Volcanic Island

Earlier in the month, Pramod and I went to Volcano National Park. It was pretty cool (but obviously it didn't rate a blog entry--or I was too lazy). However, the cartoon-y idea of the top of a volcano that I had in my head was extremely inaccurate. It was more like what I picture the moon looking like inside the large crater. We're definitely glad that we went to check it out.

A week or two later, Mike took the two of us out to see the lava flow after dark. There was a new flow that was running right by the road. Because we went late enough, we were able to get as dangerously close to the lava as we wanted (the guard stays there during the day time). The lava was hot! It was so hot! Standing near it was like being way too close to a raging fire; burning our faces. It was well worth it though. We each took some sticks and tried to poke the lava. It was amazing how it looks like it's flowing and it's even red and glowing, but the outside hardens really quickly. In order to get at the lava we needed to stab the stick hard into it. It was like our experience at the glass blowing demonstration in Seattle. The lava would stay on the end of the stick and either harden as it drips down, leaving a pointy glass-like lava rock. Alternatively, if the stick was rotated, the lava would continue as a blob of hot lava which could be rounded by rotating it on the ground. It was pretty amazing and greatly exceeded my expectations.

Today was our last adventure with the lava. These days, the lava flows through a tube under ground rather than over it. The tube leads to the end of the island where is pours out into the ocean. To get to this flow, it is a very very long walk. We were walking for over an hour (one way) in the hot sun. It felt long. If we had tried to go the more direct way (driving on the road until we'd have to walk out to the ocean) someone would have stopped us from going, so we ended up walking along the coast.

There is so much steam where the hot lava hits the water that we wouldn't have been able to see anything if the wind was coming our way. Luckily, it wasn't, so we were able to see some of it pouring (like water from a faucet) out of the earth. We'll see if our pictures do it justice. It was so amazing!

Catching up

Pramod and I are both really looking forward to moving on. We've enjoyed our free time (and we've had a lot of it!), but we're going a little stir crazy. We're leaving on November 1st, to go to the other side of the island to work on a coffee farm, so just a few more days to go.

The kitten has been named Missy. We have gotten a few other WWOOFers at Dharma Farm and on girl, Ingrid from Norway, is more of a cat lover than I am--is that possible? We she actually went out of her way to buy real cat food for her. I can't believe that in the 10 days that she's been around, she has grown so much! She looks much more healthy. Ingrid has promised me that she will take good care of Missy after we leave and that she'll bring her to a shelter when she moves on if there is no one else who will take care of her, so I don't need to worry about that. I bet it's going to be hard to leave her though! She is still the most affectionate cat I've ever met--someone just needs to look at her and she'll start purring.

It's strange how I've felt somewhat disconnected since I've been here in Hawaii, but as soon as our plans to leave are on the horizon I've started connecting. There are a couple of people on another farm who I have really enjoyed getting to know. Monica is someone in particular who I met a couple of days ago but already I feel like I've known her forever. Well, it's good to make connections and I bet that we'll meet again. It's hard for me to feel close to someone and when I do it's even harder for me to leave them.

Also, our last day at yoga--Pramod taught and was highly praised--and out last day at soccer--I played and loved it so much.

Warm Pond -- Queen Anne's

Today Pramod and I went to a warm pond -- a pond that is fed by the ocean but is heated by the lava flow! It was incredible. Not hot like bath water but very warm and so beautiful!

On one end of the pond, there is an opening where the ocean waves come in. Every once in a while there'd be a wave that would be hard to fight (if over on that side of the water) and that added some fun to the experience.

When we just stood in the water we noticed that there were tons of tiny fish. If not moving for long enough the fish would come nibble/suck on our legs. It really freaked me out so I kept

pretty active.

After taking in the view and the water, Pramod and I kept ourselves occupied by dancing in the water and taking underwater videos of it. It was pretty funny.

This was actually the second warm pool we had been to. The other was close to a popular surfing spot, Pohiki. This one was also pretty nice because it was hidden in jungle-like place. It was pretty amazing being there too.

A Kitten in the Kitchen

A few days ago, there was this small cat who came into our living area. It shocked me and I think that my reaction scared the cat away. Later that day, the cat was in the bushes meowing, but when I came over to check it out, the cat walked away again.

It turns out that the cat is not just a little cat, but seems to be a kitten! The next day I found that the cat had slept under the bus and started meowing as soon as it heard our voices. I figured it was probably hungry. What does one feed a cat if there is a lack of cat food? Milk! No milk. Yogurt seems similar so we laid out some for her. She had a little but started meowing again when I was opening bags for our breakfast (perhaps reminding her of dry cat food).

I tried some granola, which she ate a little of, some leftover rice and sambar from dinner the previous night. After much caution on all of our parts (cat included), we figured out that she doesn't meow while being petted. In fact, she is maybe the most affectionate cat I have ever encountered. She comes when called, she cries when we leave, and she'll crawl all over my lap for some cuddling. She must have been in someone else's home before because she is very familiar with human love.

The next morning I was sure that she was gone. I hadn't heard signs of her scrounging around the kitchen at night or growling at potential predators like I had the night before. She didn't meow when we first got up either. She was gone. My reaction showed that I had already become attached to this little cutie. But wait, there she is in a box sleeping with our books and beach towels! She must have been our the whole night before.

She is still with us. It sounds like this may be normal. Mike currently has a cat that he found as a kitten near his house. I'm a little worried about what to do with her though. We have finalized our plans to leave in 2 weeks and I am going to have a really hard time just leaving her there alone to fend for herself. What would happen to her? Should I take her to a shelter? Or try to give her to someone we know here? It's definitely going to be sad to see her go. I am already VERY attached to this little kitten that we found in our kitchen.

Fruit Galore

We are loving the fresh fruits we are able to pick while being here. The different Noni farms have different fruits growing which are open for our picking pleasure! We've picked banana, passion fruit, jack fruit, red and yellow guava, mango, papaya, avocado, lychee. Pramod has also climbed coconut trees to get us some nice coconut juice on hot days.

We've been having the best fruit salads and fruit juices and it has all been hand picked, stored, washed, and cut by us. It's pretty cool.

Pramod also made this incredible sambar from the jack fruit seeds. It was a major, time-consuming pain to peel the seeds, but the food was so worth it!

Changing Farms

I think we're going to go stay at a different farm. There's nothing wrong with this place and we're Unhappy here — but we're not really happy either. Also, we're not learning anything useful for our lives, nor are we enjoying the people that we're meeting very much. Hawaii is filled with people our age, who have been here for years, with no goals except to get by doing the least amount of work they have to and smoking a lot of pot. Pramod and I are too goal driven to live here.

The 2 months that we're here is seeming a whole lot less daunting thinking of breaking it up with a different farm. Before we go, we're going to try to see everything we can on the Hilo side of the island before heading off to the Kona side (which is where we flew into and left immediately).

Chanting

A large part of our time here has been spent at another farm. Some of our food comes from this other farm because we go over at least once a week to help them harvest for their farmers markets (of which they go to 5 a week!).

This other farm is beautiful with something like 17 acres and 15-20 people working on it. They aren't on the WWOOF program though, they get their workers by word of mouth. If the farming was all of it, Pramod and I would probably love living there and helping with the gardening. However, the farming is only a way to sustain them. The main point of this place is that it is for spiritual growth. All free time is spent studying the Bhagavad Gita or chanting on their mala beads. They chant every morning and every night.

“Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare”

We go, along with the other farm (who has the Saturday morning yoga and soccer) on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. They have chanting for over 30 minutes, dinner (which is always great! There is a professional chef living among them), then a spiritual talk led by the guy who owns the farm. Sunday is the Rama Pizza Party which is open to the public and lots and lots of people come (some just come for the dinner part).

Check out this video of the chanting, it's different than any kind of chanting either of us have ever done before. There's only one glimpse of the dancing but you can hear the music (I was trying to hide the fact that I was recording). I left in the beginning of the 2nd call and response so that you can see that with every time the leader sings he is noticably speeding it up. It's awesome. The chanting is a lot of fun! Everyone is singing at the top of their lungs and dancing like we're at a rave. At home I wind down the day relaxing, watching TV. Here we're dancing and singing like there's no tomorrow!

Noni work

The farm here deals with Noni growing and juice making. The owner owns every part of the production--from the tending of Noni plants to mailing off the packaged juice bottles. Pramod and I get to take part in all of it.

Noni plants grow on this island and they seem to flourish in volcanic rock. Though the climate here is similar to India, there are no Noni plants growing there. There are some other countries that grow Noni but not many.

The Noni juice is no apple or grape juice. It isn't consumed for its great, refreshing taste. It doesn't taste very good but it is medicinal. I have heard many rumors about the benefits of drinking Noni juice: 1.) some WWOOFers who used to work here drank lots of Noni juice daily and apparently it showed. 2.) People who drink it say that they feel really good afterwards (and they're pretty sure that it's not just the tiny bit of alcohol present in the juice due to fermentation--this is all boiled out before it is sold to the public). 3.) Someone told me that this juice is being given to cancer patients in China. 4.) A Hawaiian local has "died" 3 or 4 times from stab wounds or gun shots and his grandmother brought him back to life by giving him noni juice!

It is interesting stuff. It sells for like $30 a bottle on the main land. With all these benefits, it seems like they would outweigh the bad taste. We are in a perfect position to benefit from this juice for free. That is true; however, being a part of the mass production process brings me close enough to it to never want to drink the juice again.

I am considering making my own juice, however. It's easy. All you need is the fruit and a container to keep it in. It only needs to sit for a few weeks. We'll see how that experiment goes.

As for the mass production: we go out to one of the 4 farms owned by these people daily to pick up the bags of fruit that have been picked that day by someone living here. These bags, full of hard fruits, weigh like 60 lbs each. Pramod and I ride in the back of the truck while driving to each spot where the bags have been kept. When we bring the fruit back to the factory (I call it that as I consider our work to be factory work rather than farming), and load them into these huge, 500 gallon barrels. As the fruit sit in the barrel, the release the juice. We leave them in there for about 2 weeks. After letting them sit for a couple of weeks, the juice is drained out and we unload these much lighter but much stickier and messier bags into a compressor. There, the fruits are squeezed. The juice is filtered multiple times then pasteurized then bottled. Pramod and I have helped in capping and cleaning the bottles, putting labels on them, shrink-wrapping the lids, and boxing them. That is what our 3-4 hours of daily work will entail.

Tide Pools

Snorkeling at the tide pools. We definitely are loving our waterproof camera.

Check out these pictures. We're still looking for turtles though!

Sunday Surfing!

Shankar goes surfing every Sunday with some of the people living in his house. For our first Sunday on the island, we went with him. The waves weren't great--which was perfect for learning. I only used a Boogie Board, but I caught a couple of waves and had a ton of fun. The kids who grew up here are crazy! I saw an 8 year old boy also with a Boogie Board, the difference was that he actually stood up on his board and was steering it too!

Pramod tried the surf board. I guess he caught some waves too. But like me, he was on his stomach most of the time. He did get onto his kees as some point with Shankar holding the board for him. It's all part of the learning process.

We both had a really good time. We will definitely try to go again!

Saturday Soccer!

Another farm in the area--who we have spent some time with--has Saturday morning activities. From 9:30 - 10:30, someone living on their farm teaches a yoga class and then after there is a soccer game.

The yoga is taught by one of a couple of yoga teachers living on that farm. When I say yoga teacher, I mean someone who has taken a yoga teacher training course. I guess a few years ago, someone came in and gave a teacher training course for anyone who was interested. From our experience in this class, it didn't seem that these people necessarily had their own yoga class. Regardless, it was yoga asana. It felt good to stretch under someone else's guidance and we took it for what it was.

After the yoga there's a soccer game in the park! It's pretty informal--barefoot with as evenly divided teams as possible. I didn't play, but I was excited for Pramod to have other people to be active with. It's good. Pramod even scored a goal!