Tuesday, April 7, 2009

big guns

I think the farm work has finally caught up with me, or else i've reached a plateau. We've been here for almost 2 months now (which is crazy) and my body has all of a sudden decided to act a fool--creaky knees being the main thing. I shouldn't be surprised when I squat at least 10 hours a week. A good thing is that i have gotten my farm guns back. That's what hours of hoeing, lifting lettuce trays and baskets, moving bags of potting soil, chopping coconuts, digging holes, and machete-ing coffee trees does to you. Oooh, they're growin' now! And boy do I have some gnarly, dirt stained, dirt-under-the-fingernails farm hands.

Today i was making something and I thought, a lime would be good in this. So I looked in the fridge, but there was no lime. So I walked across the yard to the lime tree and picked a beautiful green lime. I mean, how awesome is that?

Sunday, the farm took a trip to Makalawena (pronounced mah kah lah VAY nuh). It is a beautiful white sand beach about a half-hour north of here. It was right before Pat had to go to the airport, and we had a good time swimming, snorkling, throwing the friz, and laying in the sun. To get there, you had to walk about a mile down this super rough lava path. After the beach, Ken let us take the van and hang out in Kona before we had to take Pat to the airport. We went to the kava bar, and asked this man to take a picture of us, but then he started taking a video of us with his own camera and said he was going to put it on youtube. So, here it is, the most stupid and boring video on youtube: So strange.

Em and I are working one or two days a week at the aftercare program at the school. It is quite exhausting, especially after a hard morning of lettuce farming, but also fun. We're slowly learning all of the kids names (a lot of them are unique and/or hawaiian, for example, Kainua, Nuara, Halia) and feeling more comfortable. We have good stories to share when we get home. Here is a song we sing before we eat snack. It's a hawaiian blessing song (each line is echoed).
E ke akua
Mahalo no
Mahalo ia 'oe
No keia 'ai
Amene
Amene
I can't really find a good translation.

Oh, and one more thing. I booked my flight hooooome! I'll be leaving Honolulu June 10 and going to Phoenix the June 11-16 and then flying home to VA on the 16th. Party in Phoenix!

Woo woo,
Coriena

2 comments:

M!chelle said...

hands sound sooo attractive...i guess they will be at their gnarly peak by june! i WILL see them cause i booked my ticket toooooo!!!

Lori said...

I like the lime story, and the youtube story, and the blessing story, and theguns story, and the....

ok, and when you get back to VA, party in va too!!