I’m only fourteen, but I’m going to the Auckland march. Mum and Dad weren’t too keen, but Nana Florence said: ‘We’ll make sure she doesn’t get into trouble. We girls can do anything, right, Ailsa?’

Nana Whina — she’s Dad’s friend Tipene’s mother; everyone knows everyone else in the Waimoana Valley — said ‘Dead right they can.’ So Mum laughed and went ‘I’m not going to try arguing with you two.’

Dad grinned. ‘And I’m not going to try arguing with you three.’ Even my big bro John laughed, in spite of all the arguments he’s been having with everyone.

Then Grandad Matiu went: ‘After all, Alan and Beth, just think of the name you gave this girl.’

I’m Ailsa Hahona Hohepa, which I think sounds great, even if a couple of kids at school reckoned Maori and English names don’t go together.

Ailsa is Scottish, and means ‘victory of the gods’. Amazing, eh? One side of our family came here from Scotland almost a hundred years ago, because they wanted a better life. Dad’s part-Scottish and a little bit Maori. Hahona means ‘healer’, and it's one of Nana Florence’s names, too. A girl called Hahona was the best friend of Nana Florence’s nana when she first arrived. My nana’s nana (hope you’re keeping up!) was called Aggie, and was blind. She and Hahona went everywhere together, Nana Florence says. So that’s why I’ve got my second name.

Anyway, I’m going to Auckland with the others, to march against the Springbok rugby tour.

I love rugby. John used to let me play with him and his friends when we were all little, and I reckon it’s rotten that girls can’t play it at high school. Dad agrees with me. (He was my primary-school teacher as well as my father, which is so weird. I’ll tell you more about that later.) John says if I play, the boys might be embarrassed. That’s their problem!

The Springboks are touring New Zealand, and the final test is in Auckland. The All Blacks won the first (yay!); South Africa won the second (boo!). The third game is going to be so important.

But although I like rugby so much, we shouldn’t have invited the Springboks to tour here. In South Africa, black and coloured people still aren’t allowed in the same restaurants or on the same buses as white people. It's almost impossible to marry someone who's a different colour. Black leaders have been sent to jail for wanting equal rights. Nearly all our family, except John, agree New Zealand should stop playing the Springboks until they treat black and coloured people better.

There have been protest marches outside most games. The match against Waikato had to be called off, after protestors broke through a fence and got onto the ground. A game in Timaru was cancelled, too.