If I sit and drink coffee in the morning while wandering the internet long enough, the rains will eventually come and I can play hooky from work. No need to dash out first thing in the morning and try to get everything done before it rains. It looked moist out there.
No that was not another earthquake. It was me taking the camera one handed around the house post in the carport.
I am managing to get some paperwork done too.
I am feeling a little like some of the ar has fallen out of my ticulate. March has been a very busy month for me and there are lots of others folks I know celebrating anniversaries this month. Somehow I managed to take on two new clients as I near the end here. It is time to get serious about my move and get past the mere scraping of surfaces. The Bush administration continues its free fall into disgrace. I watch in fascination and wonder with each new revelation if this is the one where we will all say enough? A lot is going on and I feel like I am not keeping up. There may not be enough time to enter the great artificial turf war at GardenRant.
So I will not try to rewrite history and provide a link to the National Park Service Story of Kalaupapa. Enter at your own risk.
You may not enter Kalaupapa without a reservation. Access is limited and guided. You can not roam the peninsula freely. You can enter with permission by plane, by mule and by foot.
We are headed down there on foot.
This is the pali we are hiking down. This is the pali that helped keep the former patients in. There are 26 switchbacks on this 2.9 mile trail and a nearly 1700 foot elevation drop.
Surrounded by rough ocean waters on three sides and up to 2000 foot cliffs on the fourth, this was a fine place for dropping people off that you needed to remove from society. In 1865 King Kamehameha V approved this location for people afflicted with Leprosy. The healthy Hawaiian inhabitants of this peninsula would have to be bought out and moved.
After this imported disease began to spread with vigor on the islands, the growing population of Kalawao, the first leprosy colony descended into anarchy. The patients were left to fend completely for themselves in the wilderness with no hope, no help and only death to look forward to. Stories of the atrocious conditions began to come out and another man came to Kalawao to try and help.
It is ironic that the culture that brought disease and destruction would come to offer a God in return. There is plenty that can be said about the Church. It has a dubious record to say the least.
But this was a simple man who came to a remote and isolated place filled with disfigured and desperate people. Be not afraid. You are beloved children of the universe, he said. He spent his life building a town and forging a sense of community. He fought to bring the simple comforts we all take for granted to his fellow human beings who had been forsaken by the rest of the world. There is a spiritual power there that can not be denied.
By the late 1890's the move over to the dryer and warmer leeward side of Kalaupapa began and the Bishops Home for girls was opened.
We were warned to stay off the roadways since the few patients and residents still there were mostly elderly and those that could, still drove their cars. Some nun driving like a bat out of hell roared down the road and up the driveway of the Bishop Home while we were stopped here.
Simple structures created long ago have begun to show their age. As the population declined with the introduction of new drugs for Hansen's Disease, homes and buildings were left untended.
A very fine house. Like many places in Hawaii cats roamed wild here.
The National Park Service is taking over a lot of the upkeep of an entire small town and has done restoration work on some buildings. This is the town's bookstore.
Before there was leprosy in these islands, there were heiaus used by Hawaiians for their spiritual practices. On Molokai, the island known for magic and sorcery this heiau on the stronghold of the Kalaupapa peninsula could have been a stage of power.
Looking towards Kalawao from the center of the peninsula.
This is where the right hand of Father Damien remains. His body was returned to Belgium in 1936 and his hand was returned to Kalawao in 1995.
St. Philomena Church that Father Damien helped build.
Looking east from Kalawao at the dramatic pali and narrow fertile green valleys of Molokai.
This experience is drenched in religious imagery from an earlier time. That deserves it own post.
In reviewing and editing the 127 pictures I took I noticed that most of the religious iconography is crooked, slightly off true vertical. I have to wonder about my eyesight. I have to wonder about my leanings.
In 1969 the order of quarantine for people with Hansen's Disease was finally lifted.
Time to hike back out. Follow along the shore to the rising half circle of the distinctly lighter colored Kukui Nut trees, then 26 switchbacks and nearly 1700 feet in that green section without the vertical ridge lines to the left of the grey faced cliffs on the right side of the picture. It is only a two hour climb.
Deep Blue Morning Glory trying to hide a chain link fence. It is a perennial that ebbs and flows in vigor with the whitefly. It just looked so cheerful this morning I had to take a picture.
Update:
I had to change my time zone to PST to get my archives to be in the correct year and month which skews the true Hawaiian time of my posts. Now that I have woken up to a new day I should mention that today I have turned 39 once again. Happy Birthday to me.
I went to Molokai and nothing was there at least from the typical American perspective. At the first stop in town looking for a bite to eat the tranny waitress, who got friendly after we flirted with her, told us that you have to look around the corner on Molokai to see things.
From the beginning this place seemed to be in a strange time warp. The buildings in Kaunakakai, the main town on the island were dusty remnants from the forties and fifties. We quickly learned that business hours were short and haphazard. Most of the shops closed very early.
A big event here was to go to the back door of the bakery at 10pm and stand in line for fresh hot bread.
The slow sleepy town was expected. Arriving on the west side it was down right eerie to see the condo/resort complex next to ours abandoned. I couldn’t help but see this as some sort of premonition. It must have been built in the 80’s and now it stood empty. The irrigation had been shut off and the grounds were returning to the dried scrub of the leeward coast ecosystem.
It was quiet here. The kind of quiet that gets these resorts built, promoted and sold in the first place. Now it seemed strange with these empty abandoned buildings nearby.
The beaches were near deserted. The surf was strong with swirling tides and an approaching storm. A shore break crashed on the sands and many boulders were hidden in the water. It was not the best time or place for a swim.
The wildlife came close. After seeing many whales on the way over, I saw deer bounding through a field across the road. A flock of turkeys grazed the grounds of our irrigated condos. I was beginning to think of this place as the Wildlife Isle. Later I saw wild goats and long legged burros and heard strange birds.
On the third day the rains came. Driving the south coast to the eastern end we passed through maybe a dozen streams that crossed over the road. The rains poured down from the steep mountains above creating temporary rivers we were obliged to cross if we wanted to see more.
Twice we were told in ancient Hawaiian times Molokai was a place of magic and sorcery. Even back then many Hawaiians avoided this place. Today many of the residents of Molokai resist development and tourism preferring to maintain a simpler lifestyle. Now they have their own kind of political magic and have had some success in bucking the tide of consumption.
This island feels different from the others. There are powerful forces, natural and human at work here. They stand out and are some how easier to see. That old magic lives on in the gene pool, in the waitress serving cheeseburgers in an old bakery and in the tall well built wo/man with strong features walking silently down the road.
Molokai has a dark side. It holds a dark story from the past. There is a place at the base of tall cliffs were strong spiritual forces came into contact. It seems appropriate that it should have happened on Molokai.
The ferry to Molokai leaves the harbor in Lahaina at 7am before this major tourist town really begins to wake.
The Lahaina Banyan Tree across the street from the harbor covers nearly two thirds of an acre. It is a city park in the courtyard of the old courthouse.
The Pioneer Inn directly on the harbor has a wild past. The debauchery of drunken sailors during the height of whaling once filled its rooms.
Looking out at the surf break next to the harbor in the morning light.
Looking back at historic Front Street in Lahaina Town.
Headed out to sea with some major force.
The deep blue of the Pacific for County Clerk especially. The water was very calm that morning. The winds had been near dead for the last two days as a cold front approached and a hot humid vog was pulled up from the south.
The black bump of a Humpback Whale in the miles and miles of blue water. The ocean was filled with whales. We saw dozens. They are very hard to photograph at a distance and when most of their body is under water.
Molokai appears through the volcanic haze.
These are certainly the nicest looking lizards I have had the pleasure to live with.
We are going on a boat trip to Molokai. I will be back in a few days with pictures.
Very late last Friday night I saw this promo from Microsoft for their new Windows Vista software and in particular I think the photo editing program that is in this new operating system.
It was a photo contest called Show us Your Wow. Submit your best Wow pictures for a chance to win......
I'm like, I think someone actually used that word, "Wow" in reference to one of my pictures. I have to enter this thing. So I did.
I submitted the maximum of 10 that was allowed, I had plenty, two days before the deadline for submissions. At this point six of them have been acknowledged and have shown up on the contest site.
Pink Waxy Velvet
Cosmic Rays Man
I have all 10 of my entries in this post.
At the contest site I found I had to magnify the computer screen to %125 to get the bottom scroll bar to appear to be able to navigate the site. I have my computer set at a either old tech or for the blind so I don't strain my eyes any more than necessary.
You can find my pictures at the contest site by clicking on the Most Recent tab on the left. Then pick the USA country tab in the bottom right after the pictures appear in the layered screen tabs. I start around number 64. You have to move through several sets of photos first by clicking the Next Set tab in the bottom right.
Fire Flower Power
Visit to the Dentist
It is a bit sad, but some of my pictures are skewed in the promo photo editor monitor they are using to show the entries. I don't think it likes my free form cropping deviating too much from the standard rectangular shape.
I realize this is a temporary contest, but you would think Microsoft of all companies could have their display module programmed to a higher level of capabilities.
Golden Candelabras in the Moon Light
Buttercup Moon
The four that follow are the ones that were not accepted or have not been processed yet in the 46,090 entries received worldwide and posted so far. It could be my free form cropping made them way too skewed in their display monitor and that would look bad for them. Or could it be something else? A Shot in the Dark.
Pink Coral and Green Pods
Are You Looking at Me ?
How could they pass up this Day Gecko on a Torch Ginger as lacking in Wow?
There were enough sunsets to last a few years already posted at the contest site so I did not submit any of those. I needed to stand out at this late entry date.
Waiting in the Background
They will need sample pictures to use with their new photo editor. They could pay professional photographers a huge chunk of change for the pictures or have a contest and get thousands of choices for the price of a free trip and a few at cost computers.
I didn't read the rules super close, but you give them the rights to use your picture if you win obviously. I am not sure about rights to the losers pictures.
Ah the lure of free stuff. Throw caution to the wind. I can take plenty more pictures.
Passion in a White Bowl
Six years ago I would not have even been able to enter such a contest. The chance to do something new and different for me, the chance to step out of my former rut and explore new ways of being is enough of a win for me.
Last Sunday there was an anniversary celebration for me in a way unique to Hawaii. It is something I am sure to miss, the wonderful gift of leis.
Basket Full of Love
Thank you everyone for helping me to better see the Wow in life again.
