Surfing and Learning the Hula


Tuesday, July 23, 2019

What a full and varied day!  Up early, we got to Waikiki Beach shortly after 8:00 for our surfing lessons and outrigger canoe trips.  The beach is beautiful, with Diamond Head in the background:



We first had our on land surfing instruction, and then, got into the water with the surfboards.  Joyce chose not to try right from the beginning, but Victor gave it a shot.  There were multiple problems, however, all orthopedic, with two bad shoulders and a neck which wouldn’t allow paddling and looking up at the same time.  Ben, however, took to it instantly.  Here he is starting to paddle:



And out they went to the gentle but serious, nonetheless, surf, where he was up like a pro:



So now we have another surfer in the family!



We all took the outrigger canoe out with guides, and what a hoot!  They use the canoe as a surfboard, and we paddled out and surfed the waves back.  It was loads of fun.



We then had lunch on the beach, went back to the hotel for a shower and change, and left for the afternoon/evening activity, a trip to a traditional Hawaiian taro farm.  The Lo’I Kalo Taro Patch is far more than a farm, it is an educational institution about all things typically and historically Hawaiian.  The learning is mixed with great activities, and we all partook.  The weather was extremely hot and humid, but that didn’t dampen the fun.  We began with the creation of a Hawaiian dish called laolao which requires skill in binding a mixture of shredded pork and spices in taro leaves which in turn are bundled in tea leaves which are tied off with the veins of the tea plant leaves.  Cooking takes five hours:



We then heard the story of taro and how it is planted in mud and grown in watery bogs:



The muddy bogs need weeding, and an activity was getting into the muddy bog and pulling weeds.  This seemed to me a sort of Tom Sawyer fence painting exercise, but most of the children and a couple of the grandparents did the work.



Intermingled with the activities was a narration of the traditional Hawaiian values, particularly the respect for the earth.  The concepts sound very similar to those of the Native Americans of the West, with no land ownership but rather the idea of stewardship.  Plants are approached with the same respect as all living things, and are asked for and thanked for their contributions to humans’ lives.  In that vein, we next visited Kukui trees, where we asked to gather their nuts.  They are used for many purposes, but today we made tops of them and had a top spinning contest with the result.  We were taught what to look for in a nut which would make a good top, and Ben and Joyce consulted:



But Victor’s top won the contest which was very much like dreidel spinning.  Thee were many other activities, including the making of poi from taro, a very hard process:



Perhaps the most amusement came from the hula lessons (click the video):
  
We had a dinner of laolao and poi and returned to the hotel to pack and get ready for our travel to the Big Island for volcanos tomorrow.

Comments

  1. xctravelerJuly 24, 2019 at 8:23 AM

    I have avoided Hula dancing whenever it is offered, on the other hand Carol is ready to start right now :)

    Paul

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ralph P. LockeJuly 28, 2019 at 12:43 PM

    Wonderful experiences--quite varied--all in a single day!
    Ralph

    ReplyDelete

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