Haikus in Haiku

Lettuce, for all it's majesty and vitamin content, can get a little mundane. Claire and I were sitting on our crates this morning, pulling weeds out of a row of red romaine when inspiration struck us and we launched our poetry careers. These are some of the masterpieces that came to be this morning at 7am in a field of lettuce...

Oh! Arugula 

your green majesty knows no bounds

Spice. I dream of you

Assumption: healthy

So much lettuce. But we eat

hot dogs. twice. daily

Angry come morning

but your love lights up my life

Claire Fahrner, sweet gem

Fuel tank and blow torch

Flame weeding, really badass

but it's just heavy...

Claire, wisdom abound

"Don't fret. Bitches aint shit doe"

Pia is wary

If you burn your leg

And get a stupid tattoo

Never give advice

Asian boss lady

Loving. But stay well behaved....

Or "SO DISRESPECT!!!"

You're welcome world. Contact us via facebook when you would like to award us the Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize. Thanks&Bye

Pictures with your post?

 Claire looking classy on the curb with all our crap

 View from the boss lady's house

Solo adventure rewards

Back but not quite home

I want to write about grand events that have occurred, near death experiences, experiences that reaffirm why I’m alive, revelations I’ve had and lessons that have expanded my mind and helped me grow as a person. But real life, even in Hawaii on a gap year, isn’t like that all the time. Claire and I have been back on the farm since the evening of November 28^th. Every morning I beat the sun at getting out of bed and then get engaged in one part of another of keeping a family owned business running. It’s good to be back on Maui. I appreciate the Big Island and certainly the love and opportunities we found there. But coming back to Maui prompted the discovery that I feel something special when I’m here. Probably because I was here first but I’m just going to go with the idea that it’s some spiritual connection I have to magic and beauty of the island and that it touches my soul and enlightens me or something.

            The woman who birthed me texted me saying “isn’t it time for a new blog post?” And mothers are always right. I don’t have any one specific shocker of a story to tell this time but I do have lots of things to share. Little, special things that are just as valid and worth remembering as the big whoppers. At least I think so. They go like this more or less:

-The complex social structure of the farmily has changed a bit. Everett and Alicia, two of our really good friends have left. And Jared (the crazy asshole) got kicked off for having a complete meltdown, threatening Chancee, and then bringing Alicia and Chris all his belongings before claiming he was going to kill himself. So he’s gone but he managed to break a 4 gallon box worth of glass across the upper lettuce field before he went, which made it impossible to work in until Claire picked it all out for her first job on her first day back. Needless to say, he hasn’t been missed. But Alicia and Everett have. Because Jared, Alicia and Everett have been replaced by three more Chancee-like individuals, Chancee’s actual boyfriend, and then Whitney went to the dark side. The nicest way to describe the pack they have formed is to compare them to the five girls you knew in middle school who only wore Abercrombie kids or simply to imagine what it would be like if you met Mean Girls in real life. The nicest way to depict their level of common sense and intelligence is to tell you that they all went out on a whim and got tattoos, at one of the worst parlors on the island, and one of ‘meaningful quotes’ on Chancee is now one of the most misspelled. The same individual in question may have recently tried to spin fire poi for the first time while wasted and walked away with a third degree burn the size of a fire safety manual on the outside of her leg. But of course, no judgement…to each their own. I don’t mean to be rude but with people I’m rather passive so in writing I feel the need to be aggressive. Lets just call that a rant…

So that’s kind of a bummer. It changes the environment in the whole house and makes me more ready to be home than I’ve ever been before. I miss the old farmily and chill farm house dynamics but I’m still grateful to be here. They ignore me and I have a week left to avoid them and enjoy the island with Claire, the boys, or just by myself. As much as the new inhabitants are a poor trade for the old ones, it is a nice excuse to get independent and get out of the house. I complained in a similar manner to a friend and he said it best: “Dude, you’re on Maui! Don’t let dumb bitches bring you down!”Point taken.

-I took that point seriously the other day when Claire was the tired, the boys were…the boys, and I was antsy. So after opening the fridge eight times or so, I grabbed a towel, a pocket knife and handful of dried fruit and hitch hiked to a waterfall. There are a big collection of highly publicized and tourist heavy waterfalls called Twin Falls that are just a few minutes down the road from the farm. However, Twin Falls is often crowded and generally smells like sunscreen, name tags and money. So I hitched to Twin Falls in the back of truck with two wolf dogs, and then hopped a fence. If you climb down the bank and find the river bed, you can walk under the highway and follow the water. If you’re not afraid of a little jungle, grafitti and mud, you’ll stumble upon a beautiful waterfall and pool, completely secluded and pristine. I left my bag at the top and jumped off the waterfall into the pool. Being alone in deep water can leave you feeling like the jungle is watching you. But if you’re lucky, you’ll get to a place where you can feel safe being alone. I predict a few more solo adventures while I’m here and I’m equal parts ecstatic and terrified for the enormous solo adventure that will be the remainder of this year.

-If we’re talking things I do solo, island pick up soccer is good example. Just by chance, I discovered a pick up soccer game that happens on a secret field every Tuesday and Friday. It’s not organized or announced, you have to be cued in and invited. And somehow I got an in on it. I played a few times before we went the Big Island, and on Tuesday, I decided to get back on my game. The game was good, plenty of people, including a man who’d I’d never seen there before who everyone kept calling ‘Woody’. At one point I was marking him and he looked right at me and I wanted to tell him that he looked just like this actor. But soccer moves fast and I’m not that awkward so I just kept playing. Pia knows her faces. It was Woody Harrelson. He lives in Paia and tries to come out to play every week. And the reason he does is because everyone who plays is just really cool about it. No one asks him to sign anything, or about movies, they just mark to him, give him shit when he misses an easy goal, and congratulate him on a good pass. When the game was over he said good game to me and strolled off. He didn’t even play in shoes, just straight up barefoot soccer. Strange times. Woody has a mean left footed cross though.

An Education

            The nature of the volunteer opportunity that I have acquired in the Office of the Governor in West Hawaii is such that I cannot really share much of anything that I have been doing with you. This blog is essentially the minutes of my trip, written down and carefully organized by who and where and what and how it felt. And as you can guess, the most enthralling part of working in the Office of the Governor is meeting and handling the constituents who come in there. I have met such extraordinary characters, criminals, and down rights nut cases, but due to the privacy contract I signed upon taking on this volunteer position, I am unable to share any of these people and their problems with you. When I informed my mother of this fact, she simply said “in a few years, with a few different names”. So maybe I’ll do that, better read the fine print on my volunteer agreement first though…

            What I can relate here is everything I’ve been doing outside the office, though that might get boring so I’m narrowing it down to just the things that fit into the school of thought I’ve been entertaining lately. Merely describing our time here does not do the Big Island justice because it’s not as action and adrenaline packed as the cliffs and hikes and jungle adventures we had on the farm on Maui. But it’s certainly been just as exciting. Yes, I work in an office, and yes, I wear shoes everyday. But I also talk to every kind of person you can imagine. And seeing as Barbara has invited us into her life, we’ve become a part of it.

            In any conversation regarding my gap year, the words “travel is important” are almost guaranteed to come up. And after I’d said and heard them enough, I really thought about why I believe that’s true. And what I’ve come up with so far is that I want to travel so that I can collect enough experiences and perspective to help me understand who I am and inspire who I want to be. I feel that to really know myself, I need to know me in comparison to people, lifestyles and places that aren’t me. The concept of self is relative; there is who you are and who you are in contrast to everyone else. You can claim to be extremely adaptable, until you find yourself uncomfortable in a new place, and watch as someone else slides through with ease. And then you can consider how truly adaptable they are, and accept and be content with the fact that you are simply not them, or strive to be more like them. The same can be said for lifestyles you observe, as well as attitudes, morals and practices. When you experience something new, you understand better who you are by accepting what you’re not, or stand inspired, by who you could be.

            Self-financing has definitely made me think about who I’d like to be in terms of how I use resources. Barbara is putting a roof over our heads from the kindness of her heart, but Claire and I are not complete mooches so we’re paying for our own food. Aside from a brief and heavily bullshitted Econ project, I have never done my own food budgeting for a long term plan. And it hasn’t been as easy as you might think. The real reason for that is that Claire and I are a certain type of consumer. We’re not particularly wasteful or greedy; we grew up recycling and being resource conscious, composting and saving leftovers. But we’ve always had a broad and plentiful supply of resources, even if we have been careful with them. Simply put, Claire and I eat like people who have always had enough to eat. We eat like people who have had choices regarding what they want to eat. Because that’s who we are. So as pre-college students with tight budgets from our own hard earned cash, we had to get over the concept of surplus. It’s a very middle class American concept, to have a whole fridge full of food, a whole pantry and shelves and cupboards, from which you can pick and choose what you eat and eat whenever you want. Why not instead shop for just what you need for the week, and buy exactly what you need for the meal, instead of buying the ingredients for every meal ever invented and then just picking the ones you want. Why not eat and shop in such a way that you never throw food out because it’s gone off or sat for too long, because what needs to get eaten does and what doesn’t, doesn’t exist. So we’re learning, and it’s been an education. Lesson one: a lack of surplus does not mean you’ll be hungry.

             The past few weekends, we’ve left Kona to go down South with Barbara to her country house in Captain Cook. For the 30 or so years that she and her family have lived there, at least 10 of those years were spent off the grid. Off the grid living is extremely common here; many people have built their own homes on their own land and they value that seclusion. The house had electricity put in a while back, but still runs on it’s own tank water. There is a huge metal cylinder outside the back kitchen door and all of the water for the house is stored there. Rainwater adds to it occasionally, but for the most part it has to be filled up and then used sparingly. Filling up means you need a friend with a pick up truck and a lot of very large plastic containers. Also, it’s not potable. So drinking water has to be acquired elsewhere. When Claire and I arrived at the house, there were just a few inches left in the tank. We flushed the toilets using old bathwater kept in buckets. Dishes were all sat in one side of the sink to soak, scrubbed, and then set in the other side to all be rinsed in one inch of water. On our way up to the house, we had stopped by the pump and filled up a few large jugs with drinking water. We stayed three days, and on the third day, we were rather anxious to bathe. Barbara filled about one third of the old bathtub with scalding water and I went first. I sat in the hot water and used biodegradable soup and then washed my hair and rinsed it by using a cup to dump water over my head. There was something about the simplicity of the whole thing that was comforting. I hadn’t used a bath to actually wash since about age eight. Baths were a leisure activity, for soaking in hot water with salts. But with limited water, running a shower for any more than a minute and a half would use more water than a full tub. So I washed in the tub. And then Claire washed in the tub, in the same water I used, just a little soapier and not so hot. And then we put it all into buckets and used it to flush our toilet and water the plumeria trees outside. And as we drove away on the thistle filled dirt road, I looked back at the old house and considered the way I was accustomed to living and if I wanted to make what I was accustomed to doing into what I would do for the rest of my life. If I do, I’ll be using a lot more water than Barbara does.

            The house in town is fully on the grid, but because we’re essentially taking a freebie from Barbara for living there and the utilities, I’m more conscious than ever about what and how much I’m using. At the end of the day, we’re not paying her any rent, but every shower we take, light we turn on, load of laundry we do, and phone charger we plug in, she pays for. So I’ve made how I use resources shorter, less frequent and more efficient. I guess where I’m going with this whole thing is that how we consume is totally altered when A. you start paying for it B. there is a tangible limit C. someone is gifting it to you.

            When I tell people I’m in Hawaii, they immediately assume beautiful beaches and sunsets, ocean side pools, drinks with umbrellas, sundresses and unlimited beach days. It is beautiful and I have been to the beach, but for the people who live and work here (and for those of us who join in) paradise still requires maintenance. We work in an office from 7:45am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday and we are just volunteers. Everything in Hawaii is more expensive than the mainland and to get a solid public education is much more difficult. Barbara owns her land in the country, but she also hauls her own water and has to go to a separate pump in order to get anything that is safe to drink. Hawaii is beautiful, but being here has reminded me how grateful I am to have grown up drinking tap water that never ran out because my parents paid the bill.

            Barbara doesn’t like Thanksgiving because of the gluttony and indulgence that the holiday has come to represent. I’ve never liked Thanksgiving that much because I find it boring. But in the true spirit of giving thanks, tomorrow I’ll be grateful for what I’ve been given, including the ability to work for what I need, independently. I am grateful for the family that provided for me, taught me to provide for myself, and always provides love. A common plight associated with the liberal, middle class, young, educated, and self-aware individual is the oppressive guilt they feel about the privileges they have. I understand that guilt, been there homie. But something else that I’m beginning to understand is that feeling guilty isn’t really what should take priority. So you have clean drinking water and a healthy sized pantry? Be grateful for it. And be considerate. Use only what you need and be grateful that it has been provided for you. Don’t get bitter about it, don’t get angry with your peers because they don’t understand your struggle against your privileged up bringing and lifestyle and that you’re sensitive and you feel the plight of the third world. Don’t be snotty about a quality of life that most people are striving for. Be grateful and gracious. Appreciate what you have, use it wisely, and then make an effort to give back. Volunteer, travel, teach, learn, strive to understand what makes your lifestyle different from the people you meet, and then, do something about it. 

On the Big

On Thursday, November 1^st, Claire Fahrner and I hugged a bunch of wonderful farm misfits and caught a flight with Pacific Wings to the Big Island of Hawaii. Our plane was of the “commuter variety” which meant that the pilots checked us in, loaded our luggage, and then walked us across the asphalt to seat passengers individually. All 10 of us. They had to seat us very specifically so as the tiny flight contraption would be balanced. The plane was equal in size to a large SUV, and Claire and I scored the seats directly behind the pilots so we got to watch the little lights and fear for our lives every time something beeped. But it was beautiful. The sun had gone down and the island was lit up, with the horizon still warm. The plane was tiny, the farmily wonderful, and the Big Island a complete mystery and gamble, but sitting behind the pilots was one of those moments that reaffirms how extraordinary being independent can feel.

            For those adults who’ve been adults for a long time, you’ve probably kind of forgotten this exact feeling. And for anyone under 18, you may think you’re there, but you haven’t quite felt it yet. Its not pessimism or optimism, its simply an affirmation that you’re alive. We planned our trip one way and it went another. So we connected with our friends back home, made a phone call, used our savings from summer jobs and bought plane tickets to an island we know nothing about to live and work with a woman we’d never met. And it’s not that we really needed to get off the farm, it’s that we could. We could be headed straight for disaster, but it didn’t scare us because in that moment, no matter what happened, we had ourselves there, gotten that far, saved that money, and made that decision. When you first start growing up it’s like being a little again. You make something, and it could be the worst, ugliest, stupidest, most utterly useless thing ever, but you don’t care one bit. Because you made it. And you did it all by yourself.

            Lucky for us, our big kid decisions and plane tickets did not lead us into disaster. They just led us to awesome. Our unknown woman on the Big Island was Barbara Dalton: aunt to Jack Bastian, representative for the Governor of Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, self-aware intellectual, and last but not least, our gracious, hilarious, and extremely generous host. At the beginning of our trip, when Claire and I were debating the best way to flee from the Dragon Fruit farm and salvage our trip, we put out a plea on Facebook for friends and family in Hawaii that we might be able to collect as contacts. Jack Bastian came through with an aunt and an email on the Big Island. We did a little networking after getting to the new farm, and worked out a little arrangement with Barbara, bought some tickets and now here we are.

            So, the Big Island. In a nice change of pace from farming, Claire and I are volunteering in the Office of the Governor in West Hawaii during the week. Amongst other things, we are involved in helping with the application and processing of state IDs for the citizens of Hawaii. This may sound boring but I’ve loved it. It means we get to meet with every kind of person you can imagine, hear their stories, hope they have their documents and help them get their ID card. I like the pace of the office, I’m enjoying having clean feet again, and I like the idea that I leave each day having helped someone in one way or another. The time we don’t spend in the office, we’re exploring Kona or basking in Barbara’s hospitality. Claire and I share a room in Barbara’s little house in town, for which we don’t pay rent or do slave labor. It’s just outside of town, just across the street from the ocean, and just what we want. We’ve been really, really lucky. One of the best things about travel is that sometimes you meet someone, and they let you put your life into theirs, and you’re reminded that people are good. 

Commando! (late post...actual adventure occurred on October 30th...sorry!)

            The best adventures that you can have in Hawaii always involve bringing nothing and completely disregarding anything that says anything about "no trespassing". The commando hike started exactly like that. Plus a thunder storm. 
            The commando hike, similar to the romp, needs a leader who's done it before, and for this adventure, it was Chancee. We were instructed to wear swim suits that tied on, so we could tie our flip flops to our bodies when the time came. We hitched out there in groups, Claire-Pia-Everett and Chancee-Whitney-Drew. When team one arrived and stepped out of the pristine rental car that had so graciously picked us up, the weather just full on dumped on us. We took shelter in the bamboo forest that is adjacent to the start of the commando hike. The forest manages to be incredibly beautiful while also being haunting and eerie. Bamboo grows thick and close together, so upon entering the forest, you feel as if it's suddenly twilight. It's hard to see things move through the thick growths, and so you feel as if things are moving in the trees but you can't truly see them. Sounds get muffled and distorted; a river runs through the forest but you can't find it unless you can see it. The three of us walked deep into the forest, where the rain could barely even get through and the old growth trees creaked in the wind. I stood in between poles as thick as my arm, shivering in my suit as mosquitos picked at my exposed back. The forest shielded us from the rain, but it also blocked out any sounds from the road. We wouldn't know when the rest of our party arrived. So Everett went up to the road and Claire followed shortly after. I found myself alone in the trees. Everything creaked and spoke, and the whole forest blew together in the wind and I was alone but I felt surrounded. I let the eerie bubble effect take me completely...and then booked it to the road.
            We met up with hitch team two and then had a decision to make. The commando hike was low on the extreme danger scale, lower than the romp and cliff jumping, but only when the weather was dry. Much of the hike involved walking up a steep river bed, and people die doing the hike when it rains heavily and a flash flood washes them down the hill and smashes their bodies against the rocky banks. We decided we weren't afraid of rain and did it anyway. 
            Chancee led us over a metal fence that was decorated with signage telling us to stay out, and into a large pasture. We walked quietly because cows are actually very angry animals who will charge and try and kill you. After a time, the path gave way to just grass and then the grass gave way to mud. Whitney took a few steps and then screamed. I always think "SNAKE!" when people scream in the country, but that doesn't apply in Hawaii because there are no snakes, none. Turns out she had just sunk knee deep into the mud. Two steps later, we all sank with her. It felt like baby Jabba was hugging my legs. Smelled like it too. I dug out my flip flops and we tramped on barefoot. It was flow progress. It was 100 yards of thick, sticky mud, with cow pop thrown into the mix. Each step was a leap of faith, because you didn't know how far your leg would sink, or what sharp thing was waiting for you at the bottom of the mud. I've embraced mud a lot since I've been here, but having putrid mud creeping up my thigh still gave me the heebie jeebies a little. At the end of our 100 yard battle, we found ourselves at the very steep bank of the river. Covered in mud, stuck with thorns and laughing, we slid down the hill into the river.
            The majority of the commando hike is trekking up the river. We tied our shoes to our suits and started picking our way up. The river is slow and lazy and dotted with rocks, so you just hop your way from rock to rock. However, due to the recent/current storm that was raging, everything was the most slippery. Nearly broke my neck/knocked out my teeth a good number of times, all good though. After a good time working our way up the river, I heard voices echoing off the riverbed down stream from us. Commando company? Then we heard the calls. Bird calls and signal calls, so we called back. And then round the bend came what we eventually named, ‘The Clan’. It was a troupe of around 13 young men; all shirtless and in running shoes. The first one came up to us and said in a thick accent “commando traffic jam!”. Turns out they were a collection of Europeans who either worked or lived at hostel not far from our farm. We started moving up the river in a huge mass, The Clan slightly ahead of the farmily. We reached a place in the river where thick vines grew from bank to bank and walking through the water was impossible. So one by one we climbed up into the tangles and walked across a giant carpet of jungle vines that suspended us across the water. They grew close enough that it was just like a large woven bridge.
            After a significant portion of the hike is spent rock hopping and vine walking, it real action packed. The river widened into a large pool that we swam across and then climbed the small waterfall on the other side. After a few more vine walks, we reached the larger waterfall. Still had to climb this one. The Clan went first and made it up. And then Chancee went. The climb was straight up the water but the rocked closed in and narrowed towards the top, so it was recommended you wedge yourself between them like a door frame and then pull yourself up. Chancee got this far and then slipped. One of The Clan was close and reached out, grabbed her hand and hauled her up over the top. I vowed to do better. I got in the fall, the water making it hard to see and making me very cold. Got wedged in and then started to pull myself up. At this point I had a whole waterfall in my eyes and was just groping blindly on the rocks for hand holds. I got one hand in, and the other hand was groping blindly until it was grasped firmly by a large Irish man who hauled my ass up on the rock. Thanks mate.
            We waded up river a bit further until we reached the mouth of a cave. It wasn’t like the huge ocean caves we had seen. It was small and tight, the river running through it and the walls close and the ceiling short. At this point, I began a silent panic. One of my greatest fears is being in water in the pitch black. But this was the commando hike, it runs in a loop, so I wasn’t going back, and the cave was what was forward. We swam the first part, which was still well lit by the mouth, and then climbed up another waterfall into the small, tunnel part. Because our combined parties formed such a large group, all the daylight was blocked out of the narrow tunnel. On member of the Clan had a light he had used to guide us up the fall, but just as he turned to come into the little tunnel, it went out. Dead, right then. I could feel the walls on either side of me and see the water ahead. It was pools of water separated by little rock formation. I stepped into each pool, not knowing if it was so deep that I would sink or so shallow that I would hit myself on the rocks. The short swim or wade across the little pools to next oasis of dry rock was like a lifetime. I kept looking up hoping to see daylight, that the tiny tunnel packed full of bodies and rocks and slime and dark water was nearly over. It felt like an eternity, having to force myself to let my body enter each dark pool of water, every fiber of my being screaming at me to stay out and get out of the dark. And the finally, light. I scrambled out of there, through the rocky entrance and practically threw myself onto the path and then remembered to breathe. Does that count as conquering a fear…?
            The rest was simple and beautiful. The river had spread out and the banks were less steep, and we walked up the rocks until we reached a beautiful pool that was fed by the biggest waterfall yet. The Clan kept going up so that they could jump off the top, but the farmily was content to shed shoes and shorts and swim. The rain had stopped and after a brief swim and a few low jumps, we collected our things and started the walk back. This walk follows a trail that transitions into a dirt road that eventually leads to the highway. We were tired and cold, but adventures always leave me feeling fulfilled, like I achieved something worth achieving.
            Back on the road, a truck full of coconuts picked us up and we rode home in the rain, with coconuts in weird places, cold, wet, tired and grateful.

Farmily

Better late than never. Tried the frame thing, but in the end what counts is that I have a picture of each person...minus Jared

 Chris

 Whitney

 Chancee

 Alicia

 Drew

 Lee

 Uuly

 Everett 

The dorks

Move up, move on

Come Thursday, November 1st, the farmily that has become our surrogate family and home, will start to break off. Claire and I fly for the Big Island, Everett goes back to Salt Lake City and shortly after that, one by one, the farmily is moving on or moving home. For a lot of people it was nearly time, and some drama with our boss and then our movements inspired/reminded everyone else that they needed to get going. Alicia has someone waiting for her in Denver, with the promise of a little apartment and a lot of love to share. Drew and Chris have been on the farm for a long time and it's beginning to feel like too long. Whitney is racing against the clock like us, and therefore has a lot to see in a short amount of time, and not all of it can be found on the farm. Chancee needs a job, and most of the jobs are not in Haiku.

I have no idea if I will ever see the farmily again. And usually staying in touch/falling out of touch stresses me out, but not this time. The farmily exists solely by chance. A bunch of young misfits thrown together on one farm in one little town on one little island. In any other circumstance, we probably wouldn't have been friends. But we are now. And if we ever see each other again, it'll just be by chance. So I'm not worried about it. We all have somewhere to go and when we do, we'll just say "I'll see you when I see you". Because that's how we met, and that's how we'll leave. And it'll be just fine.

Before we all get back to real life, we're making the most of farm life. We took the pick up truck, layers, water, and cameras and headed up to Haleakala for sunset. This is the crater, the highest point on the island, and by far the coldest. Alicia drove up as the rest of us froze in the back of the truck and swore we had never been colder ever in the history of ever. And then we reached the peak and stumbled out of the truck.

Being there was really understanding that the earth is round. It was being reminded that you are small and that space is big. It was being grateful. It was like breathing light. It was like this:

Hana

Zombies

Yesterday the power went out. The farm has a cable TV, almost everyone has a laptop or something similar, and suddenly all those things were useless. Sunday afternoon is a very mellow time on the farm, we were all tired from Hana and were watching movies, sending emails, in youtube black holes or napping. For a while, we thought it was just a short one, out in the country it happens every now and then. But after a good hour and a half, it was obvious this was a big one. Slowly but surely, we all ended up around the kitchen table. Claire and I were writing letters, Alicia was drawing, the boys debating over something. Though we all live together, it’s hard to catch the farmily in one place for more than a minute. We like our rooms and our space and our electronics, but when the power goes out in the country, it’s pitch black. And that tends to bring people together.

            We sat around the kitchen table and went back to basics. We wrote letters instead of emails and facebook, drew pictures instead of looking them up online, talked to each other, instead of into our phones. We made weird concoctions of cold food, because we have an electric stove, microwave and toaster.  The only generator was plugged into the lettuce fridge; protect the business before anything else! But Drew refused to compromise his bagel quality, and so carried the toaster outside to plug it into the generator. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

            When the sun was completely gone, we lit the only two candles we had, ate trail mix and Alicia got out her guitar. She plays for us every now and then, and it always makes my day. She has a beautiful and usual voice that can be soft and also haunting. She played through our requests, we let her sing beautifully and we sang badly together. She made up songs on the spot about different farmily members and about zombie apocalypses. The farmily is really into zombies because we’ve started watching The Walking Dead together, so anytime the power goes out, there’s a storm or we hear noises in the jungle, we all get talking about how and what we would do if the zombie apocalypse hit. The current plan is to fight our way to Lahaina and then hijack a cruise ship and use that as our fortress till the whole thing blows over. There are some flaws, like getting rid of the zombies on the ship, getting supplies and the possibility of zombie sharks, but we’re working on it.

            Chris said it best: “We should kill the power every night”. We sat together for hours, singing and laughing and eating cold food. It’s funny how simple and still complicated it is to bring people together. We live together, but to actually be together, we needed to be afraid of the dark. Try killing the power in your house for a night; when the lights are off it makes it easier to see the light that comes from the people around you. 

Take Shelter!

After collectively concluded that getting drunk and hanging out in the farm house again for the weekend sounded boring, the farmily decided to pack up and try and camp out for a night in Hana. Hana is only 38 miles from our front door, but the highway to get there is so twisted, steep and narrow, that the journey generally takes about two and half hours. And naturally it would take us around four hours because we’d be hitchhiking with multiple rides. So after work, I packed a flannel, clean knickers, a can of soup, a head lamp, and stuffed my sleeping bag into a pillow case. Claire and I were meant to be the second to last team to leave for hitchhiking, but lucky for us, Chancee (who was in the last team) had a friend with a old volo who was headed to Hana anyway. So Claire, Chancee, Everett and I and our minimal gear piled into Chase’s car (our new friend). The Volo, our salvation from hitchhiking, did not look like it would make it to Hana. I chose not to worry about it. Five minutes into our journey, Chase hit the brakes hard, and instead of screeching to a stop, the car slowed, squeaked and then finally stopped.  Chase was way to juiced when he said “That’s all the brakes we got guys!”. Forget sharks, spiders and drowning, my death in Hawaii is guaranteed to be vehicle related.

            Our journey was nauseating and terrifying, partly due to the road and our lack of functional vehicle, and partly due the fact that Chancee is less than my favorite person and makes it a point to aggressively flirt and coerce every “new friend” she makes on the island (they are always male…). The sun was setting just as we were getting near to Hana. At this point, Chase needed to make a stop. We had to drive deep into the jungle, off road, to visit a hippie commune of sorts. Chase’s brother used to live there, but recently got the shit beat out of him by his ‘brothers’, fled the commune, and Chase was there to sniff out the situation and collect the remainder of his brother’s personal items. It was really beautiful, deep in the jungle with a path that led to cliffs with a view of the whole ocean and the jagged coast line. The jungle was cleared only for the make shift kitchen and outhouse, and then through the trees we could see tents and strange little shrines and clearings. Chase went about his business, talking to people and collecting things, and the residents of the jungle habitat left us alone for the most part. We walked around their land and looked at the view, dodged the many chickens, cats and dogs that ran wild and observed from the distance the massive bamboo structures that had been erected around the clearing and the shines that were dotted between the trees. Chase had warned us to ask the ingredients of anything anyone offered us to smoke, drink or eat while we were there, because most of it was laced with ‘special stuff’. One girl informed us that they did yoga three times a day and that there was an on site yoga instructor, masseuse, and therapist who led their ‘morning ritual’. Claire and I decided that we were intrigued by their way of life, but that we would refrain from joining for the time being.

            By the time we found the rest of the farmily on the beach, the sun was down, the mosquitoes out, and the booze flowing. Camping, drinking and everything else we were doing was illegal on the beach, but luckily enough, the farmily had met a native named Hoku Loa, who worked for the resort that managed the beach. He decided to be our friend, gave us permission to sleep there, contributed to the festivities and even made us a bonfire. Now, at this part of the story, any reader who is older, parental, protective, a future employer, or particularly judgmental needs to take a deep breath. I don’t want to censor this blog because when I look back I want to remember Hawaii for how it actually happened. So, there may or may not have been people under 21 drinking. I may or may not have been one of them. It may or may not have been the first time…or the last time. Whatever makes you feel better.

            Meeting Hoku Loa was really interesting because of the relationship between many of the natives and white people, or haoles. A risk we were taking by attempting to camp out on the beach in Hana was that we could get beat up and mugged by natives. All over the island there are spots that are unspoken native territory. If you go to certain beaches after sundown, you can almost guarantee getting in some real trouble. Hoku Loa explained to us that he was raised to hate white people, because of what they had done to the Island and to the Hawaiian people. But he had decided on his own that he could not hate our generation, because it wasn’t us who came and killed and conquered. It was our ancestors. But he was the minority with that view. Had some other natives found us on the beach, we might have been in for a bad one. But they didn’t. Hoku did. He drank with us, made us a fire, and told us how his name meant red star, and mapped the constellations for us and pointed out his star. He told us Hawaiian ghost stories as well as history lessons, and as the evening progressed, we sat in the sand around the fire as he sang to us. He sang us a song that got him through his worst days, when the love of his life left him and then aborted his baby boy. In the end, we were all singing.

            In effort to pack light (no one picks up hitchhikers with big bags), none of us had really brought anything. I was wearing a swimsuit and shorts and shirt, and hadn’t really brought much else. Unfortunately, that also meant no one had really brought any food. We cracked open some cans of cold lentil soup and shared power bars. The soup improved when we through it in the fire for a bit. In between songs, stories and soup, I took walks down the beach, with my feet in the water. In Hawaii, you can see the whole milky way stretching across the sky. There is something about the ocean at night, when the dark sky and water seem to meet seamlessly, that makes you feel like everything that will ever exist in right in front of you. And humor me, it’s not just because I may or may not have been under the influence.

            When the fire had died down and the booze was just about gone, Hoku showed us where to lay out our sleeping bags and one by one, we flopped down into the sand and went to sleep. I was having a dream that Romney was spitting in my face when I woke up and realized it was raining. Not raining, pouring. Someone in our crew yells “take shelteeeeer", we’re dramatic like that. Our stuff was everywhere, we were everywhere, and in a wet, sandy frenzy, a line of sleepy people grabbed their sleeping bags and stumbled under the wooden picnic pavilion. We made a few trips out to get our packs and towels and other junk, and Chancee had refused to be woken up and so slept in the rain for a bit before I finally went out and got her to move. The situation could have been miserable, but for some reason it just felt so awesome. One by one, the farmily set out their wet sleeping bags on the concrete floor, on the picnic tables, and Claire and I decided the tiled bar top would be a good sleeping place. Worst idea ever. Tile is not good for sleeping on. Drenched, slightly drunk still, and ever so sandy, we all went to sleep in what was to be described as “the most uncomfortable thing ever”. Oh well.

            I woke up at 6:40, and an accurate way to describe my condition is thus: I felt like I had been hit by a truck full of ceramic tiles and bottles of tequila. It was terrible/awesome. But all of that was irrelevant because the sun was rising over the ocean and I pulled off my clothes and went swimming in the most beautiful sunrise of my life.

            We had one can of soup left which we ate cold while laughing about the adventures of the night before. After the ladies hitched into town for food, we spent the day on the beach. Hoku was back at nine for beach maintenance and such and was still our friend when sober.

            We started our hitch back early because we knew it would be long and hot and tiring. Claire and I made pretty good time, and when we were waiting for rides, I danced on the side of the road. Ask her to see the video; I’m like a Broadway star.

            All in all, our Hana trip is one of those things that you tell your parents about, and if they’re as cool as my parents, they’ll just say “hey, while you’re young right?”

The full set is on facebook...sneak preview yo

 Jaws was breaking!

 Twin falls

Pick me up, before you go go goooo

The farm, for all it’s secluded beauty, country ambiance and community feel, has no mode of transportation available for the WWOOFers to use. No cars, busses, vans, bikes, mopeds, horses, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, mules, donkeys, oxen or even unicorns! If you have a destination in mind, you’d also better be equipped with some awesome looking thumbs. The only way to get anywhere is to walk across the fields, hop the barrier, walk down the road, pass the junction and then stand on the appropriate side of Hana Highway with your thumb out, trying to look as friendly, clean and nonthreatening as possible.

            Sometimes when it’s hot and only tourists are passing by, in cars much too clean and expensive to pick up dirty WWOOFers, I do really wish we had a vehicle. And sometimes after a day of work and then hours spent at the beach or in town, the walk back up the hill and through the fields feels like the longest walk of my life. But, complaining aside, I frickin love hitchhiking. The first couple times I did it, I got this amazing thrill from breaking all the rules my parents ever taught me as a child. Don’t stand near a busy highway, check. Don’t talk to strangers, check. Don’t get in a stranger’s car, check. Don’t tell strangers where you live, check. Don’t ever ride without a seat belt, check. Don’t ride in trunks and the backs of trucks, check. Don’t take anything a stranger offers you, check. Don’t ever get in a vehicle where the driver may be under the influence, so much check.

            When we first got to the farm and were instructed on hitch hiking, the only thing we were told to remember was that we lived on East Kuiaha, not West Kuiaha, never West K! When the car pulls over, run up to the passenger window, try not to look too muddy, ask if they are going to East K if you want to go home, or anywhere else if you’re not, and then pile in before they have time to change their mind. It’s worked really well so far, no creepers or misdirection, and we’ve gotten a lot of free rides. I have yet to hitchhike alone, but I think I might do that later today. Gotta start somewhere right?

            The consensus amongst the farmily regarding the ideal ride is, without a doubt, the flat bed pick up truck. This is because riding in the back of pickups is legal in the state of Hawaii, you can bail more easily if something is wrong, and you don’t have to have the awkward encounter of being social with your driver and the rest of their load. I do really like riding in flat beds, the wind whips your hair into a serious mess, the view is beautiful, you don’t have to worry about being wet and/or muddy in their car, and at night you can lean your head back on the side and watch the stars slide by above you. However, contrary to the preferences of the rest of my farmily, I also really like riding in closed four door cars. And it’s not because of the air conditioning or soft seats; it’s because of the people. When someone stops their car and extends their kindness and trust and lets you into their closed space to take you with them, it’s kinda like they are letting you into a moment of their life. Many of the closed cars that stop for us are tourists and a few are residents and natives. But most of them say the same thing: “this is the first time I’ve ever stopped for hitchhikers”. And then sometimes I ask them “why us?” and to that question, there is never an answer. It’s not that we looked cleaner, more desperate, or trustworthy than the other hitchhikers they’ve seen, it’s just that in that moment, they made a split second decision to pull over and hope they didn’t make a serious mistake.

            And for the most part, I’m really glad they did. I’ve met some really cool and seriously weird people, learned a lot about the island, and learned a lot about people and what motivates them to make changes and go places. Below is a brief list of some of the best drivers/the ones I can remember:

-Scraggly man in scraggly car who agreed to take us to Paia because he was on his way to pick up his Thai mail-order bride from work. Also, pulled out an entire pound plus freezer bag of homegrown weed from his glove compartment and said “You ladies don’t mind if I smoke”. It wasn’t a question.

-A woman in a large white SUV, who owned everything Gucci and was on her way to watch her son’s high school football game. We rode with her a while and she asked me about boyfriends, I told her I had dated a sophomore for a long time and she said that her son was a sophomore and that I should probably come watch the game…

-And elderly couple, the wife from Ireland and the husband from Holland, who had been married for 40 years. They said they hadn’t been to Maui in 25 years, and that it had changed a lot, but it was ok, because they hadn’t.

-A young couple from Texas who were on vacation, and the wife was Thai and had only lived in the States for 6 years. We had a whole conversation in Thai and shared how we both missed Thailand and how she attended the same Uni that my cousin currently attends.

-A straight thuggin OG in a seriously pimped out car with a sub woofer in the back and us WWOOFers in the front! We went the whole ride without him saying a word. He just stared out through his sunglasses and sucked air through his grill.

-A large man named Sundance with his son Treespirit, who was the largest 11 year old I have seen in my life with arguably the most impressive wavy, waist length hair I’ve ever seen in my life. We picked up Treespirit’s friend Elijah (I know, I wanted his name to be Moonshadow too) and as this skinny blonde kid got in the back with Claire and I, Sundance boomed “I picked you up some girlfriends for the ride!” and then laughed like an earthquake. I think Elijah was about to cry, we were two girlfriends too many.

-A young woman driving something that was probably used as a kidnapping van by its last owners. She had lived in Seattle for many years, had a career and a house and a family, but was so depressed by the rain that she dropped everything and just moved to Maui. She didn’t know anyone on the island, bought an old van, rented a room and learned to love her new life.

            That’s all I can remember for now, but Maui is big on hitchhiking and I’m big on people. So hopefully that means I’ll have a lot more drivers to remember, for the bizarre and inspiring stories they can tell me at any point in the five minutes to two hours we spend together. I wonder whom I’ll meet today. 

Around the farm

 View from the porch

 WWOOFing feet. Never get clean.

 Our house!

 This is Tyra, she always gets into the cat food

 Whitney packing lettuce

 Dirty D!