Please stop calling the Spanish consulate. It’s just Tasha

A Northland woman has been driven loco by confused callers seeking consular assistance from the Spanish government’s representatives in New Zealand. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith joined them and gave her a bell to ask: ‘¿Qué pasa?’

For scores of Spaniards who have found themselves in a spot of bother in the South Island, reaching out to a number listed online as the Spanish consulate in Christchurch has only ever brought bad news. Time and time again, those hoping to hear a reassuringly familiar Spanish accent have instead been connected with a Northland woman who can’t speak a lick of Español. That’s not the worst of it: she doesn’t work for the Spanish embassy and has absolutely no connection with the country it represents.

For the last two years, normal person Tasha has begrudgingly served as Christchurch’s unofficial Spanish consul. Her stint in pseudo-diplomacy began in 2024, after she bought her current cellphone from The Warehouse in Kaitaia. An important detail here: Tasha lives in Northland, not Christchurch, where the consulate is based. In fact, the furthest south Tasha’s ever travelled is the northern tip of the South Island: “I’ve lived in Blenheim, and I’m not even lying to you, I’ve never been past there in my life.”

A consulate is essentially a regional outpost of an embassy, and, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “honorary consuls are normally New Zealand citizens or persons who have permanent resident status, are of good standing in the community and have some connection with the sending state”. Tasha might meet the first couple of criteria there, but certainly not the third.

But after she purchased the phone, it didn’t take long for the first Spaniard to come calling – a “very frustrated” man with whom Tasha remains in contact to this day, though the text messages received on both sides are lost in translation. “I don’t think he believed me, maybe he just thought that I thought he was in the too-hard basket and didn’t want to deal with him,” Tasha tells The Spinoff. “I wanted to help, but I live in Kaitaia. I don’t even know what the Spanish embassy is.”

When The Spinoff called Tasha on Tuesday afternoon, it was the second consulate-related call she had received that day. The phone line had been slightly busier this week – a reporter calling to try to find some Spain fans ahead of its Fifa World Cup semi-final against France, and someone else trying to organise an OE in Spain – but Tasha typically only gets a few callers a month.

The queries she receives are varied, from Spanish tourists wanting travel tips to New Zealanders curious about Spanish citizenship and everything in between. Some callers are in Spain, but most calls come from New Zealand. Some conversations can be lighthearted, and others are more intense. “That lady that rang me today, me and her got the giggles,” Tasha says. “Sometimes, I just get yelling.”

Other conversations are heartbreaking; she once had an older Spanish gentleman ring her five times to try to make contact with his daughter who was travelling through Aotearoa. “I could tell in my heart there was something wrong. I could feel it, but I couldn’t understand him,” Tasha says. “I’ve learned to be extra kind, because they get frustrated really easily, especially if I can’t understand them. I’ve learned in the last two years the different tones – I can’t understand them, but I know when something’s urgent.”

Tasha herself is just a regular Northlander, with a husband, teenage children and a job in the hospitality sector. She’s European-Māori, and pretty certain she doesn’t have any Hispanic blood (“I’ve got Irish, German and Scottish in me, but I’ve never heard of any Spanish in me”). And, unfortunately, all those conversations shared in broken English haven’t done much to help her improve her Español. “If someone walked past me speaking Spanish, I wouldn’t even know what language it was,” Tasha says.

Tasha hadn’t been able to figure out where her number had been listed these last few years before The Spinoff came calling. She had talked to her husband about getting a lawyer involved, as she was concerned that having her cellphone number shared online without her consent amounted to a breach of privacy and harassment. Though she’s a big believer in staying kind to those who ring, the last two years have been “extremely frustrating”, she says.

After speaking with Tasha, The Spinoff contacted the Spanish Institute, New Zealand’s largest Spanish language immersion school, who had listed her number online. A spokesperson told The Spinoff they had sourced the number from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s official online embassy directory a number of years ago.

The real Spanish honorary consul in Christchurch is a lawyer named George Forbes, though the MFAT listing notes he does not deal with visa or immigration matters. It appears the Christchurch consulate was closed for a time following the death of the honorary consul at the time, restaurateur Javier Garcia Perea, and Perea’s old number was reassigned. Which is how Tasha ended up as the stand-in consul a year later – numbers get recycled if they aren’t used or topped up within a one-year period.

At some point, the official government website had updated the details but the Spanish Institute hadn’t. A spokesperson for the Embassy of Spain in Wellington told The Spinoff they had no responsibility over embassy information posted on non-official websites. They also said this i was the first time they had been made aware of this issue. Forbes, the real consul, said he had nothing further to add, and had not been aware of Tasha’s involuntary side gig helping him out.

But, no hay mal que por bien no venga: the Spanish Institute removed Tasha’s contact details from its website on Wednesday morning. And Tasha took her last call, hopefully, as the honorary honorary Spanish consul on Wednesday afternoon, when The Spinoff let her know she is now free from the shackles of ever having to hear a stranger’s visa woes again.

It was one of those pleasant calls where Tasha got the giggles. She says she plans to make the most of the free Spanish language classes offered by the Spanish Institute, and mostly feels “amazing” knowing she won’t have to deliver bad news to callers in the future. “It’s not the phone calls stopping, it’s just knowing that parents can get a hold of the Spanish embassy and do what they need to.”