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.