Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Chelsea, being the wonderful roomie, fellow rock picker chicken feeder friend that she is, surprised me this morning with our very own highway patrol t-shirts! Scott, a local artist, has his studio at Hana Tropicals and produced two pretty killer spray brush t-shirts, commemorating our valiant efforts on the hard core road of Hana. The final monetary earnings of our can and bottle returns were cashed in for a final time yesterday, as it supplied our liquid contribution to our night of swimming in caves and that great big Pacific. We had glow sticks to light our way, which served more as a special effects factor as the moon seemed to light our night just perfectly.

This morning, we sported our Hana Highway Patrol t-shirts to Phyllis’s. “Oh, YOU’RE the ones!” she exclaimed as we told her of our Highway efforts. Seems our work hasn’t gone unnoticed after all… After wolfing down the waffle sandwich (which Phyllis say’s “Puts hair on your chest!” Clearly not knowing Chelsea and I have the appetites of grown men…) and saying goodbye to our favorite hostess, Chelsea and I took the ever scenic, King’s Trail back, and were blessed with a clear blue sky, shining sun kinda day. With each step over the volcanic rock on the coast of a glimmering ocean, it became that much harder to say goodbye to this slice of Heaven on Earth….

 It’s a hard place to say Aloha to for sure, but I feel I may not have as hard a time as some. Many who come to Hana call it home, as it’s filled some void or been what they’d been seeking. Amy said that this place felt more to home to her than any other place. I’ve heard Happy refer to it as a “Mother’s womb” to him. Our wandering short term worker, Larissa said of Hawaii in general as “Reaching the promise land.”  Unfortunately for me (or fortunately as my grandma feared I’d never come back…) I never felt that Hana was home. Not that I’ve thought poorly of Hana in anyway shape or form, I’m pretty sure that’s a moral sin… I guess I’ve just been lucky to grow up with four seasons, spruce trees and golden retrievers, and know that home is 6 million acres bounded by a blue line…. And I’m more than content with just that.

Hana of course, will never leave my mind or heart. There’s really something unexplainable about this place, with its beauty and culture, it’s truly is filled with Aloha, like Hawaii should be. But everything’s temporary if you give it enough time….. 

So thank you for following me on this journey. For those who’ve been entertained by the wanderings of my mind and experiences, you’re welcome. And for those not always getting my humor, I’m sorry. But if you have enjoyed reading about me livin’ this Hana life, please feel free to leave me a comment! 

Hmgibbon@gmail.com or add me on Facebook to see more pictures. Even if I don’t know you, I don’t care and would love to hear what you’ve thought!

A final Aloha to you all, and as always, mahalo for reading. <3

Pau Hana

Hana, in the Hawaiian language, means work. Naturally that means I, being Hannah, am an exceptionally hard worker in a hard working place, Hana…. Or at least I can go on thinking that. :)

When we finish a hard morning of working out in the fields, hungry for some lunch consisting fresh eggs in some form or another, we’ll say with delight, “Pau Hana!” meaning “Work is done.” Well today, this Hannah said Pau Hana for a final time in Hana. My last working day, as tomorrow I’ll soak up as much sun as humanly possible, have a final breakfast with Phyllis, and Saturday take flight back to the mainland. Hana will never be over for Hana Tropicals however, as an order for 20 Easter flower arrangements for an assortment of priests and nuns scattered throughout the country came in recently, so this morning we tired to prepare our Nik and Andy as much as we could for them to go out the beginning of next week. Quite the task for two new workers without Krista here! But I’m sure they’ll hana hard, if ya catch my drift.

Tonight we head to the caves of Wai'anapanapa to swim by the light of glow sticks :) 

One more post for ya ladies and gentlemen, I promise!

Aloha.

“It used to be the most beautiful dump in America”

Yesterday, fresh from a Reading & Snoozing session on the beach, I decided to take the long way back. The one alternative route to the Hana Highway cuts off the main road and follows right on the coast, lined with trees whose canopies meet together above you and the dirt road. On this road, smaller shack like houses scatter amongst the trees, but as it turns you eventually reach the town dump. Recently I took to running this road loop as it’s not heavy with traffic and creates a peaceful setting for my huffin’ and puffin’ of a run… The dump however, according to Krista used to be the most “Beautiful Dump in America,” and not gonna lie, it’s quite possibly the most picturesque dump I’ve ever laid my eyes upon. Tucked in between an ocean and mountains is tough to beat, so I'm not really sure why it "used to be" and isn't still....

Walking down this road, a loose dog trotted passed me, carelessly running to or from his home I don’t really know. At first it seemed weird to me just seeing random dogs walking down the road, with no collar, let alone owner in sight. The longer I’ve been here however; it just becomes a common appearance. Once a dog followed us all the way from the beach to Hana Tropicals, a two mile trip…we tried numerous ways to keep him back, but nothing seemed to work, the burden of being so gosh darn likeable by dogs I guess…

Seeing dogs as disposable pets, people who own them here aren’t the type to have their breed on calendar hanging in their kitchen, join group with fellow owners, or even take them for walks; these dogs are purely hunting dogs. Losing them or having them die doesn’t damper spirits too much, as they can be easily acquired. Hunters take their dogs up in the mountains when they hunt for wild boars, have the dogs pin the ferocious pig down, and most hunters just kill with knives, to avoid the hassle of acquiring a gun (a whole other issue in itself!)

Pigs ARE quite delicious, but so are chickens.:)  Don’t worry we haven’t killed ours yet, but today for lunch, the four of us ate at Braddah Hut. Braddah Hut is stationed right passed the main little hub of town, just a low key grill joint, with rusted fold up chairs that serve their food in Styrofoam containers, but nothing beats this grub. Just passing the place and smelling the smoke from the BBQ chicken would make a vegetarian switch over to the light. As we ate the by-products of that BBQ, Nik (a former Vegetarian) claimed that after dealing with our chickens, and realizing how stupid they are, she no longer felt guilty about eating them... Thatta girl. :)

Aloha!

Take to the highway, won't you lend me your name? Your way and my way seem to be one and the same...

Kipahulu, home of the famous Café Attitude, has another gem that we didn’t feel like passing up. With only one week left for both Chelsea and myself, we decided to make the trek back to the hippie town for one more go, this time with Lulalima Farms as our destination. Our two new girls, Nik and Andrea, ventured down the road with us for a drive that ended up being hands down the most interesting hitching experience we’ve had to date. Since my mother reads this blog however, I’m not going to go into details of that particular adventure… Needless to say, Nik and Andrea won’t be able to top their first test drive.

So we arrive at Lulalima Farms, which we’ve been told has amazing smoothies (the reason we went) and ordered up some fresh blends of papaya, mango, banana and coconut milk. To mix up your smoothie here, you propel the electricity for the blender with a bicycle. I had heard from our driver that it’s a tiring lil exercise for your drink, so was quite surprised when it only took me about 15 seconds….

Running the show here at Hana Tropicals has been kickin’ in, as a farm and business never stop, even when its owners take a 3 week vacation… The chickens still wake me at the crack of dawn for their breakfast, as do the cats and now Pepper, the dog. Pepper, who is usually Krista’s side kick, has taken to following me around now, and is currently sleeping on my sweaty backpack on the floor by my bed… To each her own, right?

Upside to the bosses being gone?  Access to their house, which includes a wide screen TV and a couch. :) These are novelties when you’ve been sitting on patio furniture and watching 43 minutes of Survivor a week on your dinosaur of a lap top for 3 months.  We’ve welcome ourselves into their home every couple of nights to keep their 2 house cats company of course, and have been indulging in episodes of Sex and the City while we're up there as well.... 

Other than that we’re just soaking in the last days of our Hana life…had a final session of yoga on the beach with our friend Luna, last clay oven pizza night at a farm down the road, and last mass at the Catholic Church in town where, after attending several times, I was still given a lei today that they give to tourists. Guess even with my tan I don’t pass for a Hawaiian…

Aloha!

Cafe Attitude

Hana’s pretty much broken into a few distinct groups of people. You have the Hawaiians of course, born and raised in Hana and very much proud of that fact. They wear shirts with the town’s zip code sported on the back, they smoke pigs underground in their front yard, and flash the hang ten sign to their fellow Hawaiians as they drive by in their pickups. And then you have the Haoles (what they call non natives, the majority who are white.) Haoles can be further broken into their own groups. You’ve got the tourists, mostly couples in their 50’s or 60’s driving the infamous “Road to Hana,” taking their pictures on the beach, and moving on to their next Maui destination. You’ve got the people, like Krista and Ian, who have moved their life to this remote Hawaiian town, and you have the Wooffers like myself, testing the waters for a bit (although many never leave..) And then you have, dare I say it, the hippies.

Now just for the record, I’m not one too judge, and after attending an environmental school for the past four years, I’ve seen my far share of the modern day counter culture…. But after spending an evening at Café Attitude, I had to share….

Café Attitude is a lovely outdoor “café” in an even smaller town than Hana, about 10 miles further east. Every Sunday night, they share the bountiful harvests of their gardens in a community style dinner, and have an open mic session for the remainder of the night. Since our friend, Ashely had rented a car for the week, we loaded up one too many in the back, and headed down to experience this place, and what an experience we had.

Little white lights lined the beautiful wooden framed structure that lit our wonderful organic meal as the night grew darker. After finishing my salad and baked pumpkin and drank the last of my water from the same vintage Mc Donald’s Flinstone’s  glass that my family still uses at home; the night truly began. The owner, a woman in her late 50’s I’d guess, started the show by taking the stage with her Ukalele and sang for 11 minutes (she warned us before she began) about her strong body and the air she breathes, or something to that theme. A younger lad came on next with his guitar, and played a song of simple chords and lyrics about loving the earth and the trees. I don’t mean to make fun of him in anyway, he sang his heart out, and I love trees just as much as the next person, but just the way it was performed, seriously could have been straight out of an SNL skit….

The night continued with a variety of acts that mostly included some form of singing or poetry reading, and during every act, a woman by me kept passionately shouting out things like “You’re a child of the Earth!” and “Oh yes!  Love is the Answer!”….you get the picture, another SNL moment. While all the skits played out, I people watched at the crowd, and unfortunately smelled some of them…. One person ( I honestly couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman) stole my attention as he? just floated around with a bizarre hazy smile on his face, tooting along on his little flute, adding a faint sound to whatever music currently played.

To give some credit to the talent here, there were incredible fire dancers shakin’ their stuff to some “tight” drummers around the fire. Three girls took stage at different times, one using a lit hula hoop. Her extremely impressive hula hooping was mesmerizing enough, and to add the fire; entertainment indeed, man.

The icing on the Café Attitude cake came at the end however, as one heavily bearded man on stage reminded us all to cleanse our bodies with, “The Tea.” Also for the record, I’m very much into eating healthy and organic food, and love tea, but something about people canting on about “The Tea” reminded me a little too much of drinking the Kool-aid, so I had to pass on that and once again just observe. 

As you can probably imagine, no Hawaiians attended the show at Café Attitude…

Aloha!

Let them eat cake!

To be fair to his people, old kings of Hawaii would split the land of their kingdoms into pieces like slices of pie, or perhaps cheesecake would be a more fitting analogy for us…. It would start small up in the mountains and gradually widen as it came closer to the ocean. This way, all families were given a plot of land with access to hunting up high, farming in the middle, and fishing down at the ocean. Each section of land had its own name, and the plot that Hana Tropicals sits on now was once known as Wakiu. As Krista went on telling me how wonderful it all worked, and how the kings cared for equality amongst his people, Happy stood by smiling, adding that naturally the kings still gave the best slices of that cheesecake to his own offspring and close allies. So it sounds like old Hawaii wasn’t too far off from the rest of the world after all….

Speaking of cheesecake (I have to add this in,) my beloved Chelsea received three cheesecakes from a not so secret admirer, as well as avid reader of this blog. You know who you are… I was forced to keep this a secret from her ever since plans began, and picked up the cakes at Safeway in Kahaului on a grocery shopping run. Unknown to Chelsea, we drove back to Hana in the bed of Ian’s pickup, with her dream dessert at the bottom of a bag right next to her. It started pouring on that open drive back, and as we huddled under a small dirty towel that smelled like Pepper, the dog, had probably been cleaned off with….all I wanted to do that miserable, yet hilarious ride back was to tell her that slices of heaven were just inches away. Needless to say, she squealed with joy upon opening the fridge and seeing 3 cheesecakes that literally had her name on them.

In other farm news that doesn’t involved large consumptions of sugar, Krista and Ian headed off to England yesterday morning, leaving us in charge….It would seem logical that while the cat’s away, the mice will play, which may happen on its own time, but lots must carry on for the place to run. We’ve received a new worker, Nik and will be welcoming another later this week, Andy; both female regardless of their names. Nik’s great, fresh from Brooklyn, so we’ve enjoyed teaching her the ropes of Maui, and Andy’s Canadian, so better be amazing.

To update you on those pesky chickens, as I walked out first thing yeserday morning, I was greeted with my usual mob of them, squawking away at me for their food. The cats joined in as well, causing quite a rush of little animals in my direction. Such a rush, that Lay Lay frantically fell off her perch on a bench right outside the Diggs that stands near a steep edge onto the ground. Falling to the ground, she wedged herself in between a wall and a large board leaning against it. After laughing to myself, I walked down to retrieve her (closely followed by all the other chickens wondering about this sudden commotion.) It turns out I’m more of a softy with these nut jobs than I would have ideally hoped as I chose to remove Lay Lay from her distress instead of leaving her to her own devices…..

Aloha!

"There's a big, a big hard sun, beating on the big people, in a big hard world..."

Each day of exploring the other side of Maui this past week brought a new town, and naturally a new adventure. The streets of Lahaina took the shreds of our rented cars front tire, and a bird of it's impressively extensive Banyan tree dropped a not so impressive bodily waste on me underneath... But don't be fooled, we were in turn spoiled by the town's endless restaurants (very appealing varieties that didn't include rice and beans), shops and galleries on it's ocean lined main street. We also witnessed several breaching humpback calves on our tour out at sea, as boat tours serve as a popular business is this old whaling town.

Our campground at Olowalu (a "town" just outside of Lahaina) left us with only two possible site options apon our arrival; one literally inches away from it's neighbors and the other in the warned "wind tunnel." Apparently wanting our space, we chose the wind tunnel, and after 3 nights of no sleep, decided heading back to Hana seemed like a restful plan. Eating breakfast on the ocean right outside our tent however, really wasn't the worst thing in the world. We soaked up some sun at the long white sandy beach of Paia on the way back to the farm before venturing down the long and winding road to Hana, my sister's first journey and my first time driving it, in our beloved rental car numero two.

My sister, Emily, who came for the week, received a well rounded tour of the wonders of Hana, as I showed off the sights of my temporary town. We ate breakfast as Phyllis's, walked the bamboo forest, enjoyed mango ice cream, and even had an exciting celebrity spotting at Red Sands Beach, as Maggie Gyllenhaal, her husband Peter  Sarsgaard and their daughter shared the sun, sand and ocean with us one afternoon. Peter even complimented the watercolor painting Emily worked on, and yes, she better be pleased with herself. :)

Celebrity sittings aside, perhaps the most memorable moment of our week occurred on Emily's last day, as we drove up Mt. Haleakala, the house of the rising sun. Mt. Haleakala (the largest dormant volcano in the world) sits 10,023 feet high in Haleakala National Park. As the crow flies, Hana's not terribly far, but since crows don't use roads, it took a bit of time to get there, forcing us to hit the road at 2 a.m. in order to catch the famous sun rise.

We reached the over 10,000 foot elevation with time to spare, but weren't alone by any means, as the parking spots quickly filled by those seeking the same view east as us. Waiting in anticipation for a sunrise never hit me as hard. As the cold winds blew, we shivered, huddled together just starting at the horizon over the ocean, and over the clouds, and watched as the pink hazy colors slowly emerged. All the chatter of our fellow on lookers suddenly stopped as soon as the top of the sun starting peeking it's way into view, and the show that she displayed left us in awe.

As daylight broke and the flashlights were dismissed, we finally were able to actually see where we were, right next to the volcano's crater. Maui's natural beauties never cease to amaze me, but being on top of the world, feeling like a completely different world, defiantly wasn't one to fail.