Written By Adi
Our week started off with our first move to a new campsite, Hawai’i Land Trust in Waihea – Waihe’e, Maui where the group met Kia’i, the Educator and Steward of HLT. Will and Adi were this weeks leaders and them along with the rest of the group adjusted to the porta-pottys and cold showers that came with the beautiful mountains and ocean front views of our tent site. After a short pit stop at Chick Fil-A and Target the group set up their tents and settled in for the night in the rainy part of the island.
Early Tuesday morning at breakfast the group was accompanied by the Land Trusts peacocks and were starstruck. Later, we set out with Kia’i to fight off the invasive California Grass that is affecting the Aina (land). The group got acquainted with new tools such as the o’o, which is a weeding tool, and a sickle, a small curved saw. After the long day of weeding, Kia’i helped the group perfect the chant they learned at Kipuka Olowalu “E Ho Mai” and the leaders set off to get groceries while the rest of the group explored the new area.
Wednesday morning the group set off to the wetlands in Kihei to work with Scott Fischer, PhD Director of Aina Stewardship, his PhD supervisor James, one of the first tsunami research scientists ever, and Andre Conley – Kapoi an archaeologist working on site. There they learned firsthand from experts on how to predict coming Tsunami’s by studying soil patterns 6 feet deep in the ground, seeing different colors and patterns of the dirt from almost 400 years prior. The students finished a long and muddy work day at the Kalepolepo Beach Park, following with a lesson on identity and impressions we leave on others. Students then made their way back to camp, cooked a tasty pasta alfredo by the famous chef Elise and got ready for the extra hour of sleep given to us by Kia’i’s excavator extravaganza. (Say that 3 times fast)
Thursday morning consisted of picking invasive pickleweeds and our tsunami specialists picking samples to be sent off to the lab, in hopes of predicting the next coming tsunami. Andre the archaeologist was accompanied by her daughter Anais who is also interested in archaeology and anthropology, she accompanied Adi, Will, and Elise with picking up trash left near the dried out wetlands and got to know a little more about life in Maui from a teen local! After lunch, the group got the chance to shovel all of the dirt that was removed from the ground to collect data and oh did we get messy! Later, we returned to the beach from the day before and had some downtime after a compact few days and topped it all off with a visit to Coldstone Creamery. We ended the night with some questionable hot dogs and veggies and an our group reading circle.
Friday morning was full of excitement/ anxiety because the group hiked up a trail at HLT into the taro patches where several mud fights broke out and not one person left without a trace of mud. We were accompanied by worms and crawdads and everyone’s favorite, red ants. After lunch, we helped Kia’i with a “rock regiment” from a dried out creek to help the Stewards build a wall, we listened to Kia’i’s music playlist of some famous songs from the movie “Step Brothers” and we were overcome with Elise’s singing debut, everyone laughed out loud. After we finished the day at the Taro patches and everyone got a ride on Kia’i’s mule cart besides Ukiah and Adi who already got a ride earlier, sadly once she reached the bottom of the trail Adi realized her shoe was left at the top of the trail and had to walk all the way back to the top for the eighth time. We ended the day with cold showers and two hours of solo time to recharge our social batteries and reflect on the week before dinner and lights out.
Saturday was the first morning in the week that the group could sleep in and have free time the whole day, we started off with hiking the Makamakaole Stream and found ourselves at a freezing cold waterfall where everyone ate snacks and took pictures and swam until we were ready to head back. Once we got back to camp the group broke out into their reading circles, which was introduced this week due to our “no charging phone” rule which expired on Saturday. Issy and Adi cooked a yummy hot lunch of rice stir fry and rotisserie chicken before heading out to an internet cafe in downtown Wailuku while the other half of the group went to Kahului shopping mall to get some battery on their phones and call home to recap the week. We finished the night at Regal Maui where the group split off to watch either “Don’t Worry Darling” or “Bro’s” and everyone had a blast even with front row seats.
Sunday was a “nothing day”, the group got to sleep in and headed to Baldwin Beach Park where the waves were 5-10 feet high and everyone got sand in places they didn’t know sand could go. Topping it off with the typical Starbucks trip and the weekly group meeting to pass the torch and finish the night off with pizza and s’mores. The group had a really fun and eventful week where we learned a lot about Hawaiian culture and got to experience out of the ordinary events. We are very lucky to experience this and are looking forward to the coming weeks. Adi and Will are now passing the torch to Alexa and Issy as the coming weeks leaders and cannot wait to see what they have in store. Mahalo.
