I haven't been able to update my blog as the computer that I normally use in the Loft has been out of commission now for a week . I am using the guest computer at Hale Aloha , so that I don't forget all the wonderful experiences that has happened over the last week. This is , in essence, my open diary.
Thurs, June, 28th , 2012
We headed off to Kona around 11:30. It was pouring rain in Kalani. We were all hoping for better weather in Kona. It was a good thing that I went in Kumu's van as there was so much stuff to pack. There were 4 of us in her 7 seat passenger van and it was packed full of costumes , and drums and an ipu. As we headed out the rolling roads out of Kalani,( the road is like a gentle roller coaster , seriously ) the rain slowed down . It was a 3 hour drive to Kona and we made several stops along the way, one of which was a famous malasada bakery in the most southern part of USA. The bakery's name is Punalu'u Bake Shop. Here's the link.
http://www.bakeshophawaii.com/
Below is info about the bakery.
At Latitude 19 degrees, Four Minutes north of the equator -The Punalu’u Bake Shop and Visitor Center is the southernmost bakery in the U.S.A. Located on Mamalahoa Highway (Route 11) in the town of Na’alehu, midway between Kailua Kona and Volcanoes National Park, the Bake Shop welcomes more than 200,000 visitors from around the world each year
The most visited bake shop in the state of Hawaii is situated on a lush four-acre landscaped estate, that includes a wide variety of tropical palms, flowers, fragrance and culinary gardens, and other floral exotica from Hawaii.
Yummmmm, I had a mango flavoured malasada and I bought some bread for the Halau BBQ that was going to happen the following day.
Along the way , Kumu went over the chants with us. They are called oli (s) . Oh, I really butchered the chant. At one point , Bonca said huli huli when it was hulu hulu . Iit was quite funny. Kumu said , " You're thinking about the chicken ! Kalani served huli huli chicken a few days earlier so I knew what Kumu meant. Huli huli chicken was yummy ! And then , after hearing her say that , and me knowing better, I said the same thing. Mayumi messed up too . It got to be a tongue tying oli , with much much laughter and a wee bit of embarrass on my part . It was challenging to get the inflections in the right place and to say it the right way. We had to say quite a few sentences with one breath , and that was most challenging indeed. A chant voice , as explained by Kumu , is not your regular voice or your singing voice. A chant voice is one tone lower that your regular voice.. I believe Mayumi and Bonca and I were somewhat relieved when we stopped reviewing the chants . Kumu was very strict with us, and corrected us frequently , but she was very kind and patient with us too. I learned a lot from that car ride session of chanting. There was a lot of laughter !
So, the following was one of the chants Kumu worked with us on , while enroute to Kona. It is called I Ku Mau Mau. On the left is the Hawaiian and on the right is the translation . Kumu said the leading part and we were the responding part . This link also tells you about the chant at the bottom of the page . We had to chant back in a deep and very strong voice.
http://www.huapala.org/Chants/I_Ku_Mau_Mau.html
We arrived at the Manago Hotel close to 4:00 p.m. The Manago is a very basic Hotel , very reasonably priced and we had a great ocean view from our 2 floor room. The Hotel was built in 1917 and has remained in the Manago family all these years. I shared the room with Mayumi. We quickly got ourselves settled and went for a hula practice at Amy Greenwell Botanical Garden which was across the street from the Hotel. We went over all the dances that we were to perform the following day . We were to perform in the opening ceremony at Puuhonua O Honaunau. What an honour !
Oh, I forgot to mention that the Hotel was paid for by the Parks Board . We were all fed lunch while we were there . How great is that ? We were also given a Puuhonua O Honaunau commemorative t-shirt , a beautiful red sarong designed by famous designer Sig Zane that has conch shells on it, and a commemorative poster of the event. Yes, how great is that ? :) Simply fabulous !
http://sigzane.com/home/
After practice, some of us stayed and ate dinner at the Hotel. I had read reviews earlier on line that Manago was famous for their pork chops. That was exactly what I had. I had their pork chops with pan fried onions and gravy . Oh, it was mega yum !!!!!! The meal came with rice, pickled vegetables, potato salad and black eye peas , served on big plates, family style. It was the first time that I ever ate potato salad with chopsticks ! The pork chops were smothered with an abundance of rich brown gravy and fried onions. Most delicious homestyle cooking indeed !
After dinner , we started making our fresh ti leaf leis to wear for the following day opening ceremony performance. I had picked 3 dozen ti leaves at Kalani for the lei making. Oh, it took a while......We started the lei making around 9:00 p.m. and I did not finish until past midnight. First, we had to tear the ti leaf into 2 pieces , leaving the centre bone of the ti leaf, which was not used for the leis. The ti leaves are about one and a half to two feet long , not including the stem , so the leaves are fairly big. For the head lei, we braided 6 ti leaves together . For the wrist leis and the ankle leis , we braided 3 strips of ti leaves and the braids had to wind around our wrist and ankles 3 times each . It was a lot of braiding and it was my first time ever so I was not speedy Gonzales by any means. Still, I was faster than some others as I am very good at braiding . I braid my long hair a lot.
I went to bed around 1:00 a.m. and Mayumi kept me awake as she decided to blow dry her hair beside my bed at 2:00 a.m. She would not use the electrical outlet in the washroom but insisted on using the only other electrical outlet which was beside our beds. What can I say . I was too tired to be pissed off but the inconsideration of some people never fails to surprise me. I couldn't believe that she did that. I was so happy that I finished all my leis . We also had to iron all our regalia . That in itself took a while too .
Friday, June, 29th , 2012
Wow ! The day has arrived ! We piled our regalia and leis into Kumu's van. Thank goodness she has a van. We arrived at Puuhonua O Honaunau and Kumu quiclky parked. The whole Halau was parked close to each other. " O.k. We have to change into our regalia ! " said Kumu. I looked around to see where we were going to get changed and I quickly realized that we were going to change right where we were parked. No shyness here. Off with civilian clothing and on with the regalia ! Even the dressing was a ceremony in itself. We dressed from the bottom up , with the head lei going on last. In our parking area, we were quickly organized to walk in procession . First, it was Kumu , then the ones designated to carry the instruments ( drums and ipu ) then it was me . I was given the honour of carrying the two huge lahala mats . The two mats are laid down where we will be performing the opening ceremony and the instruments are placed on it and Kumu plays the drums and ipu. I walked behind Kumu , and one of the other dancers walked beside me carrying Kumu's large drum. Then, everyone else walked in single file behind us.
We walked from the parking area, on very hot asphalt pavement, down a rocky path , along a large pebbled path onto a gravelly sandy beach to where the tikis were in Puuhonua O Honaunau , in bare feet. :( It was a very long walk and was very painful in barefeet. When we arrived in f ront of the tikis, the sand was gravelly and so very hard and very hot under my feet. We were going to be dancing on this hot gravely sand. :( We did five full performances from 11:00 to 1:30 ( every half hour ) with a 10 minute break in between the performances where we went under shade to re-cupe and drink water . It was a very hot and sunny day. It was unbearable and so very painful on my feet. It was truly mind over matter and I did not know how I was able to last 5 performances . During the last performance , I could feel sharp multi pin prick pain on my feet with every step I took. I could feel every single piece of gravel sand digging painfully sharp into my feet. I knew then that I had burned my feet. I really dreaded the procession going back . We had to go back the same way we came, and in the same order. Kumu walks very fast. I walked behind her and beside me was another dancer holding Kumu large drum. I was carrying the two large mats rolled up, trying so hard to keep up , at least with the dancer carrying the drum (I have forgotten his name ) . I looked at him from behind my mat and he looked at me with concern. I was in such pain and was fighting back tears . " Are you o.k. ? " he silently mouthed the words. I shook my head, still fighing back tears. There were so many tourists lined up along side watching us as we left in our procession. He slowed down for me, realizing that with each step that I took , I was in great pain. At that moment, I really wished that I was not in the front of the procession, ( which in itself was a great honour ) but in the back where it was not so obvious that I was struggling to keep up . By the time I reached the very hot asphalt pavement and there were no longer any tourists , I could not take another step more. I stopped and the tears were pooling in my eyes. I was in such incredible pain. I knew that I had burnt my feet. Bonco came up to me and said, " Let it all out . Go ahead and cry. It was torture for us too . Its o.k. Go ahead and cry. " She put her arms around me. I shook my head . " I won't let it all out in front of the whole Halau. " In spite of that , the tears came down fast and furious. I really could not walk. Maxwell, one of the dancers' partner , came up to me. ' Do you want me to carry you ? " pointing to his back, indicating that he wanted to give me a piggy back. As much as that would have been great, I asked one of the dancers to get my flip flops out of Kumu's van. I will try and walk the rest of the way in my flip flops. I was quickly surrounded by the whole halau and they were so loving and concerned. " You can lean on me, Molly. " Oh, that brought the tears more. I truly was in incredible pain. My feet are super sensitive and I have thin skin . One of the dancers said ' You gave the best offering of all, its called the flesh offering ! " and he made me laugh. Yes, I gave my flesh for this Ceremony. It was still very painful but better walking back to the van in my flip flops. We got changed out of our regalia and back into our civilian clothes. As we were heading back to the Hotel right away , I quickly went into the ocean to cool my feet off. The cool salty ocean water felt so wonderful on my hot burnt feet . " Poor tender foot Molly ! You must have burnt you feet ! " said Kumu. On the drive out of Puuhonua o Honaunau , Kumu stopped and picked a very ripe noni fruit and gave it to me. " Here, rub this on your feet when you get back to the hotel . It will help . " Oh, the fruit smelled like blue cheese. It was stinky . As soon as I got back to the hotel, I went out to the balcony , put my feet up and started rubbing the ripe noni fruit pulp onto my very badly burnt feet. My feet were red and raw. I was very grateful that in spite of how my feet felt , I did not have any cuts . By the way I felt, I thought that I had some very deep cuts in my feet. The damn fruit stunk. It did really help.I showered to washed the stinky fruit off me and went for dinner. I could barely walk. My feet felt really raw .
We had a pot luck BBQ at the Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Gardens was beautiful. Kuani made some tender bbq chicken ,grilled veggies and there was fruits and salads galore. It was a great BBQ.
After the BBQ, we went back to our rooms and I started braiding furiously . I was braiding brown ti leaves that I had gathered in Kalani. I had to braid two 10 feet ropes, and two 25 feet ropes with the brown ti leaves ( a total of 70 feet ) . It took me about 3 hours to braid the 70 feet that I needed to make sandals . Everyone joked and said that they all know who would be the first to finish the sandals . Me , of course. " I am definitely motivated to make the sandals as quickly as possible ! " I responded, looking down at my painful burnt feet. " You have beautiful feet ! " Mayumi said to me. Beautiful small feet with burnt soles.
We were to make the sandals the following morning as part of a demonstration for the Cultural Festival . The sandals look amazing , very ancient and earthy and incredibly comfortable. I finished my braiding for the sandals at midnight . Mayumi did not finish until 2:00 a.m. I was grateful that she did not turn on the blow dryer as I would really let her have it then. Enough was enough. We both had the same amount of time . It was how the time was used that made the difference as to when we were both finished. I didn't know that there was a electronic tweezer . It makes an interesting noise. It does eyebrow hair and chin hair , and probably other places too. I'm just saying from personal observation. I was still awake at 1:30 a.m. Laying in bed, having a conversation with Mayumi , I heard a rooster crow. " Wow ! that is one messed up rooster . It is no where near dawn ! " I said. Mayumi laughed. We had both read on line that there were roosters crowing at all hours of the early morn , before daybreak. It was a good thing that the rooster was off in the distance and not under our hotel room window. It crowed on and off throughout the early morning hours.
Saturday, June, 30th, 2012
Today was our demo day at the Cultural Festival at Puuhonua O Hanaunau so we didn't perform . There were demos for everything from weaving to lei making. The Halau was demoing making sandals out of brown ti leaves, as worn in ancient times. I was very excited. It is a process of weaving the ropes left to right and right to left, over, under, under, over. They look really cool. The brown ti leaf ropes are incredibly strong . Good thing to know how to make , especially if one is stranded on a deserted tropical island. You can use the rope for many things.
We were fed lunch which consisted of chicken in a gingery sauce with white rice on the side. There was lots of watermelon. I must have eaten half a watermelon ! I love watermelon and it was so thirst quenching. It was another really hot and sunny day. By the time we were finished lunch, there was only about an hour left free time for me to see who the other Hawaiian cultural crafts were. I wanted to make my own ipu but unfortunately, I just missed the last session for the day. I was lucky enough to be put on their schedule the following day. I went to another cultural demo and made my own flower lei by using rafia to wrap flowers around a brown ti leaf. My last stop was palm frond weaving. Fortunately, I just made in in to be included to weave my own basket. It was 5 minutes to 3:00 p.m. . The Cultural Festival closed at 3:00 . Although I did not weave my own palm frond basket, I was most lucky indeed to have one made for me. It was kind of the weaver to make my basket for me instead of turning me away. She even put a palm frond rose on the basket ! It is such a lovely basket.
On the way back to the Hotel, we stopped at a grocery store . I was so happy to stop there as I had a mission. My mission was to look for very large bandaids. Oh happy happy day ! You cannot imagine how excited I was when I saw LARGE bandaids. It came in a 10 pack , more than enough for my feet. It was my saving grace. Hallelujah ! Thank you God for the large bandaids !!!!! One banaid covered 3/4 of my foot. I cut one of them in half to cover my heels. I was so very very happy as the bandaids would cut the pain factor in half when I perform again the next day. It will prevent my feet from getting further burnt too and also act as a bit of a barrier against the sharp gravel. Oh happy happy happy day !!!!!!! I gave some bandaids to Ayako ( one of the dancers ) too , as she also was in great pain and has thin skin like me. She too , was so very happy to see the bandaids.
We quickly freshened up and off we went to the Botanical Gardens to have a full practice / rehearsal for the following day's performance. Kumu is a perfectionist and she corrects us as errors arise. This is evident as her Halau 's dancers are some of the best that I have ever seen. She helps us be the best that we could be as hula dancers. Her knowledge, musicality , drumming and ipu , choreography are the best that I have ever seen / experienced.
Once again , we had another yummy potluck BBQ. After the BBQ, it was back to the Hotel to make fresh leis for the following day's final performancses. We made fresh ti leaf leis for our head, wrists, and ankles. The lei around the neck consisted of breaking the bone of two ti leaves , and splitting each side of the ti leaf into approximately eleven splits. the two ti leaves are then tied around one's neck. This was always done just prior to performance, and not the day before. I was only up till 11:00 this time , making my leis. I have become good in braiding ti leaves.
I quickly packed and got all my regalia organized for the following day. We were checking out of the Hotel first thing in the morning. After our final performance at 3:00 , we were heading straight home, back to Kalani.
Sunday, July,1st, 2012
After checking out of the Manago Hotel , we loaded the Van up and headed straight to Puuhonua O Honaunau for our final performances. In the morning, we did our demonstration of how to make the ti leaf sandals. I was able to take 20 minutes to go make my ipu ! I now have a small ipu that makes a lovely faint sound , but is best being a decoration that being played .
We performed at 12:00 and also did the closing ceremony at 3:00 . This time, I was prepared. I had huge bandaids on the soles of my feet. It really helped a lot even though me feet was still super sensitive to every tiny pebble. I feel like the Princess and the Pea ( fairy tale ) , only instead of pea , its a pebble , and instead of laying down , I am standing up and/or walking. Everything happened so fast.
I thought that I could wear one of the regalia back home but because what we did was a ceremony , I was not allowed to wear part of my regalia . Well, all my clothes were packed in a suitcase . Thank goodness I packed my p.j.s in the front pocket of my suitcase . It was not easy to take my suitcase out of the van due to how the van was packed . Basically, my p.j. was a flowery top and p.j. shorts. Heck, no one really knew and if you saw me, you wouldn't really think that it was p.j.s
Kumu knew that I love horseback riding . She was so kind to drive me to Parker Ranch in Wamea. The terrain is so very different from Kalani to Kona to Waimea. I love Waimea's landscape best . There were desert areas that looked like you were in America's south west and then all of a sudden , beautiful lush green rolling hills. They are technically mountains , but compare to the mountains in B.C., they are hills to me. Oh, it was so beautiful. I could definitely live in Waimea . So, I had my picture taken right at the gates of Parker Ranch , in my p.j.s .! I love the " whoa " signs that take the place of " stop " signs on the road. So, the perfect Life would be to own a ranch in Waimea for me . Kumu said that maybe , we could go riding together one day . I believe that is a high possibility . I said to Kumu that I will come back to Waimea. I feel it deep within me. She agreed. She too believe that I will go back to Waimea. The scenery in Waimea was spectacular. Waimea , in some ways , reminded me of B.C. ( British Columbia )
We stopped at a local favourite eating place called Tex Drive In for dinner . I had the best malasada ever there ! I had the boston creme malasada and it was still warm . Oh, one of the best things in the world is to eat baked goods when they are still warm , fresh from the oven or however they are prepared . I was in heaven ! I savoured every bite of my Bavarian creme malasada . I ate it before my Hawaiian burger and fries ! I couldn't wait. The burger was huge , hand made with a big slice of fresh pineapple. Oh, so good. The fries were thick cut and hot out of the fryer. Fries are their ultimate best when just out of the fryer , very hot and crispy on the outside and soft on in the inside.. The malasada that I had was the best ever . The place had a 60's feel to it . Here's the link:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60585-d519160-Reviews-Tex_Drive_In_Restaurant-Honokaa_Island_of_Hawaii_Hawaii.html
Night had fallen on our drive home. It was such a beautiful night. The moon was almost full and there were many stars in the sky. Kumu and I shared our Life stories. We have both lived challenging lives and endured hardships. I felt as if I had known Kumu all my Life.
The whole weekend was so full of many beautiful memories that I will cherish always . I feel so incredibly blessed . I am bursting with gratitude and aloha .
Kumu is tempting me to stay longer in Hawaii........She has asked me to perform at Volcanoes National Park , on the volcano....... This is the information off the website and the link about the upcoming performance..
http://www.volcanoartcenter.org/component/content/article/79-supplemental/269-hula-kahiko-series
September 15, 2012
NA MEA HAWAI'I HULA KAHIKO PERFORMANCE - HAWAI'I VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK
This outdoor presentation of traditional hula and chant featuring Halau Hula Ka Makani Hali 'Ala O Puna under the direction of kumu hula Ehulani Stephany, will take place rain or shine at the hula platform located near Volcano Art Center Gallery. Audience is encouraged to bring sitting mat and sun/rain gear. On the same day, there are hands-on cultural demonstrations from 9:30Am to 1:30PM on the gallery porch. Free; park entrance fees apply. Call (808) 967-8222 or visit www.volcanoartcenter.org
This Saturday ( July, 7th ) I am going out into the jungle with Kumu to gather fibres from a certain type of tree. First I have to strip the bark , then gather the fibres under the bark. The fibres will go through a 3 week salt water bath that has to be changed daily . I will be making my own hula skirt from these fibres. I am told that the fibres , after the salt water processing , become very soft and pliable like rafia.
I am exactly where I should be , right at this moment . I am now at the right place , at the right time.
With much Aloha ,
x0x0x0x0x0
Molly
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