Complaint post!

I just need to complain for one second about the men I live with. I know this will all sound like petty shit (and it is) but things get to you when you live with people. Hell. I don't think there's a person reading this who wouldn't agree with that. Also: Karin is away and it's just me here with three guys, and I'm not used to that. I grew up surrounded by women and have so many female friends, I really am used to the girlies.
But anyway. After Ben brought me all those lemons, I've been making tons of stuff with them: lemon bars, lemonade, lemon pound cake. When I made the lemon pound cake, I poured the batter into the loaf pan and set the bowl aside. As I was cleaning up, one of the guys came in and looked in at the bowl with the batter in it. [I also need to interject here that one of the best parts of cooking here is the peace in the kitchen, so it already irritates me when someone comes and bothers me when I'm doing it.] So he comes in, looks in the bowl, and says, "is this safe?" Not knowing what he means, I answer, "well, it has raw eggs in it if that's what you mean." And he says, "oh that doesn't bother me" and proceeds to LICK THE BOWL. Anyone who knows me knows that that is my absolute favorite part! I mean, I had set aside to save it for the end! And if you're wondering why I didn't wrench it from his grasp, there are several reasons for that, the primary one being an odor situation. But I digress.
Then later, after I take the cake out of the oven I put it onto the counter to cool. When I come back, fully ONE QUARTER of the cake has been eaten by the other guy. I mean, what kind of people are these?? Who licks someone else's bowl without asking and who cuts a cake that's clearly for dessert while it's cooling??

Getting lax with the posting...

but nothing much new going on.

I've been working on a path to the bathhouse, which involved digging out the grass and then digging a trench in which to put the plastic path edging. Then we cover the path with weedcloth and pour gravel over it. It looks pretty cool and should make the walk to the batthouse even less exciting. (Did I tell you? I walk there in the dark now! No flashlight!)
Anyway. That's what we've been working on this week. We also had some people camping out in the pasture, and one of them was named Quasar. So there's that.
We went to the beach the day before yesterdy, and there was a surf advisory due to 15-20 foot waves. The beach we went to, Mahukona, is not a conventional beach at all but an old port for the sugar plantations. As you can see from the first photo, there's no sand, just a concrete platform and you jump from it right into the water. Well, we hung out there for a while, watching the waves to see if it was really bad. Every time (except once) that I've been to the beach here there has been a surf advisory, and I've always gone in and been fine. This time was different. As we were standing on the dock, a huge wave hit and really did shoot up twenty feet into the air. I, of course, ran for my life. After that we left.

Yesterday we went to the Mauna Lani again (the one where the water is as clear as in a glass) and we swam a little while. It was rough though, and because the surf is still bad it was very murky. There is so much coral there and I tried to swim, but with the zero visibility I banged my knee on it and cut it up. Did I tell you guys that I had cut my butt, thighs, and hands on some rocks swimming on Saturday with that boy I like? That was embarassing.

So. We're supposed to be working on the path some more, but the tractor has a flat and so we're stuck. Maybe another beach day...?

Just so you guys know: I'm never leaving this place.


P.S. Anyone notice this article in the New York Times? I'm not going to comment on co-sleeping here. I just want you to look deeply into the eyes of the dads.

Mele Kalikimaka and Ha'oule Makahiki Hou*

Hi Guys!

Man, I was thinking about you during the transit strike! I can't wait to hear all your stories about it.

Anyway, a quiet Christmas weekend here on the big island of Hawaii. Jessie and I went out to Kona on Friday night and had to crash there (did I mention that if I'm not back here by 10pm I have to stay out until breakfast?). It was fun, and we met some guys (8-1 ratio, anyone?) and then hung out with them at the beach on Saturday. They brought a barbecue, and stuff to eat, and music, and drinks. It was a fun Christmas eve. We went to a beach I hadn't been to before, which required a short walk through an area full of keawe thorns before reaching it. (I couldn't find a link, but they are long thin branches full of thorns and when you step on them they go right through your flip-flop and into your foot. So a walk through them requires constantly stopping and saying "shit!" and then pulling the thorns out.) Anyway, the beach is full of these little private cove areas and we sat in one and ate and drank and swam and smoked and it was great.



*Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I don't know how to say Happy Hanukah in Hawaiian.

You would not believe the shit I was doing today.

No, really. Shit. And the better you know me, the harder it's going to be for you to believe it.

First, yesterday: finally finished the varnishing project and it looks great. I'll post some pictures of the trim installed so you can see the final result. At some point yesterday, this pretty cool Hawaiian named Ben came over and introduced himself. He's in his seventies, has lived here all his life, and used to work on the sugar plantation. This whole area was a cluster of seven sugar plantations, each with it's own workers' camp. The plantations were all shut down by 1975, people bought up the land slowly, and the workers' camps became the little main street areas. Here's a picture of our town Hawi (pronounced Ha-vee), population 750 or so:



Ben was telling me all about it and you know how I love talking to the old-timers. Anyway, he also said he had tons of lemons at home and would be happy to bring some by.


Today we moved directly into more farm-y duties: making compost. I had sort of been looking forward to this, since I'm always into the stuff that I feel like I'll need to know how to do later. This, however, was crazy. First, Liu Zhi and I had to dig a trench 12 feet by 4 feet and a foot deep. Then we had to collect weeds from all over the property. Then we had to go to the pasture and collect cow shit. That's right. You read it here. We dragged a wheelbarrow around the pasture, looking for cow shit. When we spotted it, we took the pitchfork and scooped it into the wheelbarrow. Then we looked for more.

At some point during the cow shit-scooping, I lost it. I started mumbling to myself, and wondering aloud what had happened to my life that I now found myself LOOKING FOR COW SHIT AND SCOOPING IT INTO A WHEELBARROW?? It was good that Liu Zhi couldn't understand me, because I was not ok. He did understand my gags of disgust and tried to explain to me that because the cows were grass-fed it was not gross. His English has gotten a lot better. In the standard way things happen here, as I was wheeling the shit down the pasture I saw that Ben had come, with the promised bag of lemons. That brightened me right up. I'm going to make lemon meringue(sp?) pie for cratchmach.

Back to the compost: one layer weeds, one layer cow shit, two different kinds of sand, then dirt. In between the layers we spray compost starter. We were supposed to make this pile four feet high, but we quit at about two feet, because we'd already been working on it for about four hours.

After that, Karen and I went to the church rummage sale, which is once a week and has tons of clothes for NOTHING. To illustrate, I bought: two long-sleeved t-shirts, one short-sleeved t-shirt, one pair of shorts, and a paper back book for $1.35. Jessie met me there and we picked up Kate and went to the beach. The were some surf warnings and the waves were pretty crazy, but we got far enough out to swim and had a great time. Which almost made up for the shit-shoveling. Almost.

Birthday. Now, with Photos!

I'm twenty-seven years old, woohoo! Here's what a twenty-seven year old looks like:



Anyway, thank you guys so much for the birthday wishes. It really warmed my heart to know you were thinking about me, and I was thinking about you too.

I had the loveliest birthday weekend. I think a lot of what made it so nice was that I had no expectations, and so everything that I did just seemed like a bonus, you know?

First: back to Friday. After working hard all week, Lew took us to the beach! But before that discussion, are the promised wood photos! It's a bitch to load them, so only two for now.

before:


and after one coat of varnish:


Isn't it beautiful??

Anyway, I don't think I've told you too much about the beaches we go to. The first one I went to was at the Mauna Lani resort, one of the oldest on the island. On Friday, we went to the Mauna Kea which was a totally different experience. There were high waves close to shore and rip-tides to watch out for. I was a little bit nervouse hearing about it, but once we got in the water I realized that it was very much like the beach in LA: very choppy at the shore, but calm once you swim out past the waves. The snorkeling was tough because the water was pretty murky, but it was still fun. I really appreciate having the goggles and mask on out there, too, because I can stay under longer and swim way further out.

So that was Friday. On Saturday, Jessie and I went to the local coffee shop (closes at four, just so you know) and hung out there, and then the farmer's market. There were a couple of hippies there selling brownies made with awa and we had some. Then she, Liu Zhi and drove to the Mauna Lani to swim in that sweet bay again. Unfortunately (probably due at least in part to the awa) we went to the wrong beach. Even though we parked by the Mauna Lani, we walked right instead of left and ended up trekking a mile and a half along the coast until we could find someplace that wasn't too rocky to swim. By the time we did, we found out that we were at a neighboring resort (the Fairmont Orchid) and swam and snorkeled there. There were alot of big sea turtles in the water, and they came right up to us. I screamed, of course, and knocked my mask off. We also saw one on the way:



Sunday, we had breakfast and then I went to my room and fell asleep. It was a great nap, and when I woke up we went to the coffee shop and hung out there. My friend Maria was singing outside where the tables are, and as I was ordering my coffee she called out: "Hey Stephanie! This is for you!" and sang an awesome, jazzy rendition of Happy Birthday. It was so sweet, and totally unexpected.

We ran into "our" neigbor at the coffee shop, and her daughter is visiting from Montreal. So the three of us decided to go swimming and went to another beach called Mauumae. To get there, you park and then follw a trail until you get to this little sandy beach. The waves were still pretty crazy, but again once we got past them it was calm and fun. On the way back to the sand we did get slammed down a bunch by the waves, and I skinned my knees.

We stopped at this ice cream stand on the way home, and then I had dinner and macadamia birthday pie (!), delicious. Jessie and I went for a drive afterwards to Pololu and lay on the hood of her car, smoking and trying to identify the constellations. The sky was full of stars and the moon was low and orange. It's so peaceful here...

So that was my weekend: swimming, star-gazing, and chillaxin'. My heart is full.

Hot damn!

**Blah blah blah and then stay tuned for two important questions, marked by asterisks.

Actually, what I meant to say was "hot day". But I guess I won't get much sympathy for being hot from you guys.
Anyway. I guess I'm slipping into a routine here, which is nice. Mostly.
I varnished and sanded a bunch more today. Doesn't it sound like I've been doing that forever?? But we have three rooms to put trim in and all the wood needs to be:

1. measured
2. cut
3. sanded coarse
4. sanded fine
5. sanded very fine
6. varnished
7. sanded very fine
8. varnished
9. sanded very fine
10. varnished

And after every sanding, it needs to be wiped down with tack cloth a couple times. We have a whole system now where at any given point there are strips of wood at various stages of finishing, and I really do enjoy it. My job starts at step 6, and I'm getting to love watching the beauty of the wood come out more and more with each coat of varnish. I know that sounds totally lame, but it's true.

Every morning I wake up, get dressed, read for a while and go to breakfast. We wash the dishes and then I go straight outside to water my little seedlings that I had weeded and planted (in the bed that you can see the corner of in yesterday's photo). After that, I change into my workclothes: a beater, dickie's shorts, and red crocs. Oh, did I tell you I had to buy crocs, because that's all people wear here? They're bright red. I'm not fucking around.

Anyway. I typed up the beginning of this post earlier today and then had to leave because I was being stalked by a wasp. They're starting to creep me out, and today I lost my cool. No one here even knew that bugs bothered me. That is, until this afternoon when I turned around to see a huge bee (the big fat black kind) right in my face and shrieked and ran. Totally blew my own cover. But you can't tell me the wasps are not creepy, with their little legs dangling:



Anyway, I went to the Thursday night women's meditation group, and I had had so much to say about last week's that Jessie had to come this week. She stayed for dinner (which Liu Zhi made) and then we went out for a little drive and some gossip. I had so much fun with her, I guess I really missed my girly gossip fests and we both had drama to discuss. *Now, here comes my problem. I'm getting to the point where I want to talk shit to you guys about some stuff, like the meditation group and the little bit of boy drama I'm having. But I'm concerned about who may be reading this, (or who could find it) so what I guess I want to know is: is there a way to make some posts password protected? I know people can do that on live journal... If not, do you think I should go back and take names and identifying stuff out and just talk shit? Not sure what to do here...

*The second question is: I'm loving the wood so much and the whole process is so satisfying, that I was going to take some step by step pictures and post them. But if that is totally uninteresting to you guys, I won't go through the trouble. So let me know. It won't hurt my feelings if you're not down.

Let me know.
Love you guys.

No Rain, No Rainbows.

So, I finally got my pictures loaded into the computer and can post some!

There are many, many different ways lava can look, and I took photos of a couple:



This one looks liquid but is rock hard:



Me with Kaimana and Carny, weeding:



And a rainbow photo, just for you.

The story of the varnish.

No, there isn't really any big story about the varnish. I just spent all day sanding and varnishing strips of wood, and enjoyed it. Lew has a set of ipod speakers, so I got to plug my ipod in and listen to my own music. We've been listening to the radio while working outside and it's fun Hawaiian music mixed with Christmas songs-- nice, but I was in the mood to sing along, you know?

I also istalled the switchplates and outlet covers that I had varnished a few days ago. One of the outlets seemed to be recessed too deep and so I reached into the outlet to pull it out a little, and was promptly electrocuted. It was just a little shock that went up my forearm, but not fun. Coincidentally, I strained something in my arm yesterday or the day before and it's been bothering me, maybe the shock will help...

Tonight I made mejadra and Brian made garlic nan and we had dinner on the lanai (which is Hawaiian for porch, but I guess some people on the mainland use that word too?) as usual and tried to figure out if it was going to rain tomorrow. It's so windy and the wind is pretty loud in the cane grass, and we just sort of hung out and enjoyed it.

The story of the cookies.

In Hawaii storytelling is known as "talk story" and people are pretty into it. So I have to talk story to you guys about the cookies.

On Friday when Karin and I went to Costco, she mentioned that around Christmas time they have these chocolate mint cookies that sounded remarkably like girl scout cookies. We all know how much I love those (and cookies in general [and chocolate in general]) so of course, I had to have these cookies.

I bought the cookies, and was then confronted with two issues wich I hadn't thought out:

1. Where would I put them? We can't keep food in our rooms because of all the ants and other bugs, and keeping them in the farm kitchen didn't seem like a good idea.
2. What would I do with them? Even I can't eat a costco-sized box of cookies, nor do I want to. Supposed to be healthy here, people!

Now bearing in mind that I hadn't seen chocolate (or any sugar) in days, I bring the cookies home. And I begin to smell them. Man, I don't know if it was like the tell-tale heart, or what, but I swear to god I could smell those cookies in my room. This concerned me because I thought, "if I can smell them, so can the ants". So I decide to open the box and see how well they're packaged. Terribly, is how they're packaged. Just a bag with a twist tie. Well, that'll never make it past the bugs. So I get a couple huge ziploc bags and put their bag, in a ziploc, in another ziploc, and seal it all up.

Of course, while I'm doing this, I taste them, and by god they taste exactly like girl scout cookies. Only they're bigger. And better.

Thereby began a weekend of me fighting valiantly not to eat the cookies while they called to me from their plastic prison. I was failing. The cookies were winning. And they won over and over again.

Suffice it to say that the cookies emerged victorious. The fight ended when Maria came over for breakfast this morning. On her way to leave I ran to her and thrust the bag(s) of cookies into her arms and said "Please take these and don't tell me what you do with them."

Back to jackfruit. Damn it.

Monday Monday Monday

I figured that if I wrote Monday over and over again it would seem exciting.

Anyway. I've spent most of today sanding and varnishing for the trim project I'm working on, and it's actually really cool mango wood. (I couldn't find a great image online, but I guess this one's close enough.) I'm not doing that for too much longer, as Liu Zhi's cutting more wood and we're sort of running out of sawhorses to put the wood on. It looks like it's going to rain later so we did all this inside and tried to fen off the wasps. Have I mentioned the wasp situation? They are ALL over the place, looking for somewhere to nest. And every time they pick a place Lew banishes them, and they're not pleased. I'm constantly having to fight them for control of the laundry line and bicycle shed. Brian said that as long as I stay calm they shouldn't give me a problem, and I'm trying my best.

Oh! Bicycle shed! Karin took a couple picture of me riding! a! bike! and here they are, for your enjoyment:





I admit, the one where I'm actually viewed riding was taken from far away, but you're just going to have to take my word on it that it's me.

Oh yeah, yesterday. With no end to my bad mood in sight, Jessie got a flat tire and she and several members of our little group worked for half the day trying to deal with it. So, no snorkeling. I just did laundry and cleaned up and read and relaxed. And today, I woke up with the bad mood gone. Finally.

It's the weekend, thank you jesus.

A lovely Saturday here on the big island of Hawaii.
I'm not in the best mood. I think it's because of my moon. Oh yeah, I never got to tell you guys that three seperate people have referred to a woman's period as a moon here. I guess it's good I got introduced to it a few weeks ago, otherwise I would have had no idea what they were talking about. The point is, everyone here is annoying me, for silly reasons not worth listing, so instead I'll tell you what I've been up to.

Yesterday Karin and I went into Kona to run errands. This took most of the day, and we got to have lunch in a little greek restaurant overlooking the ocean. We also went to a cute craft market and did some shopping there. Kona is nice, and is sunny and in the 80's about 350 days a year. That sounds beautiful (and it is, mostly) except that the way it's situated, Kona gets most of the vog. It rolls in and the sky gets dark and it's pretty creepy. It was still fun, and on the drive back we watched the water for the whales who hang out here until March. I haven't seen any yet...
Last night a few of us went to hear Maria sing at the local sushi restaurant in town. She drew quite a crowd for Hawi, about fifteen people. I met some more of the local characters, and we had a good time. Unfortunately, the rule at the farm is that you either come home before ten or don't come home until after the sun comes up. Neither of those ideas appealed to me, but I decided to just go to bed.
Today I relaxed, cleaned up, and read, and then made dinner for us tonight. (Oh yeah: any good dinner ideas would be appreciated.)
Tomorrow we go snorkeling, and apparently the water might be choppy and rough-- I'll let you know how it turns out.

Also: there seems to be a problem with one of the cows at the farm next door. That cow was moaning so loudly last night that it woke me up... weird.

Also #2: I didn't tell you about the pigs. Apparently, there are wild pigs who sometimes come around (especially at night). I've been sort of nervous about them ever since I heard, in spite of reassurances that the dogs won't let them hang out here. This added to my afraid-to-pee-at-night thing. Anyway, a couple nights I've distinctly heard snorting and digging by the door to my room, and once after dinner I found that the mat had been thrown aside and my shoes (which stay outside) thrown aside. It could be the dogs, but still... So anyway, last night I totally heard the snorting and digging and grabbed my flashlight and went to the door. There was nothing out there... either I'm completely losing my mind or there's something out there: either way, I'll keep you posted.

I saw fish! and the weeds obeyed!

SO, I think I was going to start by telling you guys about my trip to the market yesterday. Karin and I went to do the weekly shopping, and started with the produce. The fruit and vegetables are sold out of the back of a truck by this beautiful Hawaiian woman. She had lettuce, greens, beets and all kinds of stuff. My new friend Maria (did I mention her? the singer who's going to give me guitar lessons?) was selling the fruit, mainly jackfruit and Hawaiian breadfruit. We got one of each of those. The other thing I wanted to tell you about Hawaiians (and non-Hawaiians living here) is that they are so genuinely warm. Once you've met someone once, they greet you with a kiss on the cheek and act like you've been friends forever. Which sounds annoying but isn't when it's as sincere as it is. We then went to the grocery store and got the rest of what we needed, and again Karin knew half the people shopping there.

Anyway. That's yesterday.
This morning I woke to find it was pouring rain and Alexandriu was in the kitchen. Apparently he had gotten his car towed and had no way to get back to Waimea (where he lives) and had spent the night in the temple. While Lew took him to pick up his car, I finished the rest of the planting (rainbow and golden chard, basil) and moved some of the seedlings that had ended up in the "drip line". The vegetable patch is right by the house and one row of plants was getting drowned by the water dripping of the porch. I did all this in the rain, and hen got into dry clothes to wait it out. Everytime I do anything hard or get dirty, I picture Iesha and think "if Iesha could see me now, she'd die". (Do you read this, Yeshua?) Sometimes I even stop what I'm doing and grab a camera because I know you guys will want photographic evidence of this stuff. So Lew comes back and finds me knitting in my room and says that if it clears up we're going to go swimming at 11:30. This seemed so crazy-- it was literally POURING rain and grey in every direction.

But it did clear up, and I went back out to tackle the weeds by the bamboo patch again. The rain, plus talking to them and my discovery of the pick-axe made it much easier and I got the two huge patches out that had been so frustrating on Friday. [Just for reference: Liu Zhi is a MACHINE and while I was happily pulling weeds he built TWO sawhorses out of two by fours.]

After that, we headed to the beach. The Mauna Lani is a huge resort, one of the first on the island. They have a sweet beach club, and Lew and Karin have connections there to get us in. Once we got there, they pulled out the snorkeling equiptment and gave Liu Zhi and I a quick lesson. We got right in the water, and it was calm and clear as drinking water. After struggling with the snorkel for a bit I figured it out and swam about fifty yards out. There was tons of coral in all different colors and fish swimming all around it. I think I saw around 15 kinds of fish: black, yellow, flourescent blue, needlenose white fish, rainbow colored fish. Which reminds me: there were rainbows ALL DAY after all that rain.

So we swam for a while, had lunch at the beach club and then relaxed on the lounge chairs. The sun started to hide behind the clouds again and we headed home. Brina made calzones and Jessie's coming to dinner, so it should be fun. After a week here of eating so much fresh food and being out in the sun, I've gotten to tht point where I crave fruit instead of sugar and chocolate! What a nice change. I cut up some jackfruit for dessert and am going to sneak a piece now. Did I tell you that the seeds inside ackfruit can be boiled and eaten like little potatoes? When I opened this one today, many of the seeds had already started sprouting, so I'm going to get them in little pots tomorrow and see what happens...

Just another day in the life of a faux farmer...

I wanted to tell you guys a little bit about this place, the background, and what it's like here.

First of all, we're on seven acres of weedy pasture, so it's pretty open and walkable. All the land in this area used to be sugar plantations, and there's still random patches of purple sugarcane around.
Along with the couple who owns this place, there are the other two volunteers and I, along with two golden retrievers who i LOVE: carny and kaimana an two cats. i don't know how many of you heard that aliza's much-loved (by all) shi tsu roxanne died, and it's been really sad for me. so having these two dogs has been great. they're total cuddlers and follow me around as i work. they lie next to me when i'm weeding, an cry at the door to my room if i'm in there too long.

anyway. i have my own room, but it's a sort of bunk room that would sleep two other people if they came. my room has a big sliding glass door that looks over to some hills in the west and faces the batthouse with the outdoor shower and the toilets (normal flush-toilets). you might be glad to know i have conquered my fear of going to the batthouse in the middle of the night, mainly by drinking less water before bed. you win some, you lose some.

i sleep with the screen shut but the curtain open, and i usually wake up with the sunrise, at about 6. I take my time getting up, and then depending on when i finally do get up i go to the temple and do yoga for an hour or two. it's peaceful in there, and i can put music on and really relax. breakfast is at 8:30, and we're called to breakfast by this bamboo horn-type-item. it's hot cereal (either mixed-grain or oatmeal) with fresh fruit and berries.

after breakfast, i get to work. yesterday liu zhi and i weeded this patch of land and then collected nutrients from various locations to put in the ground. then we used an electric rototiller to work the earth and mix those nutrients in to it. today we planted lettuce, bok choy, basil, and broccoli into that spot which was pretty satisfying. liu zhi is a WORKHORSE and does not tire. just so you know.

once that was done, we started our next project which is going to be cutting, staining an installing the trim and molding in three rooms. this is hard, especially because the drywall is not level and has to be filled in with plywood, etc... there's a lot to think about, and it's all totally new to me. we work four hours, but that gets cut up with breaks (you work at your own pace) and you get lunch yourself.

two nights a week dinner is my job and tonight was my first one. i made my chili and cornbread, and it was a hit! it was fun, and the best part about dinner duty is that you're off of dish duty.

there are so many things i want to tell you, but it's 8:30 which is almost past my bedtime. seriously. i'm going to lay down and listen to the cows mooing (all night, folks) and the geckos clicking. it's pretty windy now too, and the wind is loud through the tall weeds and palm trees.

so i guess i'll pick up tomorrow and tell you about my trip to town today and more jackfruit! and a new friend who wants to teach me to play the guitar!

**p.s. just realized that somewhere along the way i gave up capitalizing today. and i can't get the spell check button to work. sorry.

Tubin', bro!

** Three Disclaimers:
1. I apologize if any of this background stuff is annoying. I didn't know any of it before I got here, but if I'm just repeating stuff you guys all know, just tell me to shut the hell up and I'll stop doing it.
2. I haven't been able to load any of my pictures yet, though I found out that I definitely can. So for now, only internet photos, sorry!
3. Everyone calls each other bro here. Hence the title.

This weekend, I took a road trip to Kilauea volcano. One of the most active in the world, the current erruption has been going on for over twenty years. It's located in the middle of Hawai'i volcanoes national park, and you can actually drive and then hike pretty close to the active erruptions. At the ranger's station they post what and where to see lava on any given day.

The park is about a three hour drive from where we live, so we got started fairly early (in normal people time, not farm time) on Saturday morning. Brian and Liu Zhi came, and we were picked up by Alexandriu (Belgian-Romanian who moved here three weeks ago to work with the doctor who invented pacemakers who lives here on the island as well) and Jessie (Katrina efugee who actually was in New Orleans and the Superdome, etc. who has moved here now).
First, we drove to Hilo, where they have a great farmer's market, and bought all kinds of fruit and things to snack on for the trip: once you're in Volcano (as the park is referred to) there isn't any place to get food. We also stopped at a supermarket for more food and big jugs of water. Then on to the hostel, to put some stuff down and check in with them. Apparently, Saturday at the hostel is "customer appreciation night" and they serve free pizza and beer! Being poor and already a little tired of healthy farm food; this was pretty exciting.

At this point it was about two o'clock and we sat down in the hostel to eat and look at our guide books and figure out what to do next. I had a new fruit(!) which I don't get to do too often. It's called a jackfruit, and Jessie's Philipino roommates introduced her to it. It smells crazy (and makes your hands smell pretty bad) but the tastes sort of like pineapple and has a smooth almost jelly-like texture.

So, we headed to Volcano and checked with the visitor's center to see if there were any active erruptions to see. There weren't, so instead of hiking around to look at some steam, we decided to go to Thurston's lava tube. A lava tube is what's made when lava flows through the earth and then cools. Thurston's has been cleaned up and lit, and was sort of a disappointment. We had read in the book, however, that at the end of the tube there was another section of about a thousand feet that has not been touched, and is marked by a gate. We had brought flashlights and headed right in. It's a pretty treacherous little stretch, with lots of fallen lava rock and things to navigate, but altogether pretty manageable. Once we got to the end we took a bunch of pictures and then turned off our flashlights and hung out in the dark, singing songs in as many languages as we could.

As we got up to leave, Jessie suggested that we try and come back in the dark, just feeling our way along the tube and trusting our senses to not get hurt. I don't know how dramatic that sounds to you reading it, but it was SCARY and hard work: it took us about an hour and a half to go those thousand feet. No big injuries on anyone (except for a few cuts and scrapes) and it was honestly a pretty amazing experience. At some points where there were a lot of boulders, we had to get down on all fours and scramble across boulders, totally blind.

Once we got out we headed back to the hostel for pizza and beer. I met a boy... but more on that later. [did i mention the 8-1 male to female ratio in hawai'i? alooooooha!]

After we got up on Sunday, we decided to look for some more adventures. Our book had listed another lava tube, but one that was really hard to find (in fact, the book said there was a good chance we wouldn't find it at all) so we decided to head there right away. The book described it as a path through wild ginger, then false staghorn ferns, and ten there would be the mouth of the cave. Well, we were slightly off and instead went into another lava tube that we had to scramble down and into and then up and out of before we found the mouth of the one we were looking for. This one was a mile and a half, and we didn't even attempt it in the dark. It was a lot more difficult with low places where you had to crawl through. It was rad. On the way out we found the path we were supposed to have taken and cut through the jungle a bit to get out (but we didn't have to go through the first tunnel again. I took tons of pictures of the lava formations and will hopefully load them up soon. Though I'm learning that in Hawaii, "soon" means something intirely different than what it means anywhere else.

OK, tomorrow more on the place I'm staying and what my work schedule is like this week.

A List, For Your Enjoyment:

Times I have been awake early enough to seen the sun rise in Hawaii: 3
Times I have been lying in bed awake at that time because I have to pee and I'm too scared to walk to the bathhouse in the dark: 3
Times I dreamt about Mariah Carey as I waited for it to be bright enough to go to the bathouse: 1
Times I had to pee so bad that I dreamt I was peeing and thought I'd peed in bed: 1
Times I tried to commune with the mosquito king on a shamanistic journey that Lew reccommended and ask him to tell all the mosquitos not to bite me anymore: 1
Bug bites: a cool 30. I counted them just for you.

I think that's it for now. More lists to come.

Aloha!

I'm in Hawaii!! And while I definitely used two exclamation points in that first sentence, think of them as weary, exhausted exclamation points.
I am SO tired after my first day of work (which was not even a full day because it's only 1:30 here) which I guess means that I have to do some more work after this.
Anyway. This place is amazing. It's definitely a farm, but also so tropical that it's a really interesting mix. I hope I'll be able to post some pictures soon, but as I don't see any place on this computer to plug my camera in, I'm not sure yet.

I don't really know where to start, so this is going to be pretty ramble-y... the pace is so different here, everything just flows in such a different way. In NYC, I always feel like such a Californian, but being here makes me feel like a New Yorker. We wake up really early, usually with the sunrise (about 6) and sort of do our own thing until breakfast at 8:30. Lunch is on our own, and dinner is at 6:30. The rest of the time you work for about our hours a day, however you want to break it up, and do your own thing.

This morning I woke up at about 6:30, got up, got dressed, made my bed and read for a little while. Then I went to breakfast and we had a meeting detailing what we'd be doing for the next week. I'm going to be pulling weeds and making compost. I pulled weeds for so long today already that I can't even move. I want to take a picture of myself doing it (especially for Iesha); I look crazy. I was having such a hard time with them but Lew told me to commune with them and explain what I was doing so that they would let go of the ground. And I swear to god, it got a lot easier after that. The really stubborn ones need a lot of talking to, but then they relent.

Oh, the other people here are: Brian, who taught me how to ride a bike yesterday (I'm a bruised-up bitten-up mess) and Liu Zhi, who is a Katrina survivor and only speaks Chinese. He's learning though.

There's also this Chinese temple here where you can do yoga or meditate or whatever you want and I had a great yoga session there last night. I don't know that this body will allow that again tonight, sheesh.

There are so many bugs and geckos and birds and butterflies and frogs, it blows this city girl's mind. I'm keeping it cool, though. No one even suspects my fear. In fact, I've ad to change alot already to deal with this plae, and I mean that in the bst possible way. I'm learning to let go of time and schedules, goals and deadlines. It's all new...

Tomorrow Brian and I are getting up early to join friends of Lew and Karin's to go to Volcano National Park and see the active volcano. We're going to sleep there and come back on Sunday. I can't wait!