Saturday market economy

I finally got it together to trade with my Isis cloth and other sundry creations at the circus school Saturday Farmerʻs Market 

Though my booth looked very pretty: colourful and full, and Isis seemed happy in the venue, my first foray into the market was not a terribly lucrative venture. I did enjoy myself, irritation with the pasty, concave chested tourist boys using drugs on the fringes notwithstanding.

There is a part of me comes home to my tribe, in the community of vendors. Isis really does look good in a hand built, homegrown circus school.

What I did also discover, is that junk sells way better than art. 

Back up a little: the previous week I had taken crates of clothes, shoes, dvd movies and general excess household goods to the once a month, swap meet Saturday at the same venue. I was swamped very much the same way I was swamped at my yard sale on leaving Dead Horse Gulch.

I bartered African print fabric for fresh coconuts, a sweet lillʻ thrift store strappy sundress (which never was me and I had never worn) for a loaf of vegan gluten free banana bread, and made enough dead presidents to cover baseline expenses for a couple of months too.  

Those swap meet markets are only once a month, however. For the rest I need to trade with something made on the island: thus my own creations. 

Curiously the only freshly handmade things which sold on my first foray into the creative market world were the great shape shifting pure wool dread beanies, which I had only thrown in as an afterthought. Who would think of woolen hats selling well in Hawaii? What I learned was not surprising: tourists are probably going to be my target market, much more than locals. 

And I am not going to let go of my 17 hour a week day job anytime soon. I am truly grateful for its biweekly cheque, now that they are finally coming. 

E mālama i ka ʻaina

I have written previously about my joy in finding such sophisticated, fully functional garbage and recycle centres in this new island life.

There are several centres near me.

Generally the grounds are beautifully maintained, the dumpsters well labelled. The sites have also become places where people can drop off stuff which they no longer want but which could be repurposed or reused by another. One can pick up random tins of house paint, for example, very rusted bicycles, and all manner of well used household items.

I like to see my tax dollars at work in places like this. I just wish we could, as a human race, learn not to acquire so much stuff in the first place, and not to generate so much garbage in the mere act of living.

What does it take to be waste free?

E mālama i ka ʻaina = take care of the land (rough translation)

Go east: a royal orientation

I got to watch the full moon rise on the autumnal equinox from the easternmost point in the Hawaiian islands: Cape Kumukahi, where Pele spared the lighthouse in the 1960 eruption which destroyed the town of Kapoho. 

The lava literally toed the edged of the lighthouse platform, completely surrounding it. Today a rendering of  King Kalākaua, the Merrie Monarch, stares out from the lighthouse, reminding us about true Hawaiian ways and, of course, poi: the unsung superfood.

Cape Kumukahi is a very atmospheric place with the black pahoehoe lava flows undulating down to the shoreline cliffs and, of course, the wives of Kane. Ocean which goes all the way to the other side of tomorrow out there.

A good orientation point for orientation. Literally.

I was surprised there were not more people called to this point on this full moon, equinoctial evening.

I wasnʻt complaining, though,  just wish there was not so much evidence of bad partying around: broken glass, litter.

The graffiti, some of it really well executed,  lends an urban edginess. 

After a while,  magnificent mahina, the full moon and night rainbows.

Harvest moon: edition 2013

"The moon is a ship that ferries our spirit to heaven" I read this line in a beautiful essay which fortuity put in my path.

My ship came in. One moonkissed night with my beloved mahina (moon)

Garden of spicy delights

The banana grove isnʻt the only blooming marvel swelling with fruit out there in the garden.

A few months back, just after I arrived,  I planted a Hawaiian hot pepper seedling, which I believe is Capsicum frutescens. I have heard that these also grow wild, sown by birds, but I purchased my seedling from a local market.

 At last there are blooms - carefully tended by ants, I notice.

After the little flowers, the tiniest little pale yellow candles of fruit are now developing, held erect at the end of each stem. The berries are very beautiful, very mysterious and magical. Though they are small, these peppers are reputed to be really fiery. I am not quite sure at what stage they are ready for harvest. I am thinking I have to wait for them to turn red.

I have used a macro lens to get these close ups pics. The ants on them, for comparison, are barely visible to the naked eye. Incidentally they are the fire ants which give me so much grief in the garden and house: a stinging red rash which a day or so later becomes an itchy bump.

Alongside the Hawaiian hot pepper, the Thai basil is up-to-my-chin rampant. I let it get away from me. Yes, I know, I could have dried it or frozen it or something....but I do have more coming up and I do harvest fresh leaves daily.

A wild abandon of herb blooms in the garden can be just as pleasing, just as nourishing as a finely flavoured meal.

Banana progress report

Of course the banana grove is one of my first ports of call on dawn garden meanders.

The bunches of fruit are growing, extending.

Sometimes I just stare and stare, head upturned, sticky banana nectar dripping on my forehead, anointing my third eye with viscous secretions of banana fertility.

Frog: coquī?

My nights are noisy with coqui frog symphonies, but until recently I had not spotted the culprits.

Early one morning recently, in a lovely damp dawn I found this little creature waiting for me at the front door.

I do not know whether this is in fact a coqui, the Puerto Rican native now so comfortable in my tropical island rain forests. As imported creatures on islands can be, coqui frogs are regarded as quite a menace and really do make the rainforest nights noisy. So noisy, in fact, that at one Bed and Breakfast I stayed before I lived here, at I was offered ear plugs.

The abundance of feral chickens around Hale Mahina, however, probably keep them a little in check and I do love drifting off to sleep with a froggy chorus serenading me - well okay technically the serenade is for Ms froggyʻs charms... but I get to listen in.

Wiliwili cousin bruddah: a contemplation on relativity and forbidden things.

Recently I found myself looking through inexpensive calendars at a local drug store. The botanical ones were the prettiest, attracted me most with their displays of colour, form, beauty.

Curiously about 75-80% of the blooms gracing the Hawaiian Flowers calendar were indigenous to South Africa. South African natives become calendar pinups for Hawaii? Sound familiar? Ah yes. South African beauty has always been one of its valued export commodities.

A day or so later, while still pondering the links between there and here,  I find myself lightly brushed by exquisite sprays of trailing scarlet blossoms blowing in the wind. I am standing under a Wiliwili tree in bloom.

Erythrina sandwichensis is a cousin to Erythrina caffra that tree which carries the ignominious fame of having had its common name cleaned up through the years during which I have known and lived alongside it.

There was a big old Erythrina caffra outside my childhood bedroom window on the farm. I remember hours spent lying on the bed watching sunbirds sip the nectar during the day, dreaming a future, listening to LM radio - Lourenco Marques radio - on a little transistor radio.

I rigged up a long wire attached to the transistor radio aerial and the Erythrina tree to boost the signal so that I could receive the renegade, out-of-country radio station which bought me pop songs, news and views banned by the repressive political dictatorship of the time. I think the mere act of listening to LM radio was banned in the country at that time too. I learned very early in life that the sky doesnʻt fall if one breaks rules.

That tree, with the now unspeakable name, brought the forbidden signal and dangerous foreign opinions into my life: music and voices from another country, crackly and with a bit of static sometimes, through hot African nights, taking me traveling to distant shores, liberating me from insomnia and other bondages of the flesh.

Later, when I found my Eldorado, and had my brief split second experience of realising the dream, I lived in a little country village of streets lined with Erythrina trees. I always had little red and black lucky bean seeds in my pockets:  seeds picked up on my walks up and down and around about on those sandy streets.

I germinated one of those seeds, planted it at Motherʻs house, where we watched it grow over the last decade of her life. I wonder now, if it has ever bloomed?

Years, later, again, my first seriously significant Hawaiian lei was precious seeds of the Wiliwili tree.  A gift from the fav ancient Hawaiian. Of course. Unbreaking the circle. What goes around comes around. Just like aloha, bondages of the flesh and liberation.

Crabby beach day

On a beach day at Puako recently, I found myself hanging out with crabs. Love the little scuttling critters.

The morning was exquisite. The sun, sand and turquoise water were all our own: the crabs and I.

Then 10 am struck. The tourists came down on cue with beach chairs, umbrellas, toddlers and toys. The sun went behind a cloud, the crabs down their holes. 

I packed up and went to Waimea for the Wednesday Paniolo Heritage Centre Farmerʻs Market. Grateful for my early rising habits shared with crabs and this sandy fowl whose genealogy I still need to research. Laptop battery problems and wifi issues are going to prohibit that research right now.

Correction hog

As a language arts kumu (teacher) I spend quite a bit of my time correcting language. I feel like da correction-hog, sometimes.

Outside the hardware store recently, I noticed someone else had this problem too.

The vehicle was impressive: a shrine to wild pigs or Kamapuaʻa. Boar tusks on the dash and all kine stuffs.

I do wish I had some pics but I didnʻt have the courage to point my camera where the driver would see me. Donʻt want to anger puaʻa.

Guardian of the door

Wherever I turn these days I find myself face to face with lizards. This sassy individual has been hanging out on the front door recently, giving me the eyeball.

Quality control by lizard of my, as yet un-finished, island-time-is-kicking-in, paint job. Yes, I do need to scrape the glass in the corners and do a second coat on this.....sometime.