preguntas

Monday evening turned out to be quite interesting. After a weekend of doing not much, I was starting to get a little stir crazy. I still hadn't seen any of the island because I'm totaly aware of abusing the use of Suzy's car and there isn't any public transport worth talking about, the sailing club she had told me she belonged to and regularly used had never been talked about again and the surfboard she had earmarked for me to use was now wanted back by her ex-boyfriend, and her stand-up paddleboard, that again she told me I could use prior to arriving, was now too small for me to use. I don't expect to be doing stuff everyday but once in a while would be nice. She has started talking like we are a couple as well, her neighbour Sam was bitten badly by another neighbours pit-bull and she said to me,'We have to go up and see Sam' or 'We must go to Jon's(another organic farmer neighbour) and talk about IMO's(alternative fertilizer). On Monday I thought we were going to deliver and set-up her part of the canoe show, some paintings of paddlers and the prints we had made and the blocks we used to print them. But she disappered and was away all day leaving me alone at her place again. To be honest I was like a pressure cooker ready to go off. When we sat down for dinner in the evening she asked me if I would like to go to a meeting Jon was holding in town about IMO's. I am really scepticle about this whole IMO thing, It derives from Korea, is an enzyme that occurs naturally in decomposing leaf litter but is a really long winded process with about 6 seperate stages, adding other elements like plant tips that must be collected early in the morning 'because thats when they are filled with life energy!', fish juice! and other ingredients that I can't remember. IMO's don't like daylight so they have to be produced in darkness, Jon has purpose built sheds devoted to the process. So even when you have the finished product and have added it to your plants(it's like a powder at his stage) you then have to cover it with a thick layer of mulch to stop the light getting to it. Suzy know's that I'm not sold on the whole idea, apparently there is no scientific proof that it does anymore for plants than a general purpose fertilizer/feed, she told me it makes the plants grow quicker and the produce they give more tasty. I asked had she tasted anything of Jons and she said 'No'. I was very surprised, and when I told her I didn't want to attend the meeting it ended up being a head-to-head debate about soil depletion, how food now has no goodness, why we should care. etc etc. I said that when I leave I doubt I will ever come across IMO's again, she took all this very personally and said that I was being very negative, I maintained that I had a right to an opinion and was she aware that Californians(she's one) have the reputation of believing every latest fad and idea there is. At this stage it felt more like an argument, and I'd had enough, this certainly wasn't what I'd come to Hawaii for. I explained that I thought that me being here just wasn't working out that we were from 2 totally different worlds and that I should perhaps leave. She asked why, and I told her that I felt that she had been economical with the truth about certain aspects of her place-location, public transport available, stuff I could do whilst here, culture, especially culture, she bangs on about it all the time and I haven't seen a single bit of culture, we then had an argument about whether a Rodeo was Hawaiian or American culture. I said the only Hawaiians I had spoken to whilst here were the couple at Sam's birthday party who looked at me like an alien, because he was stoned off his box and she didn't understand a word I said, and the guys at the crappy beach she had told me to go to had been aggressive and told me 'Locals only!'. The problem is, is that Hawaii sets itself up as the 'Aloha' state, friendly and welcoming and if you do that you have to come through with the goods. I told her that I didn't expect to be ferried around everywhere but that the point of me doing these trips is to stay with someone who can give me the insight as to what to see and do. Phew! The upshot was that I was going to book a flight home the following day for asap. She said in her psychoanalyst way she has, that she was glad that we had talked things over, as she was feeling a negative energy. I couldn't book a flight the following day as Lufthansa's computers were down, when Suzy returned from her morning yoga session she said that she had decided that as I wasn't going to stay for much longer we should do something nice together that day. I was given the choice of surfing or a tour and as I hadn't seen any of the island decided on the tour. I stopped working a couple of hours early and we set off to a natural hot springs area, right on the ocean, Suzy was being very concillatory, the place was lovely, we had lunch before we got in, which was delicious local pork, sweet potato and salad. The water was equally delicious, beautifully warm and soothing, with the ocean just over a low wall. We then went to a local Hawaiian school run by one of Suzy's friends, it was end of year and the kids were all giving project presentations about local fauna and farming methods. All very relaxed and informal, chaotic actually! at the end we all had to stand up and hold hands! in a huge circle and the kids nd teachers sang some sort of Hawaiian chant. The school specialises in teaching kids Hawaiian studies whether they are Hawaiian or Haole(not Hawaiian). We then got a tour of the school form the principal, Suzy's friend which was very interesting. After that we followed the narrow coastal road stopping off at a couple of beautiful places-didn't have my camera! including a very black sand beach with crashing surf and a clothing optional policy, the first I noticed this was a not so young lady doing yoga totally in the buff right on the waterline, a complete exhibitionist, the area has quite a big hippie community as well so there were a couple of naked hippy families around. We then went as far as we could on the road and in the distnce could see a plume of steam, which was where lava was flowing into the ocean. The road had been crossed by lava in '91. We stopped and got out and walked across huge black lava fields as far as the eye could see. eerie and desolate, although people had started to bring plants, coconuts and palms and plant them wherever possible. We set off back to Suzy's via Pahoa, described as an outlaw hippy town, it looked quite quaint to me. All in all it was a lovely day and exactly what I had come to Hawaii to see. It made me feel bad about what I had said the previous night, but in saying it we had cleared the air(again) and something had been done about it. In some ways I didn't want to start enjoying myself now as I said I was returning to the UK, but I have decided that as I'm not working towards having the place to myself in July, because of 'La Sensoir' being here, I should leave sooner rather than later, just as soon as I've finished the projects I've started for Suzy. TTFN