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Hawaiian Community Service
I was stationed twice in Hawaii in the past; I did almost three years each time. The truth is that I always felt like an isolato on the island. In my defense I can only state that I never got to experience Hawaii more than a few months at the time; I was either in the field getting ready for war, or fighting the war, or returning from the war.
This time I decided to change that. I don’t want just to be another hāʻole visiting the island. I want to be as local as I can get; I want to be a part of the community. I figured that the best way to become a part of the community is by doing community service.
It just happened that Mālama Loko Ea (www.lokoea.org/Loko_Ea/E_Hoala_E_Hoomau.html) fishpond restoration project needed some volunteers. They meet every third Saturday of the month. What is a better way to spend a frigid February morning then to wade around an ancient Hawaiian fishpond? Just kidding, it doesn’t really get cold here. But some of the snowy Facebook photos of my friends on the mainland did give me the chills.
This was an awesome experience. The day started with a prayer in Hawaiian. That was the first time I actually heard Hawaiian language spoken by a real person, and I was mesmerized by it. Then the workload was divided among all the volunteers. I volunteered for filling out sandbags because I wanted my two little keiki to play in the sand. Twenty two years ago my recruiter promised me that the Army will teach me valuable skills that I could use in the civilian life; as it turns out he was not lying. I don’t think that there was a single volunteer present who had as much of sandbag filling experience as yours truly.
After all sandbags were filled, I spent the rest of the day removing the invasive plants that started to take over the pond. The day ended with the score: Volunteers 1; Invasive Plants: 0.
They fed us a delicious lunch at the end of the work day. We all held hands and prayed in Hawaiian before the food was served. I mean others prayed and I just listened, because my Hawaiian is still too limited. If you ever find yourself in Hawaii on the third Saturday of the month you should also volunteer at the Mālama Loko Ea fishpond.
Word of the Day
isolato \ahy-suh-LEY-toh\, noun:
a person who is spiritually isolated from or out of sympathy with his or her times or society.
Also, in the years since the events you are investigating, my life has been that of an isolato, a shepherd on a mountaintop, situated as far from so-called civilization as possible, and it has made me unnaturally brusque and awkward.
-- Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter, 1998
There is, of course, Paul's unremitting aloneness: he is in every sense an isolato, and if this state is elicited by his impertinence and his refusal to conform, it is brought about as well by the inability of all those around him to perceive either his uniqueness or his pain.
-- Philip Stevick, The American Short Story, 1984
The most predictable Justices now on the Court, Antonin Scalia and Thomas, seem brooding isolatoes, openly contemptuous of the doctrinal laxness of their brethren.
-- Louis Menand, "Decisions, Decisions," The New Yorker, July 11, 2005
Isolato was popularized by Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick. The word comes through Italian from the Latin word insulātus meaning "made into an island."
Hawaiian Community Service
I was stationed twice in Hawaii in the past; I did almost three years each time. The truth is that I always felt like an isolato on the island. In my defense I can only state that I never got to experience Hawaii more than a few months at the time; I was either in the field getting ready for war, or fighting the war, or returning from the war.
This time I decided to change that. I don’t want just to be another hāʻole visiting the island. I want to be as local as I can get; I want to be a part of the community. I figured that the best way to become a part of the community is by doing community service.
It just happened that Mālama Loko Ea (www.lokoea.org/Loko_Ea/E_Hoala_E_Hoomau.html) fishpond restoration project needed some volunteers. They meet every third Saturday of the month. What is a better way to spend a frigid February morning then to wade around an ancient Hawaiian fishpond? Just kidding, it doesn’t really get cold here. But some of the snowy Facebook photos of my friends on the mainland did give me the chills.
This was an awesome experience. The day started with a prayer in Hawaiian. That was the first time I actually heard Hawaiian language spoken by a real person, and I was mesmerized by it. Then the workload was divided among all the volunteers. I volunteered for filling out sandbags because I wanted my two little keiki to play in the sand. Twenty two years ago my recruiter promised me that the Army will teach me valuable skills that I could use in the civilian life; as it turns out he was not lying. I don’t think that there was a single volunteer present who had as much of sandbag filling experience as yours truly.
After all sandbags were filled, I spent the rest of the day removing the invasive plants that started to take over the pond. The day ended with the score: Volunteers 1; Invasive Plants: 0.
They fed us a delicious lunch at the end of the work day. We all held hands and prayed in Hawaiian before the food was served. I mean others prayed and I just listened, because my Hawaiian is still too limited. If you ever find yourself in Hawaii on the third Saturday of the month you should also volunteer at the Mālama Loko Ea fishpond.
Word of the Day
isolato \ahy-suh-LEY-toh\, noun:
a person who is spiritually isolated from or out of sympathy with his or her times or society.
Also, in the years since the events you are investigating, my life has been that of an isolato, a shepherd on a mountaintop, situated as far from so-called civilization as possible, and it has made me unnaturally brusque and awkward.
-- Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter, 1998
There is, of course, Paul's unremitting aloneness: he is in every sense an isolato, and if this state is elicited by his impertinence and his refusal to conform, it is brought about as well by the inability of all those around him to perceive either his uniqueness or his pain.
-- Philip Stevick, The American Short Story, 1984
The most predictable Justices now on the Court, Antonin Scalia and Thomas, seem brooding isolatoes, openly contemptuous of the doctrinal laxness of their brethren.
-- Louis Menand, "Decisions, Decisions," The New Yorker, July 11, 2005
Isolato was popularized by Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick. The word comes through Italian from the Latin word insulātus meaning "made into an island."