TORONTO – A Toronto couple who found refuge from a devastating earthquake in the home of perfect strangers on the other side of the world is playing host to their benefactors and relishing the chance to keep building a firm foundation for a friendship begun on shaky ground.
Hershi Kirshenbaum and Martin Fallick found themselves caught in the chaos and tragedy of the deadly earthquake that ravaged Christchurch, New Zealand in February 2011.
The couple found safety in the home of the Wikaira family, who said they felt called upon to shelter the stranded tourists due in part to the tenets of their Maori heritage.
Six years after they opened their home, the Canadians returned the favour when Maia Wikaira and her parents Martin and Rachel came to North America.
VIDEO: Five-year anniversary of devastating earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand (Feb. 22, 2016)
The reciprocal visits and blossoming friendship, both families said, have helped reframe a natural disaster in a much more positive light.
“Sometimes when some things come out of perceived disasters, you make the best of them,” Martin Wikaira said in a telephone interview. “I think that the relationship that we have formed not only with Canada but with in particular this family, that’s going to be the legacy.”
Members of both families were just visitors in Christchurch when disaster struck on Feb. 22, 2011.
Maia Wikaira, fresh from law school, was attending an international conference, while Kirshenbaum and Fallick were simply enjoying a vacation.
The Canadian couple were hunting for a local map when the quake struck, ultimately killing 185 people and causing widespread damage throughout the city.
“In that moment, everything just started to fall apart, and we were thrown up into the air,” Kirshenbaum recalled. “We watched a cathedral crumble in front of us.”
Fallick grabbed Kirshenbaum and held her against a light post while they waited for the ground to stop shaking, but the quake and ensuing aftershocks never seemed to stop.
Kirshenbaum and Fallick then shifted their attention to making it out of the city to safety, but soon realized doing so would not be an easy feat.
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The hotel containing their belongings and passports was deemed unsafe for entry, and the airport where they hoped to find a flight back home was closed to all but a single military transport plane.
On board, however, were Maia Wikaira and the other international delegates who’d had their conference disrupted by the quake.
The group was considered a high priority for evacuation because of high-ranking officials from the United States who were in attendance, she said, adding Fallick had managed to talk his way into joining the group and securing seats on the plane.
Maia Wikaira was by now in communication with her frantic father, who was watching events in Christchurch unfold from the family home in the capital city of Wellington.
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Telling him of the Canadian couple she had recently met, she explained to him that they planned to try and find a hotel.
But Martin Wikaira said the idea flew in the face of a Maori tradition known as “manaaki ki te tangata,” which means to look after your own people.
“She explained to me that she had met a couple of people…and they were asking about a hotel, and I just remember saying to her, ‘Maia, we don’t do that. You know that,”‘ he said.
Sure enough, after Fallick borrowed Maia Wikaira’s phone to try and make accommodation arrangements in Wellington, she acted on the family tradition.
READ MORE: Magnitude-5.8 quake shakes New Zealand city of Christchurch
“I said to Maia, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s just no rooms, here’s your phone, thank you for lending it to me,”‘ Fallick said. “She said, ‘That’s okay, you’re coming home with us tonight.”‘
They spent the next several days there obtaining new passports and other necessities for their return to Canada. Kirshenbaum said the Wikaira’s unreserved hospitality helped them process the traumatic ordeal they’d gone through.
“It was so nice to be there and be with them,” she said. “Maia and her dad were the only ones there at that time, and it felt like we were home.”
After returning to Toronto, the retired couple kept in touch with the Wikairas.
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When they learned that Martin and Rachel were planning a visit to North America to watch Maia graduate from Stanford with a master’s degree, they decided it was time to return the favour.
The two families spent the last week in June together, this time at the Canadians’ home.
Rachel Wikaira said they had a chance to not only take in a host of Canadian attractions, but also to meet Fallick’s and Kirshenbaum’s children.
Those meetings, she said, have set the stage for the friendship between the two families to extend to future generations.
“We’ve met their children, and they’re all talking excitedly about maybe one day coming to New Zealand,” she said. “It may just continue. It may not be Martin and I, it might be our daughter and our sons who meet with them and see them again. One little thing has led to lots.”
– With files from Nicole Thompson.
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