The House on Mehana Road

I cannot believe how much time has gone by without an update! When I last wrote, we had just arrived in Kauai. Now, we have less than a week left on the Island. It is surely about time for a proper account of our time here.

Lot 17- Our House

Our house is wonderful. Maya is once again my roommate, and though we have the smallest room in the house, it is very comfortable and lovely to have a bed again after three months of camping. Though I must say, I never disliked living in a tent and do miss it in many ways.

Our second week here, Janis, the volunteer coordinator for Kauai Habitat, hosted a celebration at the house for all the volunteers who had helped to build it. Typically for each Habitat House there is a blessing of the house with the family who is moving in. Though the volunteer house will not house a family, it deserved a celebration as well!

Our neighborhood is made up primarily of other Habitat for Humanity Homes. We have gotten to know some neighbors more than others, but I must say that overall, it has been wonderful to be able to live next door to people who have benefitted from the organization. We also live surrounded by their dogs. I have never seen a street with so many dogs, all hopping up and down behind chain link fences and barking exuberantly at anyone who passes by. Our work site is conveniently located just down the street from our house, so on a daily basis we each set off the bark chain at least once, back and forth to use the restroom or get a snack from the house.

The dust fence I mentioned in my previous post has mostly consumed our work days over the last few weeks. Before the land and materials were ready for us to tackle the project, we did have other tasks on other Habitat worksites, including at a house on our street. One family down the street from us is putting an addition on their house to accommodate their growing family. When they first moved into the house, they were a family of three. Now with two sets of twins and two other children, they are a family of eight. We started the process for them by setting up the layout for the foundation and digging out the space for concrete to be poured. And let me tell you, it felt pretty cool to use the "mud gun," essentially a jack hammer.

The next day it was time to get to work on the dust fence, which we have been working on ever since.

The fence is just about done now! Today will actually most likely be our final day of work on the fence.

Every morning before heading to the worksite, we gather with Habitat Staff down at the affiliate headquarters, Base Yard. Part of the warehouse location is the Habitat "ReStore" a gigantic thrift store which keeps us endlessly entertained during down time each morning. A wonderful find one morning were the killer outfits modeled here.

We have also developed quite the book and video collection from the ReStore, keeping us entertained in our free time too.

Other adventures over the past few weeks in Kaua'i have included...

Shipwreck Beach in Poipu:

An AmeriCorps recruiting event, running a table at the Kaua'i Community College Job Fair...

which was immediately followed by another trip to the Emergency Room due to Dominique having abdominal pains. Good news, she is going to be just fine and we were able to keep ourselves rather entertained taking silly photos and watching gilmore girls episodes on my laptop.

Easter weekend was our spring break. Weekend adventures included a trip to Kipu Falls, the beach picutred below whose complicated Hawaiian name I am currently forgetting (but it was in Poipu)

On Easter Sunday, after a lovely morning mass and brunch at St. Raphael's (the oldest Catholic Church on the Island) I headed off to the Kauai Coffee plantation and visitor center with Abby, Carly, and Allison. Carly and I had given up coffee for lent and decided to try as much coffee as possible now that we could!

The weekends here have been jam packed with activity, always trying to fit in more adventures on an island has an endless supply of beautiful destinations. It is exhausting, but fun! I am loving the numerous beach visits!

Welcome to Kauai!

On Wednesday we woke up at 4am, packed up our van, bid Mokule'ia farewell and headed off to the airport to fly off to our next island adventure on Kauai! Our flight left Honolulu at 8am and by 9 we were already in Habitat vans driving to our new home. During our stay here on Kauai, we are lucky enough to be living in a brand new Habitat volunteer house. While the house was virtually complete when we arrived, it was not quite ready yet, so we dropped our stuff in one room and then headed off down to the "Base Yard" for an orientation with Habitat staff. The Habitat affiliate that we are working with, Kauai Habitat for Humanity, was founded in 1992 after a terrible hurricane destroyed a great number of houses all over the island. Recently, the affiliate have built 18 houses (including ours) on our street. These are the first houses in what is going to be a 107 house development. The remaining houses will be built over the next several years, but construction cannot start on the homes until infrastructure is established for the neighborhoods. Our team is helping to make this process kick off, by building the dust fence along the existing homes to protect them during the oncoming construction. But surveying and approval has to happen before the dust fence can go up, so in the mean time, we have had several little projects to do and have met many different habitat homeowners and others from the community.

After orientation and learning about our project and the history of the affiliate, we headed off to the Salvation Army for lunch. During our stay here, we are lucky enough to have several meals provided by the Salvation Army and local churches. Not only is it wonderful to have a free meal, but it presents a great opportunity for us to get out into the community here.

After lunch we headed back up to the house and jumped right into work. The house was not quite ready for us to move in, so we helped put on the finishing touches. While the rest of our team cleaned, put up towel racks, and constructed ladders on bunk beds, four of us headed down the street to clear out "rubbish" in an area where we will be constructing the dust fence. It was dirty work in bug filled land, and our four am wake up and travel morning was beginning to wear on us, but we made it through to the end of the work day and were then able to settle into our bedrooms. And how exciting it was to have actual beds! With the exception of one week in Sacramento, this is the first time we have had beds since December. (Though I must say, the cots at Camp Mokule'ia were perfectly fine.)

The next few days we worked at our house, cleaning up the outside, and building a patio out back. We had good work days and great introductions to the crew we will be working with throughout the month, including our neighbors, Alex and Logan, two AmeriCorps National Direct workers who have been here since September.

Friday was a slightly stressful day for our team. That morning we bid farewell to Jeanine (our Unit Leader) who had been around for our transition. It was great fun to have her around and we were sorry to see her go. Throughout the day, Abby was tied up with phone calls to understand the contingency plans that were in place should the possible government shutdown occur. Not only have the budget discussions in Congress been stressful for the future of AmeriCorps, but with the threat of a shutdown, they were stressful for our teams out in the field. Had the shutdown occurred, we would have been on a plane back to Sacramento. We were all thrilled when we heard that this would not been happening! Breathing a sigh of relief, we settled in and made weekend plans.

On Saturday, eight of us headed out bright and early to the island’s North Shore to embark on the most beautiful hike I have ever been on: the Kalalau Trail. It was two miles along the shore to a beach, and then two miles up an incredibly muddy trail to a magnificent waterfall, then back out again. When we arrived at the waterfall, Danny, Abby and I could not wait and got right into the water and swam out under the falls. It was incredible!

After the hike out, in the car ride home, pretty much everyone fell asleep, exhausted after a long week and a tiring 8-mile hike day. I was so glad that we had not only done the hike, but that we had gotten out to another side of the island. The North Shore is the Kauai I was expecting. It is beautiful. The area that we are living in on the South shore, it not quite as breathtaking. The towns are rather rundown and depressed and the landscape is not quite as magnificent as what we saw on the North Shore and what we had grown used to on Oahu. Kauai is quite different from Oahu. I miss Oahu. I miss living on the beach, going into the lovely town of Haliewa, and being able to go to Honolulu. But Kauai is a wonderful adventure as well. One man I was working with the other day explained to me that he had lived on Oahu for ten years, but after having grown up on Kauai, he did not want to stay on Oahu. It was too many people and too urban. This was a hilarious comment to me, because while Honolulu certainly is a city, the island certainly had not struck me as urban. But in this case it is all relative.

Final Days at Mokule'ia

Monday and Tuesday of this week were our last two days at Mokule'ia. The four weeks have gone by incredibly quickly! I have loved pretty much every minute of our time here and it is both surprising and very sad that we already have to leave.

Monday was our last workday. We spent the day finishing off projects and making sure we did not leave with any loose ends left. Water barrels were installed and their platforms primed. Recycling fences were completed. And we also spent a couple of hours flipping our tents so that they faced in towards the field as opposed to out towards the beach, a request made by the camp's business manager.

Monday also marked the arrival of our Unit Leader, Jeanine, who came to visit us this week for a mid-sight check-in visit. She stayed for the last days at Mokule’ia and then journeyed with us to Kauai.

Monday afternoon we spent building an Imu to prepare for the luau we were having the next day for dinner. We dug out a hole in the ground. Then filled the hole half way with crumpled newspaper, piled wood and lava rocks over the newspaper, and then it was ready to go for the next morning. Early on Tuesday, the fire was lit with a bang (there was gasoline added a bit before igniting).

Then around 8am, after the fire had burned for a few hours, it was time to put in the food. The pig butt, wrapped in chicken wire, the chicken, the taro, and the sweet potatoes were lowered in and then the steam was contained in the hole with covers and tarps, to roast all day long.

While the food was cooking, we headed off for a very special day in Honolulu. Meleanna Meyer, one of the artists we had met and worked with on the mural at the camp, very generously invited us for a cultural day at some important Hawaiian spots. The original plan had been to visit the Bishop Museum and the Iolani Palace. Unfortunately the Bishop Museum is closed on Tuesday, so we were unable to attend the museum. When we heard this news on Monday, I was very disappointed, but as it turns out, the day ended up being so full, I can’t imagine how we could have possibly fit in another location. We met Meleanna at the Iolani Palace at 10am. Meleanna insisted we invest the extra dollar for the audio tour (clearly the right choice) and we were able to enter the palace for what would typically be a self-guided tour.

The audio track included lots of great and fascinating information, but what was best and most educational was the tour information provided by Meleanna. Meleanna is a royalist and told us all about the illegal annexation of Hawaii by the United States in the late 19^th century. I had known somewhat of this takeover, but I was amazed by how much I did not know about Hawaiian history. I had always assumed that Hawaii had been a isolated nation. While I certainly would have considered its sovereignty legitimate, I had no idea the presence the nation held on the international stage. The royal family was very westernized, well educated, and multi-lingual. They held state dinners and the very modern palace and traveled the globe for diplomatic trips. One of the Queen’s had spent time visiting Queen Victoria in England. The Iolani Palace had electricity and flush toilets earlier than the White House. I was amazed by the palace and by everything I learned of the monarchy, and as Meleanna certainly desired, I came away with a much greater appreciation for the Hawaiian Nation and with anger towards our own imperialist and domineering nation. (Although, for selfish reasons, I am certainly glad that Hawaii is currently a part of the United States, otherwise I would not be here.)

After our wonderfully interesting visit to the Palace, we headed off to Chinatown for a delicious lunch of Dim Sung. The second we arrived at the restaurant and sat down, Meleanna set to ordering.

It was quite the whirlwind dining experience, trying dish after dish without really knowing what we were eating, as Meleanna attempted to find suitable food for our group’s vegetarians and exclaimed that each dish that came her way was “her favorite!” It was a delicious meal with wonderful company.

After lunch, Meleanna took us off to another wonderful sight. Unmarked, off the side of the road was a trail into a bamboo forest.

The forest was incredible itself, but even more incredible was what lay at the end of the trail: the ruins of the summer palace of Kamehameha III.

Before we walked up to the site, Meleanna told us a little background on the summer palace. The palace was host to a tremendous luau attended by an estimate 10,000 people after Hawaii regained sovereignty after a brief British occupation of the Island nation. As we walked up, Meleanna chanted to inform the spirits of our presence. It was a calm, beautiful, and peaceful spot. A sacred spot, it is not in guidebooks. We were so lucky to have Meleanna to show us the way.

The amazing day out was closed off with some shave ice and a quick stop by a great store called Native Books. Then we headed back to camp in time to remove the roasting food from the Imu. While Manu put the finishing touches on our dinner, we headed to the tents to pack. Then it was time for the Luau!

David and Manu with the Luau Feast!

Camp staff and their families joined us for this send off celebration. The food was wonderful (especially the pig!)

After dinner we had a meeting with David, then it was more packing and off to bed. The next day we woke up at 4am to pack up the van and head off to Kauai…but that is for another post. I will update on our arrival at our new site soon. For now, I will put in one last time, how much I loved Oahu. Our time at Mokule’ia was incredible. We learned a lot, worked with amazing people, and of course I can’t complain about the oceanfront living situation. I loved Oahu. It is hard to leave, but at least we did not have to leave Hawaii just yet.

Mud, Scabies, and Weekend Adventures

Last week was our final full week in Oahu. As I mentioned in my previous post, Monday and Tuesday of the week were away from camp in Kailua, where the camp director, David, lives. Our work days were spent in the Kawai Nui Marsh, the largest wetland remaining in Hawaii. When we first arrived at the Marsh we were greeted by David and his friend, Chuck, a retired teacher and current conservationist. David bid us farewell and headed towards camp. Chuck walked us through the park that has been set up at the Marsh, giving us a full tour and history both of the environment and the Hawaiian people in this area. After our tour we hopped back in the van and followed Chuck around to the other side of the Marsh where we would actually be working.

Our work for the two days consisted of wading into the muddy water, pulling mud out with shovels and then filling it in on walkways throughout the Marsh land. It was a little bit smelly and incredibly messy work, but fun non-the-less.

I mean really, who doesn't like to get dirty every one in a while. We had a great time.

At the end of Day One, Katie and I helped Chuck to pick a few Taro plants that were growing on terraced gardens opposite the Marsh. The Taro plant is a regenerating plant so we were able to cut off the edible roots and leaves and then replant the stalk the next day. Chuck also used the plants we had harvested to make a traditional Taro stew for our lunch on day two. It was fantastic!

Overnight in between our two Marshland work days, we stayed at David's house in Kailua. What a perfectly lovely evening. David made wonderful homemade pizza's, we watched Finding Nemo, and ate ice cream over some great conversation. David's wife, Kirsten, and daughter Nai'a, are both wonderful and it felt so pleasant to spend the evening in such a comfortable and welcoming home.
After Day two in the Marsh, we drove back up to Camp, taking the scenic route on the Kamehameha Highway along the North Shore. After passing breathtaking views, we stopped off at Pipeline to check out some waves and then continued on.

It had been a great Monday and Tuesday, but some downsides to our time in the Marsh were about to be discovered. On Wednesday Night, Danny, who had not been feeling well all day and had a rash on his face, headed off to the doctor. It turns out Danny had a bacteria from using the weed-waker in the marsh. Most likely unrelated to his time in the Marsh, he also had Scabies. Thursday morning, questioning what he had previously thought were mosquito bites, six more of us headed off to the doctor to see if we too had scabies. Diagnosis: we all had it! The two girls on our team who had not come to the doctor had to go back later that day to get the cream we were prescribed. That night we all had to cover ourselves everywhere from neck down with this cream. After washing it off the next morning, we were scabies free and faced with load after load of laundry.
Luckily it was not too dramatic of a dilemma. In fact, it was almost funny. As each person had come out of the doctor's office, I could not do anything but laugh at the situation.

Scabies behind us, we headed into a lovely weekend. Friday night was "First Friday" in Honolulu, an event held the first friday of every month. The State Art Museum was open and live music was set up on the lawn out from the museum and then on a patio inside the museum. It was a great atmosphere and fun event. After the museum, a few of us headed into Chinatown for the Nightlife aspect of First Friday. We passed Capoeira Dancers battling in the streets and a parade with chinese dragons walking down Hotel Street.

Sunday, was a day I certainly will not forget. Seven of us headed across the street to go skydiving! We had been talking about going for weeks and watched each day as others parachuted through the sky just above our camp. Now was our turn! I was terrified, but also very excited. When we got there we were given a rather intimidating waiver to sign which explained the dangers of skydiving and informed us on each of its six pages that death was one of the risks of the dive. Oh dear! This did not help my nerves, but I was ready to go anyway. And man am I glad I did. It was absolutely amazing. What a rush!
And I could not have possibly chosen a better location to skydive. Check out the view!