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.
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