Magic Sands Beach

It's called Magic Sands Beach because sometimes, seemingly randomly, the waves will hit the beach and all the sand will be gone from the beach and only rocks will remain. No one I've talked to knows the reason or whether this happens seasonally or annually, etc.

Again, beautiful beach, love learning to ride the waves! This beach is closest to our house so we've spent two days there now.

We also saw sea turtles! They were swimming around in the waves with us just under the surface of the water. Pretty incredible!

First Day off: Kua Bay and the Imu!

I'm going to write about our beaching experiences in separate posts.

We were really lucky to make it out to this beach. We were taken by these people who we met at a party the night before...

Albert, a Hawaiian guy who we work with, had a party the night before to celebrate the lighting of the imu. It was a really interesting process: a fire was going in a pit in the ground all day in order to heat up the lava rocks. Then the fire was put out and ti leaves laid over the rocks. Turkeys in tin foil and a wild boar wrapped in taro leaves and chicken wire. Soaked coffee bags were put on top of everything and then the pit was covered with sand and dirt. The food cooked like this all night.

Anyway, we met this young couple who were shocked that we hadn't seen a white sand beach yet. So the next day they took us 45 minutes away to Kua Bay. It was so beautiful. This was Hawaii! Johnny taught Pramod and I how to body surf. The waves were much smaller than at the black sand beach, but my new wave fears came back to me. However, Johnny's body surfing tips have helped me get over that somewhat. Now, I seem to enjoy the waves more each time that I go to the beach.

We were lucky to get to this beach since it is far from us here on the farm. Thanks for the kindness of others, once again!

Hawaii--Catching up

Tomorrow will begin our third week on this side of the island and I haven't posted at all since we've been here! So here I am catching up on things.

The Kona side of the big island is much drier than the Hilo side. This doesn't mean that there's no rain, it means that it doesn't rain twice a day. It's also less jungle-like. Still very tropical and all of the same great fruits growing for our eating pleasure. Sadly, the best ones don't grow on this farm. We do have banana, passion fruit (liliquoi), and guava. Also papaya but no ripe ones right now.

The farm has its good sides and bad. The accommodations are great! We have our own little 8x8 cabin, built and finished the day before we arrived. The community kitchen is really nice; complete with hot water and electricity (having a refrigerator again has been awesome: leftovers and dairy products!!). Lastly, the common area is overlooking the ocean and we get to enjoy great sunsets daily.

The work, on the other hand, is not great. We're on a Coffee estate and we work 8-4 four days a week (Tuesday through Friday). It's hard work and we are all always exhausted by the end of the day whether we're weed-whacking the whole time (as the boys usually do) or spreading fertilizer pellets on the trees or tediously searching for certain diseased branches on each individual plant. Luckily, that's only four days a week.

On the five days we've had off so far, Pramod and I have been beach side for four of them. The beaches on this side of the island are incredible! Living on this side of the island is MUCH more expensive than the other side. While we could have rented a house without electricity for around $200 a month over there, here its comparable to renting in a city on the main land. There are also many more tourists over here. Kona is filled with fancy hotels and expensive bars and restaurants, but it is so beautiful.

Dad: you asked me if Hawaii is paradise. On this side of the island it definitely is!

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.