I can't even count the hundreds that have lived here over the years.
The Tongan value and the way Islanders work,
it's the whole community.
If I eat, you eat.
If I make it, you make it.
If I'm going to come to New Zealand, you can come too.
It's so beautiful and it's actually kind of sad
that we're starting to move away from that as we're here longer,
as we're getting a bit more Western and modernised.
Me and my cousins talk about it sometimes, especially after Tiueti's death
that it's like a rat race now and you just look after your own little household.
It would be really emotional for the whole family if we were to sell.
Now that she's gone, a decision needs to be made
over what will happen with the house.
You look nice Tiueti.
My grandmother is Tiueti Folau.
She passed away in February this year.
So I'm just here in her house
in Herne Bay, Auckland,
'two milli' suburb.
I was born in 1985
and I lived here right up until I had my first baby.
That was 2015.
I think after that I thought, I'm going to put my big girl pants on
and I’ll leave the Herne Bay house for a bit
and I came back and had my second child here.
I think all up I've lived here on and off
for over 30 years.
When they first moved in it was actually like two flats.
They obviously converted it to, not two flats, but one big house.
So, the layout is like really weird.
Because it hasn't changed, like for how many years?
Literally nothing's changed.
This is a copy of the sale and purchase,
so it's their title to the house,
when they bought it.
Agreement made the 28th day of July 1975.
The purchase price is $21,500.
Isn't that crazy?
- It's crazy.
Their deposit would have been $1,000.
Because you know, these days to get a house in Auckland
the deposit has to be 20% and it's - Like 50.
- Not even 50.
Here, your deposit for a house in Auckland
is like $200k. - Yeah.
That was really huge that they could do that
because they had really limited English and minimum wage
and quite a few kids to look after and feed.
Herne Bay and Ponsonby in the '90s was still working class.
And then over time you honestly saw it morph
into like real cookie-cutter and really well-to-do
people that drove Audis and Volkswagens
and the houses they get done up but they look exactly the same.
They're all painted different shades of like beige or white
and they all have the same really well-trimmed hedges.
Honestly, for people who have a lot of money,
they must just get it all from the same brochure. I have no idea.
I feel like we're low-key taking a stand
with our house that looks exactly the same.
Our garden is the same garden that it was a long time ago.
It's not one of those flash white fences that everyone has.
It's like the same steel fence that Tongans put in.
Yeah, I like that it looks the same.
I'd hate to just turn it into yet another Herne Bay villa.
This house is so much more than nostalgia.
It holds so much history
and memories and pain and happiness.
Not just for us but so many wider families.
Honestly, this house means so much to so many different families around the world.
My grandfather Eko and my Aunty Losi.
They came first.
Tiueti stayed with the rest of the kids back in Tonga.
After a bit of time, the rest of the family followed.
And as was the case for Polynesians back then, everyone settled in central.
It was our first house that my dad bought.
We were very excited about it.
We felt at home because
most of the Polynesians lived in Ponsonby and Grey Lynn.
Herne Bay wasn't so many.
So when you walk down to Ponsonby, we were everywhere.
When my dad properly sat me down
and told me about the history of this house,
told me about the dawn raids.
How it was a refuge basically for lots of different people to come in and out of.
There would have been a lot of overstayers here from Tonga
and as the police did, they would just rock up at the door before sunlight.
Everyone knew to flee.
You'd have some of the family running to the back and jumping the fence.
There were a lot of family in the garage,
but the police never looked there.
Nobody actually thankfully, got caught, as far as I know.
My grandfather actually made the house bigger
because, you know, he was a carpenter.
And that's why that window - That's new, eh?
Yeah, that's not one of the original windows.
Yeah. Because there was no window there.
The neighbour looks over the fence
and he goes, "Oh, my gosh."
So, he rings up the city council.
Told on, "There's a building going on over there."
So, yeah, of course - Extending without permit.
city council came, but because it was all
it wasn't separated, so that was okay.
They couldn't be bothered pursuing to pull it down and all that stuff
but it was back in the days.
The cost to maintain a place like this,
especially if you've only got a couple of people living here, is huge.
Just looking around at the other houses in the same street.
They're getting done up and re-done up all the time.
I can't even imagine the cost like, honestly,
the cost will be in the hundreds of thousands.
Tiueti was always sitting here, where I'm sitting right now in this specific place.
But back then, she was busy.
She was cleaning, cooking, gardening,
doing something somewhere around the house.
She loved that we were two seconds away from the Herne Bay Catholic Church.
This was honestly one of Tiueti's favourite places.
I don't think they ever missed mass.
They laid their roots here as well,
not just in that house but here at this church.
To this day, we all still come here.
After that, all the women would help make Sunday lunch,
and then at lunchtime there would be a banquet.
There was always Tiueti's big pots cooking something.
I could always smell Tongan food,
nothing really flash, but boiled meat.
Doesn't sound flash, but so delicious because it would be falling off the bone.
There'd be chop suey.
Of course you had your taro and you had your green bananas cooked.
There was raw fish back then because my grandfather liked raw fish,
different dishes that you could pick from. So, that was every single Sunday without fail.
Oh, look, you three,
oh, look at that.
Look at these guys.
Tiueti and her granddaughters, Dejaa and Hulita.
And then this one obviously is in their favourite place at the back of the lounge.
Who's that, baby? - That's me.
I've got puffy eyes.
She's just saying that because she doesn't know how to make them.
No, I know how to make them. - She's the princess,
I am the princess.
Before and during, when she passed, I was running the Facebook.
Heaps of people sent messages
and did posts just thanking her.
Many moons ago, a little girl loved the times visiting your home.
It was such a big deal.
Growing up, Albany Road was pretty much Disneyland.
Many moons later, the little girl grew up
and finally understood the meanings to your akonaki, your teachings.
Thank you Tiueti.
So many unforgettable memories.
Raw, rich and real teachings, I'll never forget.
Albany Road became my second home because of your love.
One of the reasons I had a great childhood.
Man, these look good.
Okay, they're hot so watch out.
Bro, I haven't had these for years,
like, decades.
I know you are resting in our heavenly father's grace Tiueti.
You served with your absolute all and left nothing behind.
Ofa lahi atu kia koe.
And also, all of you grieving such a great loss, but also honouring your memory.
Beautiful send-off for a beautiful queen.
Thank you for providing to our massive family
who came to NZ for a better living.
Wouldn't be here without my siblings today if you didn't have a big heart.
Her and my grandfather worked so hard
to settle here and build a foundation
upon which their kids and us grandkids could thrive and prosper for
and it's showing.
She was very proud of me to go to university,
and I got an accounting degree.
My cousin Joseph is a teacher.
My cousin Luciane is abroad.
She's in Vancouver, Canada,
filming The Night Agent for Netflix.
Those opportunities would not have been afforded
had they not worked so hard to lay their roots here.
And this house in Herne Bay is part of that.
We're really lucky and we're so blessed and we know it.
We know it.
Hi. - Hi.
We're good, how are you?
- I'm like, totally out of the loop.
What has it been like for you guys?
After her passing, being in the house, how's it been?
I think that 's the one thing that like,
oh, gosh, when I go home.
That's going to be weird for me.
Coming home and being like,
oh, wait, she's not here.
- When I got used to her being gone,
I didn't like it.
It's like I wanted to be sad
and I wanted to be
depressed, because I wasn't ready to be okay with it.
- It was it was tough
because I knew this job's like six months.
So I was like, okay,
but yeah,
Oh, I'm crying.
It still feels the same, right?
Like, it still smells the same.
It looks the same.
So much of my imagination was in those walls.
It was our childcare.
It was after school care,
- after the club care.
Our parents were all working.
And I think it was a time where,
Herne Bay started changing
and we went to school with all these rich palagis.
And you noticed the wealth difference, right?
I'm so proud that we maintained so much of what it was originally like back in the '70s
because it has so much history.
It's our connection to our culture.
Like we didn't grow up going to Tonga every year.
We didn't grow up in Tonga.
So, it means everything to us, I think.
And I'm really proud that it's the only house on the street that looks like this.
Yeah. For real. Yeah.
It's like a mini protest, the house.
- She is actually like the queen of Herne Bay.
She is the queen of Herne Bay.
We know it's going to go one day, right?
Unless you want to come home with
an easy three milli, three milli?
You want to come home with three million and it can be yours?
- That's the dream.
We can manifest.
Oh my God, this is so difficult.
Whoever needed a place to stay
or
someone who's lost, who needed somewhere to go to.
Our house was an open house for everybody.
They all found a refuge in this house.
But like everything, we have to all move on and change
and evolve.
You feel like, oh the legacy is going.
What a shame. All that's gone.
It does feel like that when I think about it that way.
When she passed, everything that she said
started holding more weight on me and I could understand it.
When we're talking about what they did for family,
it actually comes from the Tongan value of love.
And she said this a lot.
It's called fe'ofo'ofani.
After over 40 years of being here in Herne Bay
no matter what happens to the house,
that's my grandparents having provided.