Life as a little person

Up to 50 little people or "LPs" have converged on Papamoa this weekend for the 41st Little People of New Zealand conference. Carly Udy meets an LP family that lives in Tauranga.
Donna Kepa and Debbie Ngata want to get one thing straight - they don't have a "little bed" and their houses aren't replicas of "Polly Pockets".
But they have on occasion had to take a stool to the ATM machine and Donna has been known to stand in the car boot to lift groceries from the trolley.
With only about 250 little people or "LPs" in New Zealand, it can be hard meeting eye to eye and doing ordinary tasks - but little people are otherwise no different from big people.
Debbie say perceptions of those who live in an average height world can be bemusing.
New visitors to their homes frequently anticipate everything to be like a "doll's house", when in fact it's not.
Debbie and Donna, both from Tauranga, belong to the middle generation of New Zealand's only three-generation little person family.
Growing up, Donna, 42, says she was in denial about being little. It wasn't until she was 26 and attended her first Little People New Zealand Conference (LPNZ) that she embraced her small stature.
"My first experience was freaky as," she recalls.
For newcomers, being surrounded by little people can be confronting.
"I was nervous and wondered 'will I belong? Where will my place be?'," Donna says.
Once there though, those insecurities melted away.
So much so, she says "from there on, whenever I spotted a little person I'd hunt them down or make a point of introducing myself".
While driving through Tauranga with her daughter Ebony Kepa, 17, (also little) she had seen a LP walking down the street.
They did a U-turn and invited him to the LPNZ conference. Turns out, their father, a cobbler, had made his shoes.
He's now a member of LPNZ.
Many attendees to the annual conference are the only LPs in their family or town. In the Western Bay there are thought to be about 10 little people.
Debbie and Donna's mother Fay is an LP but their father Reuben is average height.
Their sister Wendy is also average height and has three average height children.
Donna and Debbie have one little child each; both fathered by average height men.
At school, Debbie says Wendy was their "bodyguard" but while protected, they learned early on to be very independent.
The girls learned to play the piano and danced ballet and regularly travelled as a family - with Donna able to fit lying down on the back window ledge in the car.
The women say they were never told they were different but have felt it.
Donna, an early childhood teacher, says she occasionally feels like "Jonah Lomu" walking down the street.
"We stand out in a crowd," she says.
Strangers have been known to ask for autographs and photos. And at shop counters, cashiers often struggle to see them but Debbie says she'll just "go around".
She also never leaves town without two essentials: "A stick with a hook and a stool."
This weekend's 41st LPNZ conference in Papamoa will see New Zealand's little people discuss everything from practical matters, such as how to modify clothes, cars, kitchens and bathrooms, to how children cope at school and medical issues associated with being little.
Average height parents who have little children will also be there.
It is estimated there are about 250 New Zealanders with some form of dwarfism; they include builders, teachers, nurses and school children.
The conference has a tradition as a place where relationships blossom but Debbie, 44, standing at 1.24m sees the funny side.
"Hook-ups" do happen but "just because we're little doesn't mean we all fit the same glove. [For example] All Maori don't like all Maori! Not being racist," she says.
The conference mostly builds friendship networks and support groups and for the teenage girls, an opportunity to dress up and "make themselves feel special," Donna says.
Last year, the conference held a masquerade ball and this year, there's a disco with a multi-cultural theme.
Ebony plans to paint a moko on her face, wear feather earrings and wrap herself in a feather cloak.
She says being little hasn't been too tough but she does have to watch where she's going.
With almost 2000 students at her school, Otumoetai College, the risk of being caught in a "stampede" is high.
"At the end of class I feel like I'm sometimes going to be bowled over."
Mostly the students are supportive.
Up until a year ago her cousin Sheldon, now 19 and a student at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, attended the school too, and Debbie is a teacher aide there.
Questions are always asked but they don't mind too much.
"I like educating the kids that are curious," Debbie says.
"It's about building relationships and educating people that want to be educated."
And conversation is always sparked with ease.
Debbie says: "Quite often in the supermarket I'll say 'can I borrow your arm for a minute?'."
LP: THE FACTS
Dwarfism is a condition characterised by short stature. Technically, that means an adult height of 1.25m or under, according to the advocacy group Little People of America (LPA).
It be caused by any one of more than 200 conditions, most of which are genetic. Most are caused by a spontaneous genetic mutation in the egg or sperm cells prior to conception. Other conditions are caused by genes inherited from one or both parents.
The most common type, accounting for 70 per cent of all cases of short stature, is called achondroplasia.
It can and most often does occur in families where both parents are of average height. In fact, 85 per cent of children with achondroplasia are born to average-size parents.
Many conditions that cause dwarfism have their own set of characteristics and possible complications, including curvature of the spine (scoliosis), bowed legs, back pain and trouble with joint flexibility and early arthritis. Many of these complications are treatable.
- Source: www.kidshealth.org
On the web: www.littlepeople.org.nz