Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

The other day I was talking to someone, a transplant from the mainland, who works here as a facilitator-- she was telling me about her work in different organizations, and how entrenched people can be in their feelings about ideas, and how tricky it can be to untangle some of those interpersonal knots. I mentioned that with school we've had facilitators come in to lay western-style groundrules and accomplish western-style goals, and that we've also had Hawaiian ho'oponopono. She was curious about it-- how does it work? What is it like? I told her about my experience, how it went for hours and hours, starting immediately after school and carrying on until nearly midnight, what the alaka'i' did-- his role seemed similar to the mediator's role-- providing space for everyone to say their part, to be heard.  In my limited experience, it didn't seem that there were set scripts to follow, although every person was expected to speak, and everyone, as we went aroun...

I left Hawaii. Not forever-- just for two months. Just the day school got out-- all my book shelves pushed into one corner of my classroom, all the partitions folded and desks stacked and supplies boxed up. I got on an airplane-- actually three-- and left Hawaii behind. I just got back Sunday. I learned a lot. Some of what I learned I should probably write about. But not today. Today, I went back to work. And the day sort of embodied everything that is sacred and amazing, and everything that is enraging and crushing about this rock in the middle of the pacific. I left the house at 4:30 am. I drove my truck through the dark-- down the mountain, along the coast. Just knowing the black ocean was right there, invisible and inky on the side of the road, lapping at rocks in the dark-- gave me chills. The ocean is big and powerful-- a force to be acknowledged and respected. Good morning unseen ocean. By 5:30 I made it to the beach. Many of the other teachers were already there, stand...

I came late to the faculty meeting yesterday. I walked in with my laptop and planner but the conference table was gone and everyone was sitting on the floor in a circle. Kaina, the Hawaiian language teacher and charismatic force of nature, was sitting shirtless at the front of the circle, with three large wooden bowls in front of him. At either side hovered a shirtless teenage boy. To their left sat our two graduating seniors. Ah. A Kawa ceremony. Cool. I mentally changed lanes. Last year's kawa ceremony was out in the school garden one evening, in the handmade hale, and was followed by a hi'uwai-- a purifying dunk in the ocean to symbolize letting go of the old and embracing the new.  Apparently this time it was in the social studies homeroom, on the carpet. I noted the three bowls-- one full of the stringy dried Kawa, one full of murky grey-green liquid, and one full of clean water with many little coconut bowls bobbing around. Kaina whispered to the boy helpers, di...

Just got back from a four day jaunt to Oahu. We stayed in Waikiki, went to museums and ate out-- it was a fun mini vacation from our rural island. I liked pushing through the crowds of people, admiring the daring high-fashion haircuts, and eating authentic Japanese food.  But I was bothered by something unexpected.  I heard English in all accents, and a UN roster of other languages: Tagalog, Chinese, Korean, Russian, and French. I heard more Japanese than I have since living in Japan. But I didn't hear a single word of Hawaiian. No mahalo or aloha or e komo mai-- not even the token, tourist-board approved warm fuzzy version of Hawaiian that gets used as a tool to bring a non-threatening layer of native authenticity to maitais and cheap plumeria leis. Once I noticed it, the lack bothered me more and more. All the little chances people missed to use the few words of olelo that have crept in to common usage jumped out at me. At the bishop museum, we heard recorded Hawaiian voices...

Today I got to accompany my 7th-12th graders to a heiau restoration project. In the discussion amongst us teachers leading up to this excursion, we were warned that "he wahe kane." It's a man place, a makahiki games sight. I didn't know what to expect As I picked up my walkie-talkie from the front office, the Hawaiian language teacher pulled me to the side with something like: "I na aia ia oe ka wailehua, a'ale pono e komo i ka heiau." I didn't understand-- he had to rephrase. "Ka waihooluu no ka lehua? Ka wai ulaula?" Ah. I finally got it. "Ma'i?" I answered. Monosyllabic and agrammitical,  as usual. He was telling me that, if I or the other women were on our periods, we were supposed to wait and not enter the heiau grounds.  The colorful idiom is "the water of the lehua blossom." Much more poetic than "auntie flow." We piled all of the non-menstruating students (luckily all of them) into the vans and ...

Aloha. Kokua. Malama. Pono. Ohana. According to the sacred holy and untouchable image of Hawaiian culture that exists in the popular imagination both on island and around the world, native Hawaiians are healthy, ruddily righteous people. They honor their ancestors, protect their young, cultivate their taro. They respect the land and care for the poor. They remember their past but face the future with hopeful optimism. They are stewards of the land, spiritual conductors of otherworldly light, and grounded in the earthly reality of the soil. They are gentle giants, like Braddah Iz and his high pitched giggle and teensy Ukulele. They are carefree and generous surfers and dancers, quick to laugh, devout at church, comfortable on the back porch with kids tumbling all around. It's a lovely image-- it appeals: the generous underdog, the happy Native. This isn't just a set of images you see in pastel in-flight magazines. Of course the tourism industry benefits from this story. Co...

I am finally in the swing of things with my new teaching job-- it took a whole semester, but I feel like I've found my pace. I don't wake up in terror every morning. Only occasionally, like the other day when I woke up choking on a nightmare about a co-worker... nevermind. :) I began the year with about 4 years worth of plans all set up to get through in the first semester-- hands-on assessments and multiple intelligence projects and poems to memorize and essays to write and genres to explore and rubrics to publish. About half-way through I realized that I can plan on about 40% less class time than I have on paper, because of an endless stream of unexpected last minute speakers, activities, and field trips. And I realized that I could count on zero work being delegated to homework-- so if there was anything done, the bulk of it would have to be in class. I had to chop projects and content and readings out. I was reminded of my favorite writing advice: "Kill your darlings...

I was at the beach yesterday, sitting out my kid's nap in the car, reading my novel. Two muscle-bound guys sat on the guard rail in front of me in the shade, smoking and drinking 6-packs and talking colorful story. "And then I had trow the barstool, it wen ricochet lie dat off his head!" or "He had hit me but I buss him up, I say to him 'ho, das the end of your boxing career!'" One guy was in a longsleeved neon orange shirt with a pencil line beard around his jawline and sleek sunglasses. The other guy was shirtless. And that guy-- there was something funny about him. For one, he was obviously the beta dog. He kissed up: "you see, das why we friends! Cuz we nice guys, but you nevah mess wid us! We the same!" And during one of his swashbuckling adventure stories ("Deze guys had come corner me in da batroom an den...!") the other guy lowered his glasses and ogled a passing 16 year old Filipina in a thong, without even a pretense of payi...

Mahalo, Ola, Pono, Aina, Ono, Piko, Pau....I hear Hawaiian words all the time. And mostly from non-Hawaiians. But I only hear the same handful of words over and over--the Hawaiian-word pool that we can pick from is limited. There are some Hawaiian words that Haole imposters, like myself, always feel free to bandy about. Aloha is one of those words we've beaten into submission-- especially pronounced, "Hello-hah." Because it is un-American to pronounce a word from a non-English language correctly, "Hello-hah" lets you make a limp-wristed effort but without having to fully commit to a non-English word. Win-win. Malama is another one we say a lot-- and we use it to suggest, like finger-wagging school marms, that others could be taking better care of things. Malama Aina, Malama Kai, Malama Pono, Malama ola-- don't forget to pick up after your doggies, people. Don't mess up the ocean, be righteous and eat more vegetables! And Kokua-- you better cooperate! Adv...

We went to the Punana Leo Preschool fundraiser today-- I had seen the signs for it flapping around town. They are handpainted in bright primary colors, on squares of white fabric, inviting one and all for a full day of music and talk story. I've been thinking that the Hawaiian immersion preschool would be a good choice for my kid next year, and so I wanted to come and get a feel for the school community. We got there and realized we drove the wrong vehicle. The parking lot of the war memorial hall was full of trucks-- and foolish us, we came in our dusty little sedan. But no matter. In we go, retrieve our kalua pig and cabbage bowls, and peer around at the crowd. It made me nostalgic for our life on the Big Island-- big uncles and grandpas cuddling sleeping babies and swatting at hyper toddlers, skinny portuguese grandmas with gold necklaces and their sensuous micronesian granddaughters in bright haltertops. The lights flicked on and off and we moved into a beautiful theater. The l...

So local people who make an effort to enunciate carefully and speak "standard English" are accused by of being "haolefied." In other words, acting like a haole. In other words, acting stuck up. Their poetic pidgin-speaking friends roll their eyes and resent or pity them. And being a mainland haole I naturally have a standard dull TV announcer accent. The way that I talk, without thinking, all the time, even when I'm mad or half-asleep, or jabbering to an infant, sounds like I'm putting on airs. It's a quandary. I sound pompous if I just talk like myself. But I don't want to be condescending or ridiculous with an affected pidgin accent. Last week after playgroup I walked with one of the other moms over to the library. Our cute kids gamboled around each other, darted into the street in front of speeding rental convertibles, got hissed at by the irate vampire librarian. We chatted about local elementary schools, about potty training, about baby talk-- ...

I was standing in line at the grocery store. The ponytailed local guy in front of me was paying for a stack of clothespins and some rope. A fat white guy followed me in line, checked out the big dark guy and his items on the counter and shouted amiably, "Hey Braddah! You Get Plenty Clothespins For Hang Choke Laundry!" "Oh," the local guy answered, "yes. They're actually for the printing master class I'm teaching."

It's Presidents Day and the place is packed-- a weary fan looks this way and that next to the door. There's a family of seven lined up sweatily by the counter, waiting to catch the waitress's eye. She's wearing belligerent thick black eyeliner, and a tight t-shirt with a picture of a bowl of soup, and the caption "Miso Hot." She shrugs us over to a sticky table, in a maze of mismatched chairs. There's a pair of Hawaiian aunties right next to us, and I eavesdrop and peer at their food before I order. And it's lovely-- thin little strips of yaki-something, and sweet little rolls like gems. They strike up a conversation with a family at the table kitty-corner from us. --Oh-- you folks from Honokaa! You never go work with my brother them? --Oh yeah, over there at the kine. My husband work with your brother Jon Gomes? --No the other Gomes. Milton Gomes. I get a brother Milton and Jack. Not the Ahualoa Gomes. Honokaa. I'm a honokaa girl. --Oh! Me too! -...

The timeshare guy winked at all us poolside tourists and chuckled into his karaoke microphone--"Don't forget to ask for kamaʻāina discounts!" For what? "Local discounts" growled my husband. The tourists were happy to hear about a sneaky way to "stick it to the man" in Hawaii, even though most of them probably immediately forgot how to pronounce the words and certainly no vendor would be hoodwinked by a sunburned tourist in white shorts and a new aloha shirt. But still. These discounts are in place to mediate some of the puffed-up prices, an apologetic shrug to locals for having to put up with the general ransacking of Hawaiian culture and landscape. The discounts at hotels and shops and restaurants are the kind of gentle slacking of the rules and prices that folks will give their cousin, their auntie, their cousin's auntie, and her good friend-- but made official. Tourists asking for it makes vendors check IDs and generally takes the friendly loca...