchurch. He initially decided to study painting, but on reflection switched to filmmaking as he felt the artform had a greater propensity to influence people in a positive way. “I didn’t feel I could change the world by painting,” he said.
The challenges and responsibilities of fatherhood forced him to leave university before graduating, but he managed to express his talent for directing and writing film and produced a low budget ($400) 20-minute short film titled “Zen and the Art of Hitchhiking,” which can be seen online:
Zen and the Art of Hitchhiking
By Gerar Toye
Invited by Paul Murray to revisit Karamea and the LivinginPeace Project he had started Gerar was inspired to be part of the dream to bring people together and he settled into life in the small remote rural community in 2007 after purchasing the old information centre building in the centre of town. He painted it in rainbow stripes and established a retail outlet of his own to market his growing range of books, postcards, T-shirts, fridge magnets, jigsaws, bumper stickers, framed photographs and posters and expanded with a range of goods and products including; organic food, local produce, artworks, fair trade items, second-hand goods, accessories, curios and pre-loved natural-fibre clothing…the Global Gypsy Gallery was born.
Today, the Global Gypsy Gallery is a veritable emporium and must-see shop for any visitor to Karamea. It has become a Farmer’s Market where local organic fruit and vegetable growers can sell their excess produce, local artisans can sell their creations, the best cup of tea and coffee in town and hours of browsing through a treasure trove of quality new and used products from around the world. Gerar’s photographs adorn the walls and he again has overcome the challenges of unsupportive retailers and conservative mindset by doing it himself…and doing it very well.
The Rongolian Star 
Reverse Malthusian Trap Snares Rural Kiwis
Off the Top of My Head
By Paul Murray
Karamea, West Coast, New Zealand: February 17, 2016
Minister for Economic Development Ms Joyce Stevens
The New Zealand Minister for Economic Development the right honourable Ms Joyce Stevens announced today that given the success of recent regional austerity measures, such as the reduction in police services in remote areas and the redirection of national funds to urban areas where most voters live, that the ministry would now expand the scope of the programme to include education, emergency services, utilities, health and roading.
The ministry recently conducted an economic analysis of police services in rural regions of New Zealand and found they could significantly reduce the cost of policing the country by cancelling such services on the ground that there was insufficient crime being committed to justify maintaining a police presence.
In his report into West Coast police service delivery, Police Commandant Rob Malthusian suggested the “disestablishment” of the Karamea Police Station and the removal of a permanent police presence in the region. The community of Karamea reacted with rightful dismay to the recommendation by the commandant and a wave of antidisestablishmentarianism swept through the district as the anguished populace faced and uncertain future.
Stevens went on to say that “Using the same logic, we can now apply the process to other expensive public services to redirect public expenditure and ensure the money is available where it is most needed.” When asked to expand on that statement, Stevens said, “Well it’s simple really, if demand for such services is deemed to be insufficient, supply will fall to meet it. My ministry has determined that there is little need to maintain fire or ambulance services if there is low demand…if there aren’t enough fires, medical emergencies or accidents, it is difficult to rationalise the provision of such services and they will thus be terminated.” She went on to say that because there were insufficient numbers of illiterate children in rural New Zealand, schools would be closed and roads no longer maintained if traffic levels were low and dental services would also be cancelled if the unacceptably low level of tooth decay persisted.
Minister of Police the right honourable Mr Colin Judith when asked about the recent reduction in police services across rural New Zealand said, “Look, we have been providing nationwide police services in low crime regions for long enough, if the people living there don’t want to fully utilise the services we provide then there will eventually come a time when we can no longer justify the provision of such services….that time has come.” Judith cut short his press conference after he was injured by being hit in the face with a flying IUD, which was apparently removed and thrown at him by a disgruntled member of the assembled local press.
Minister of Police Collin Judith
After the Minister was released from Westport Hospital, he met with Buller Mayor Harry Goward at the Council Chambers. The Mayor pressed him to further explain his decision to terminate police and other services in his district and Judith said,”Well look at the case of Karamea––perhaps the most remote town on mainland New Zealand––crime rates are so low there that we need to address the situation. Clearly the removal of permanent police presence in the area will serve to increase crime rates to an acceptable level and perhaps when that have been achieved, we can justifiably reinstate a police officer to meet demand.”
Buller Mayor Harry Goward
Goward said in a press statement that, “It seems the people of Karamea have themselves to blame for the loss of their police officer and the disestablishment of their police station, they are just too honest and law abiding.”
Karamea businessman Muzza Rongo, a known social commentator, said, “I happen to believe that the provision of essential services like police, utilities, emergency and education are the basic responsibility of government, to fail to provide such services is tantamount to criminal negligence. If democratically elected government officials neglect their most basic responsibilities, they may experience a revolutionary uprising and be replaced with actual leaders who have a vested interest in caring for their constituents and the disposition to actually honour their responsibilities and live up to the expectations of the people who helped them to power.”
However, not all agreed, retired bureaucrat Mac Cleveland said of the report, “This is a classic example of a reverse Malthusian Trap whereby a declining population meets with an abundance of public services that lead to an unacceptably high quality of life…this situation is untenable in political terms and changes need to be accepted.”
Prime Minister Jonki
New Zealand Prime Minister Jonki, who now goes by the title His Excellency, President for Life, Commander in Chief, Lord of All the Beasts of MiddleEarth and Fishes of the Seas Sir Jonki, said, “We will no longer provide services that are not being fully utilised, if you want police, commit crime, if you want medical services, spread disease, if you want emergency services, create demand, otherwise, national fiscal resources that are currently being wasted on maintenance of economically unviable ministrations will be redirected to serve more loyal and responsible citizens in urban areas and the provision of such services to rural regions will be terminated until such time as they can be warranted.”
Karamea Community spokesperson Luke Rictus and Buller Community Coordinator Howard Peters said in a joint statement that they welcomed the opportunity for anarchy and lawlessness, that they were sick and tired of legal compliance requirements and saw great opportunities for regional economic revival through graft, violence and larceny, and that they looked forward to a bright future of corruption and malfeasance for their families and cronies. Without police, emergency services and education, they saw tremendous scope for the emergence of previously unacceptable and illegal activities that will prove lucrative and provide the much needed economic stimulus required by their constituents.
Prime Minister Jonki said, “That is precisely what we seek in rural regions, it’s time for provincial yokel types to take more responsibility for their own existence. My government cannot continue to provide services to people who are just not using them, these measures will create a future demand and when it is deemed their provision is again economically viable, they may be restored,” he added.
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