Article body copy Nearly 200 of us cram into Tarāwhai, a traditional wooden Māori meeting house, under the gaze of the ancestors and deities carved into the posts and walls. We’re here in the home of the Ngāti Tarāwhai tribe, in the middle of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, for the inaugural kura reo taiao gathering: five days of exploring our coasts, rivers, birds, and forests via the Māori language. Leaders and teachers sit up front, kids roam the floor. The people seated around me..