Soft rains

Craig and new friend Tony, talking ukes


craig and I are in Hilo now, the last two days have continued to be very full.

From Captain Cook to South point, the road winds around the side of the mountain. now and then you can get off the Belt road and on to old vestiges of the highway and then you can see the great cow country, with fields and rock walls and old houses and big overarching trees and this time of year lots of green. About a half hour south of Captain Cook the vog lifts and you go through many new and old lava flows in between the forests. then when you curve around to south point things flatten a little and the land slopes very subtly far away to the sea.

Our friends Fran and Tom are just settling in to a new house near Waiohinu which has this same long spreading view south to the sea and east to the sea and north to the sea and the mountain. sturdy crystal clear windows protect the porches from the strong, steady famous winds of Ka`u. It's a very welcoming house. the area is a subdivision that never quite fully sold so there is lots of open space around and people nearby have alpaca farms and bamboo plantations and grow lots of their own delicious vegetables, organic long beans and fresh greens of all kinds. Black cows and horses are often grazing in wind sheltered depressions or against some of the large overarching jacaranda and other trees. It looks some like upland maui does, the only difference is the strong winds. you could easily run your life on small wind turbines it feels.

The nearby small towns of Waiohinu and Na`alehu feel mostly timeless, except for the few tourist spots like the Punalu`u Bakery, 'southernmost bakery in the united states'. The old movie theater and some of the old japanese named country stores have been painted to make them standout but overall it must look the same as 50 years ago. Some of the houses are rusty ruins, justs roofs supported by 1/4 of the original walls. Others are classic plantation style houses raised off the ground and nice lanais.

The best part of ka`u, to me, are the wild beaches with hawaiian ruins here and there and old trails that have smooth polished stones in the a`a lava. we will add some pictures here. The waves spout up against the black cliffs and this time of year small beach shrubs bearing `ilima-like five pointed flowers are very pretty. some of the shorebirds have spectacular breeding plumage. We had a wild encounter with an old hawaiian gentleman uncle Moses who is defending his squatters rights down on Kawa beach but now has to do it voicelessly as he had a larynx operation. He is holding access to a beautiful rock lined freshwater pool that the ancestors built, which protects a freshwater spring that emerges from a lava tube. He must do it now with large signs for you to read and the help of devoted fellow shore dwellers, the one we met was haole but impassioned. Since it was preaching to the choir the efforts were a little wasted but oh well. we saw a new flag in evidence everywhere, on the beach there and here and there as we drove; green orange and yellow with three standards or paddles on it. It's a new hawaiian native rights flag. we will learn more about it soon I'm sure. (Actually we did learn later; someone said that it's the flag that ships would fly, in the mid 1800s, if in hawaiian waters or having hawaiians on board)







another really nice thing that happened on monday was that at Punalu`u, while we had stopped to eat lunch before hiking, a local fisherman named guy who was sitting in a green van with his sleeping kids heard us talking about kanikapila and Fran and me singing kimo hula and suddenly there he was with his uke out, playing for us. he played Ua Noho Au a kupa. He was apologizing for not having proper uke strings. sounded great to us! and his sleeping child slept on. This was lovely because the following day, down at Kaimu, we ran into another local guy with a uke, a man named Tony who lives in Kea`au but drives tourists for a living; he says he is only playing a year, he is about 73, but wow could he pick and play. lovely sound. we enjoyed exchanging sounds and songs with these nice men who love their ukes.

Tuesday, we drove up and over volcano and down to our favorite city, Hilo. Instantly we were and are immersed in the hula loving community. The first performance of the day was Kekuhi Kanahele's husband, who has a maori type name. his halau is awesome in the family's style. we saw a great la`au hula and evrything in fact was wonderful. then the second performance was a great surprise, instead of the featured halau which was to have been Iwalani Kalima's group, it was Gary Haleamau and his wife and their dancers from las Vegas, nevada. We caught glimpses of the aunties and uncles who run the merrie monarch, in their great clothes and lei decked hats. Uncle George Naope who has brain tumors is being lovingly tended by the others.

in the afternoon we drove down to Puna and had our uke playing time with Tony; then, we stopped in Pahoa town to pick up some food, each old store there has its wooden sidewalk covered from the rain. then to our friends ken and na pua's. We had a really nice time there having dinner and then playing some music with their friends and suddenly auntie napua was looking through an old book of molokai songs and singing songs that probably only a handful of people in the world remember. what a privilege it was.

The weather in hilo is as soft and tranquil as always. now and then it rains, always the windows are open and shutters are open to let the soft perfectly tempered air in. it's really nice. the coqui frogs and birds make a racket but it's a nice racket, at night. and we are enjoying uncle billy's. because our room had a kinda small double bed, when we asked for a rollabed instead they upgraded us to a lovely room on the 3rd floor with huge king bed and view of the sea on almost all sides. we are very fortunate. we love Uncle Billy's.

Today is the opening of the craft fair and we are then going to see Keali`i Ceballos playing music and then hear a group of hawaiian songwriters talk about composing. should be a very good day. And we have already visited the stores, already each found new and used clothes that are special to us. Hilo is fun.



Here is a picture of the Merrie Monarch itself in the Edith Kanaka`ole Tennis Stadium