It was a two day trip that began at Really Friggin' Early O'Clock on a Friday morning. I had anticipated not getting much sleep that Thursday night, since I typically don't sleep well before trips. So I focused on getting sleep the night before the night before the trip. And that worked out well.
A med student I'll be living with this summer named Erin picked me up so I didn't have to bus it, and that was nice. Our entire team were on the same flight, one of Aloha Airline's last, it would turn out. A social work student I'll be living with named Deana decided mid-flight (knowing that I'm afraid of flying--she was sitting next to me and had witnessed first hand my anxious response to the take-off, in case she hadn't believed me when I just told her) that it would be a good time to tell me the story of how an Aloha Airline plane ripped apart mid-flight, and how her old high school friend was a flight attendant on the flight and how she took care of everyone until they managed to land. It was a great story, depicted in a TV movie called Miracle Landing. You can read more about it at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243
Ah, wikipedia. Anyway, I was really happy to hear that story as we flew over the ocean on the same airline that had produced that story. To Deana's credit, though,she rubbed my shoulder and said soothing things when we hit turbulence on the descent and I gasped and went all white-knuckled grip on the armrests. Descent is my second least favorite part of flying, just after ascent. Third on the list is "the middle part."
Also, I got to see snow from my window up on the highest bits of the Big Island.
We had breakfast at some ninja diner place. I gave in to temptation and ordered eggs and sausage with hashbrowns and gravy, expecting the hashbrowns to be Waffle House-ish (but they were McDonald's-ish) and expecting the gravy to be sawmill-ish (but it was... I dunno, just brown gravy). But still, tasty enough. And the coffee was good.
We drove in to Honoka'a, which is a... ninja-length drive from Hilo where we landed. We got this picture as we came in:
The joke is that one of last summer's team broke the H off the sign by stepping on it. The town members had joked they would change the town's name to Onoka'a. Anyway, that's my team: Me (Kati), Erin, Kristina, and Deana.
Honoka'a is at a fairly high altitude. It's on the edge of the island, but is so high up that even though the land's horizon will be quite close, the ocean is still quite far away. Like so:
The land slopes up off the ocean so that the wind doesn't break before it hits the town. There is always, always, a breeze. And it's cooler anyway than Honolulu because of the high altitude. It's really nice. Here's the town:
I realize, living in Honolulu, that it's easy to forget sometimes that I also live in Hawai'i. Honolulu is among the ugliest cities in terms of design that I have ever been in. Don't get me wrong, I love it. It's got charm that I haven't quite figured out how to describe. But outside of Honolulu, there are things like Waipi'o Point:
And Akaka Falls:
That's a one thousand foot waterfall. And that's Kristina with me. Ron (our faculty advisor) is taking the picture. After we saw Akaka Falls, we walked around the area a bit and wandered onto a taro and pineapple farm:
From bottom to top you see brambles, pineapple, taro, background foilage, ocean, and sky. Yes, those green spiky things sticking up out of the ground are pineapples, which grow in the ground like that. Anyway, just after taking this picture, a man came up to us and told us all about this farm. It's part of the ceded lands for Native Hawaiians. These two guys took control of like 300 acres last year. They're both farmers and have the land open to any Native Hawaiian who wants to learn how to farm. Basically, you just go to them and say, hey, can I have some of that land for farming? And they give you some. Also, they'll teach you anything you want to know and help you set up. The only stipulation for using the land is that you use the land. If you just let it sit, they'll hand it on to someone else.
Other things that I saw and didn't take pictures of included Waimea Community Hospital, which, in addition to doctors and nurses, has prayer blankets and skylights and patient gardens and healing touch therapists. I also toured the Health Center in Honokaa where I'll be shadowing the mental health professionals. And I got to walk around early in the morning and talk to early morning coffee drinkers and sellers. I learned about the history of coffee growing in Hawai'i, which is a pretty interesting history. And plus there were ninjas.
All in all, I'm really looking forward to this summer. I still can't fathom spending six weeks away from Michael. I just... I really don't like that idea. My plan is to stay as busy as possible so that the time passes quickly while I get the most out of my trip. Gah. But otherwise, it'll be great. Honokaa is a groovy little town, and I think I'll have a good time there.
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