“Two Worlds on Oahu”
The chief* and I started at 5:30 this morning with a circuitous drive ending at the west end of Oahu. It started off as a journey east, to a supposedly great snorkeling hole, hanananasomethingorother, but the silky smooth voice of our “fail-proof” GPS, rented at Alamo for only eleven bucks a day, had another idea (soothingly leading us on a circuitous route that abruptly ended with my finger pressing the power button, sending “Shirley”—as we came to not-so-affectionately call her—to her rest, and leaving us wayfaring strangers to fend for ourselves). We averted the demise intended us by that sweet Siren Shirley, S.S. Chrysler Seabring indeed NOT dashed upon the lava rocks, suffering only the minor bumps and bruises that come from getting a little snappy with one another after 15-or-so wrong turns and going too long without breakfast. Breakfast, by the way, ended up being a highlight of the trip, as we discovered Zippy’s. Best Omelet I’ve had in a long time. (Some of my amigos will appreciate that I am always on the hunt for the “best” food of any kind and in any place.)
I must say that I encountered something a little shocking out there, past some of the best resorts and beyond the cleanest beaches and further out still from the golf courses: tent cities on the beach, where people actually LIVE, all year round. When I quoted Twain yesterday, him saying that Hawai’i is a great place to live for the rich or the poor, I wasn’t actually thinking about people who didn’t have homes. It turns out that Hawai’i has a BIG homeless population (defined by the powers-that-be as people who have no physical mailing address), and these folks camp out in big conglomerations of tents, rusty cars, coolers, and clotheslines, sometimes near and sometimes not so near a public bathing facility (defined as a bathroom). The chief’s wife, and my wife’s mom, goes out as a reading consultant to one of the communities containing one of the largest populations of homeless in the state. In fact, of all the kids in the public elementary school out there in Nanakuli, 75% are legally defined as homeless. No physical address. No house with a shingle roof and a stucco exterior. No apartment. No living at Grandma’s house. They live, year-round, in a tent in the midst of other tents, and in the midst of the excessive drug abuse, physical assaults, and other violent crime. It’s not the Hawai’I you see in the movies (except maybe a little bit in that flick about the surfer chicks that came out a few years ago), and it’s not the Hawai’i to which you fly 9 hours and spend big $$$ to see. Two worlds.
*I should mention at this point that “the chief” is my father-in-law, Phil, who is known in Samoa as Tupa’i. (We are pictured together in this post.) He’s not the high chief of his village on the island of Savaii in the Independent State of Samoa, but he’s pretty darned close: Paramount Chief, #2, close friend of the High Chief. It’s all a lot for me to get my head around. After I get there and see the whole thing in operation I’ll try to write something that explains it all a little more clearly.
“Aloha and Talofa: Beautiful words for the beauty in and among people.”
Aloha is the Hawaiian word for “hello”, “good-bye”, and “love.” (The Samoan word, “Talofa” has a similar trifecta of meaning, although there are more words for further clarification). One correctly uses "aloha" at one’s arrival, at one’s departure, at a child’s bedtime, and in a myriad of other settings and for a variety of other purposes.
It’s all gotten me thinking a little bit about the economy of words, about quantity-v-quality.
Of course, in English, we have lots of words for one’s arrival, for a departure, and for love; but I wonder if we don’t get a little cheated still. We are very utilitarian, very matter of fact with it all. We have “hello” to announce, in effect, “I’m here (and it should be duly noted)”; “good bye” to declare that, basically, “I’m leaving (and I’ve been wanting to for some time now)”; and “love” to imply hundreds of relatively nonspecific and situationally-appropriate/-inappropriate messages. We have a LOT of words to get these messages across.
But I can’t think of a quality English word on par with the likes of “aloha” or “talofa”, in whose meanings are wrapped up something like, “I’m here because I love you and I love to be with you and I hope you love to be with me and the reason we’re together is because we value each other and respect each other and love…” Or else, maybe, “I have to leave now but I love you and I have loved being with you and I hope you have loved being with me and I truly hope we can be together again soon so that we might again experience the joy of this love that is known among friends or brothers or sisters or lovers or parents and children or grandparents and grandchildren…” It’s a good word that can say something like all that and so much more.
Food for thought – are we so specific and efficient with our words that we end up saying not very much at all?
“Aloha and Talofa: Beautiful words for the beauty in and among people.”
Aloha is the Hawaiian word for “hello”, “good-bye”, and “love.” (The Samoan word, “Talofa” has a similar trifecta of meaning, although there are more words for further clarification). One correctly uses "aloha" at one’s arrival, at one’s departure, at a child’s bedtime, and in a myriad of other settings and for a variety of other purposes.
It’s all gotten me thinking a little bit about the economy of words, about quantity-v-quality.
Of course, in English, we have lots of words for one’s arrival, for a departure, and for love; but I wonder if we don’t get a little cheated still. We are very utilitarian, very matter of fact with it all. We have “hello” to announce, in effect, “I’m here (and it should be duly noted)”; “good bye” to declare that, basically, “I’m leaving (and I’ve been wanting to for some time now)”; and “love” to imply hundreds of relatively nonspecific and situationally-appropriate/-inappropriate messages. We have a LOT of words to get these messages across.
But I can’t think of a quality English word on par with the likes of “aloha” or “talofa”, in whose meanings are wrapped up something like, “I’m here because I love you and I love to be with you and I hope you love to be with me and the reason we’re together is because we value each other and respect each other and love…” Or else, maybe, “I have to leave now but I love you and I have loved being with you and I hope you have loved being with me and I truly hope we can be together again soon so that we might again experience the joy of this love that is known among friends or brothers or sisters or lovers or parents and children or grandparents and grandchildren…” It’s a good word that can say something like all that and so much more.
Food for thought – are we so specific and efficient with our words that we end up saying not very much at all?
Another flight…
Well, I’m about spent for this day. I’m aboard another big jet, this time on a 5-hour flight from Honolulu to Pago Pago (pronounced, I learned today, PaNGo PaNGo), American Samoa. We’ll arrive to the the Talofa of the chief’s wife and head over to the Tradewinds Hotel for some shut-eye before heading out for Western Samoa. The trip tomorrow involves a short flight aboard a little 8- or 10-seat puddle jumper and then an hour-long ferry ride to a third island, Savaii, where the chief is really “Tupa’i”. That ought to be interesting. I’ve been wondering about it all for quite some time. I guess it’s my time for discovery.
Aloha.
P.S. (Can you do a P.S. after an "Aloha"?) We have landed in American Samoa. I noted during the flight that I would be crossing the equator for the first time in my life. So, for all those Robert Frost fans out there, there is now another fence to make us "good neighbors." Man, is it humid on this side of the line!
Aloha (again).
P.S.S. (Still marching on, post-"Talofa") When we returned from our drive around the island, I cleaned up and checked out a historic church at Queen Emma's Square. Here's the vid.
Double Aloha.
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