New Zealand is a long way from the sandy wonderland of the United Arab Emirates. Amid the dunes, Tumanako Seymour is bringing touch rugby, taiaha and tu meke yarns.
There’s a lot Tumanako Seymour misses about his motherland: Friends, family, steak and cheese pies and the Mongrel Mob.
The 21-year-old cuts an unlikely figure in the oil-rich Arab nation. There are but 6000-odd Kiwis in the UAE, most of those a good generation older than Seymour - and few with a similar life story.
An only child, Seymour was raised in Hamilton. He had a good upbringing and went through full immersion schooling, kohanga reo, wharekura, and speaks fluent te reo. He is also incredibly literate in his culture, active in kapa haka and Māori martial arts (mau rakau) and effortlessly recites Māori mythology.
“I first learned kapa haka when I was eight. Ever since then I’ve performed it. Obviously the haka is one of the most talked about war dances in the world. ‘Ha’ in ‘haka’ means to breathe and ‘ka’ is to enlighten. So you’re breathing and enlightening – the breath and electricity in your body, you’re bringing it out.”
This is one of the many complexities about Seymour. For a guy who relies on derivatives of the word ‘fuck’ in much of his conversation, he throws down some impressively poetic statements.
“I try to not let any sort of fucking negativity enter my force field even though I swear a lot. I fuckin’ always have a frown on my face but fuckin’ deep down in my heart [it’s different].”
Seymour likes to cultivate a tough guy image. At one point during our conversation the well-muscled fitness buff tells me he secretly enjoys it when people shift nervously next to him in an elevator, and coaxing a smile out of him during our photo shoot proves difficult. But then you see him around the young kids he teaches touch rugby to, and he’s as tender as a horse nursing a newborn foal.
“I just like the development side of seeing kids when they first start playing touch to a few months down the track, just the natural talent they’ve got. If I’m out and about sometimes the kids I’m coaching come up to me and that’s a bit of a buzz to me. Watching them play, I feel like a bit of an inspiration to the young fullas. Hopefully I’ll see them 10 years from now in the top sides for their country.”
Before he washed up in UAE capital Abu Dhabi in November 2013, Seymour was selling protein shakes at a night market in Hamilton and spending a lot of time with the Mongrel Mob. He had just got his patch after half-a-year as a prospect, and expected to continue life “as a gangster” on the streets of Hamilton.
But his mum, who he describes as “the rock in my heart”, is a teacher in the UAE’s capital. She convinced her only child over to test the waters of the Arabian Gulf for a few months.
“At first I didn’t really like it. My mind was still not open to the bigger world,” Seymour says as he lounges in his apartment’s pool, after a morning of touch rugby and mau rakau under the scorching 40-degree-plus summer heat.
The central 22-storey apartment is more hotel than house, with a couple of pools, gym (well actually two; one for men and one for women), a restaurant inside and supermarket downstairs – a vast difference to the “concrete streets” he walked in Hamilton.
“The first two months I didn’t see the opportunities and doors that were open to me being here until I performed kapa haka at the Dubai Sevens tournament, got VIP entrance, and played sevens there for the top Abu Dhabi side. Those two things were a big eye-opener for me.”
Seymour hasn’t much looked back from that point. It was there he met mentor and friend John Larkins who got him playing touch – they’re flying to the UK in August to represent the UAE in a European touch rugby competition – and coaching in schools with his organisation Middle East Touch.
To boot, Seymour has just secured a job as a coaching assistant at a local school, something that would have been unlikely back home without a teaching qualification.
In his spare time, he has been paid to perform the haka at an exhibition in Germany, performed kapa haka at various events and even took a selfie with Prime Minister John Key after welcoming him with a powhiri during his April visit to Dubai – the first by a New Zealand head of state in over a decade.
Larkins says he was glad to give a break to the “teddy bear” he sees much potential in.
“T is humble enough that he doesn’t believe there’s no room to move. That’s one of his greatest attributes. He’s not so up himself … as a coach and mentor to him it invigorates me to want to teach more because that person is like a sponge, really. So long as he continues along that path there isn’t a limit to what he can do and how many people he can touch and teach.”
So how did this bright young prospect end up as a Mongrel Mob prospect?
The first thing Seymour wants to make clear is that there he sees much good in New Zealand’s most feared and notorious gang. “There’s always going to be bad people and there’s always going to be good people. You don’t judge a book by the cover, just because he’s wearing a leather vest with a patch on it doesn’t mean he’s a bad person.”
The only child talks a lot about the support and brotherhood he found there and the guilt he felt about not returning to the gang, after he decided to stay in the UAE permanently.
“For a year I felt broken in my heart because I didn’t back my word up and go home.”
But he knows he is doing more for both himself and his community by upskilling and taking advantage of the opportunities in the UAE right now.
“I feel healthier, I feel happy, I feel educated.
“Eventually, I want to go back and help my people become healthy and fit.”
And he’s also acting as a conduit in the other direction, a proud and important global ambassador for what it means to be Kiwi and to be Māori.
“Honestly I feel that Māori people and New Zealanders have a lot to offer the world. We’re rich in our beliefs and history. We’ve got a one-of-a-kind country. I’m proud to be Māori, I’m proud to be Polynesian, I’m proud to be from New Zealand.”
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