Who are you?
Me.
(I…read morewrote a bunch, and I hope it's worth your time reading).
Growing up on a farm, I always felt I was poorer than the other kids. They got to go to the big fancy grocery stores like Kroger and Piggly Wiggly (still love that name!) to shop, while I got my vegetables from the dirt!
Soups made from scratch with those same filthy (they were washed) vegetables! Homemade biscuits! My beef from cattle. My bacon from a pig! And, oh, this hurts! My eggs from a chickens butt!! How...unsanitary! Why was I being punished?
My friends got theirs from nice styrofoam packages, boxes, plastic wrap. Fancy names and logos. Commercials, subliminally whispering, in my ear, how good life was from a can/bag/jar/box. My jellies were made at home! Smuckers! Smuckerssssss!!! I want Smuckers!
The embarrassment of fresh fish, caught from our own pond. Ugh! All I really wanted was Gorton's Frozen Fish Sticks or just a Filet-o-Fish! How could I show my face in the town square? Hold my head up in school?
That's a true story. I really felt that.
Mahuahua 'Ai o Hoi is a native Hawai'ian land restoration project. It's goal to restore He'eia wetlands into naturally productive Kalo (from here called Taro) fields, with the end result being economic sustainability. But, what does that mean?
It's to "Aloha Aina", and "a'o aku a'o mai."
To "love the land, and to learn and share"...what else are we here for?
Malama aina...caring for the land.
In Hawai'ian culture the Taro was not only a food source but closely connected with the beginning of mankind.
The first child of Wakea (the sky father) and Ho'ohokukalani (daughter to the earth mother, Papa) was stillborn, and buried, where it grew into a taro plant named Haloauaka or "long trembling stalk."
The second child was Haloa, the father of mankind, and through this association, the taro became the "brother" of man.
Pulling taro ain't no easy thing. You wallow out into the I'oi (terrace for farming taro), the mud and slime up to your waist, each step like walking in wet cement, and plant your heel on the mounds where the taro grows. Stomping all four corners of the plant deeply. The loosed stalk is then extracted from the mound by grabbing the potato like base, wrapping you hand around it and pulling. Mother Earth (Papa) doesn't give up the good stuff so easy, you gotta work for it.
The mud really flies, it's a job, but what child doesn't relish the chance to get really, really, muddy. We are all children of the land.
You are far enough, once here, off the beaten path, that all sound is vertically nullified. The rustling of the lu'au can be heard, as the wind blows the purplish-green leaves of the taro. This is wetland and He'eia stream feeds the Lo'i. They grow many CSA's, with onions, arugula, peppers, sweet potatoes, and Ho'i'o ferns to name a few.
As I walked to the l'oi, a large number of high schoolers passed me by, all were covered in mud, and smiles. Working in the l'oi is a spiritual awakening. Leave behind negativity and know that even if you only pull one taro, you have freed the brother of man.
I honestly believe that "We" are the generation that all future generations will look back to and say either, "They made the change that tipped the balance back" or "that was the beginning, the beginning of the end".
Special Mahalo to Miss Leilani for including me...Aloha my friend.
All visits are by appointment only.