Week 1
Monday, March 1
The rich air hits me as we step off the plane: it feels like a hibiscus has wrapped itself around me in a sweet hug. We’re heading to a farming Workaway in Keaau, but we’re spending the first day in Kailua-Kona: dinner and sunset at the beach. It just stopped raining and the golden rays gleaming through the clouds seem purposeful and almighty. I tell Mia it reminds me of God and she says: “That’s exactly what my mom says.” We walk a couple miles along the road heading to the beach with tacos in hand, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier. The land is lush and alive and I’m walking side-by-side with my terrifically funny, beautiful friend, far away from school and Covid. We’re dressed in plastic turquoise rain ponchos, skipping in the on-and-off drizzle and splashing in every puddle we can find.
Tuesday, March 2
Ro picks us up in the morning in a small red sedan: she has long blonde hair, tattoos, and a kind face. We all hug and hop in the car— I get in the front seat and we head across the island. First stop is her friend’s home in Pahoa. Her friend’s name is Mark and he’s an exuberant, handsome man; he greets us warmly and shows us the lay of the land. There are two houses, lots of gardens, chickens, and a treehouse. As we walk, he tells us that he recently went boar hunting at night He likes to go by himself with a bow and arrow— and a knife, which is used to slice the animal’s throat once you’ve shot them and found them. There’s always the chance that you don’t find them even once you’ve shot them, he explains. Then they’re just dead and they’re no use to you. I imagine a boar slowly panting to death in a field somewhere with Mark’s arrow jutting out of its side.
We meet Mark’s wife and daughter and I get the sense that he is a very happy man, living the adventure dream. As we leave, Ro tells us that the life Mark is living is her goal. Ro is engaged to a man she met in Brazil who has a twelve-year-old daughter, and she has applied for a visa to bring him to Hawaii. They’re planning on leaving the daughter behind.
Next we visit Volcano National Park. It’s cold outside but there’s active lava flow, and against the dark sky it leaves behind a red gleam, distracting me. Once we’re done admiring the beauty, Ro takes us to the natural steam geysers, where we warm up before heading home. The condensation from the steam, though, leaves me wet in the car. We arrive at Ro’s home— I can’t see much in the dark, but she shows us to the guest house and we fall right asleep.
Wednesday, March 3
In the morning, we make breakfast: oatmeal, banana, and peanut butter in wooden bowls. I’m happy. Even Ro explaining that we only have WiFi and power between the hours of 9am – 4pm can’t bring me down. Outdoor toilet? No problem. Our guest house is an 8 foot by 8 foot wooden hut with a semi-open roof, but we have a mattress and blankets, and that’s what matters.
I don’t think Ro’s land qualifies as a farm. There are no plants growing, and while there’s a chicken coop, she says that most of them are sick at the moment. But we have an acre of green, sunshine, and a salt breeze coming from the ocean less than a mile east.
Thursday, March 4
Ro’s chickens are really sick. Three of them haven’t moved since we got here, and Ro tells us that it’s been this way for a couple weeks. She takes them to the vet and comes back with a diagnosis: parasites, likely from her soil. The vet gave her medicine, which Mia and I use to take turns feeding them with a syringe. The three sick ones are in cages, and because their heads are drooped, I open the door and lift their beaks with my finger in order to get the liquid down their throats. I don’t tell Ro, but I’m surprised they’ve made it this long.
A very important aspect of Ro’s life is Capoeira. Capoeira is a mixed martial arts / art form that originated in Brazil, and is typically practiced by Brazilians. She teaches classes at a nearby community center and promises our first class will be free. We’re hesitant to go, but Mia nudges me and tells me she’s acquired some weed from who-knows-where. So we get a little bit high in our hut before going to class.
The community center is an open wooden structure built over a painted concrete floor. The first move we learn is “Ginga,” which apparently means the rocking of a boat: you clench both fists and, bending both arms, alternate between raising each one to chin level whilst shuffling feet simultaneously, lunging as you swing arms. This is the most basic move, but there are two issues: it’s pouring outside, so the floor is quite slippery; and Mia and I are Ro’s only two students. Therefore, we have the privilege of Ro’s undivided attention, and she seems intent on making us expert capoeiristas within the hour. She demonstrates flying cartwheels, which she instructs us to alternate with lethal tumbles: cartwheel, forward flip, cartwheel, forward flip. Mia and I can’t control our giggles as we run around the loops painted on the concrete, slipping and falling and gasping for breath.
Friday, March 5
We’re visiting Ro’s friend Shari, who’s letting us do laundry at her house. She moved to the island a few years ago with her much younger boyfriend, who helped build her home before breaking up with her. Not a bad deal. Shari’s hair is streaked rockstar purple, and I compliment her on it. She says, “Thank you. You know, when you get older, people don’t look at you anymore. But a young man at the grocery store called out to me the other day and said ‘Ay, sick hair!’” I’ve never thought that people looking at you was a good thing— unless it’s a kid. You must have an interesting-looking face if a kid is looking at it.
Shari’s quite proud of her boob job and I’m half-convinced it’s something I should look into once she’s done explaining why it was such a great decision. Her home is airy and beautiful with light wood and textures of blue scattered throughout. As we move through the house, she explains her life story, beginning with her beautiful mother with whom she had a rocky relationship. Once, when she was young, her mother drove through their garage, causing the ceiling to fall down on her father. Shari had gone berserk, calling her mother a murderer and thinking her father was dead, but he was completely fine.
Shari is currently a ceramic artist and a painter, and her work is mostly made up of brightly splayed tendrils vaguely resembling different sea creatures on canvas. She is also a past-life regressionist. We listen wide-eyed as Shari explains that she is able to pull people’s past lives out of their body as they lie in a hypnotic state. She tells us excitedly that she’s just discovered her neighbor’s past life was an alien, and that during their session, alien heads had begun swirling above them and communicating with her. I think she must’ve done a lot of acid when she was younger.
Saturday, March 6
Ro is taking us on a trip. Half an hour into the car ride, we’re speeding down a small road surrounded by miles and miles of fields. The wind whips through the grass, causing ripples like the surface of the ocean. I see a horse kicking up on its hind legs, and its mane is dancing wildly in the wind. I’ve never seen anything or anyone look so free.
South Point is the southernmost tip of the U.S., and there’s a 100-foot cliff jumping point, which we’re too afraid to try. There’s a long, long, long rusty ladder that drops straight down into the emerald water for people to climb back up. I shudder – I’m afraid of heights. Ro shows us a lower jumping spot, and Mia and I jump hand-in-hand: one, two, THREE! For a second, the waves have me disoriented and panicking. I kick hard to the surface and look for Mia. We lock eyes and laugh.
Week 2
Monday, March 8
We’ve decided to rent a car. I navigate us to the rental office, but we drive past it a few times before realizing that it’s in a garage-style addition to a home off the side of the road with some hunched, hooded people sitting on the porch. The woman I spoke to over the phone is seated at her office dealing with a man who had no car insurance and totaled one of her cars. I approach tenderly and ask whether she remembers promising over the phone that she would rent us a car. She’s frazzled, but within the hour we’re seated in our very own truck! For $200 a week, we’re able to drive anywhere we want and we’re off, towering over the other cars in our Toyota Tacoma.
Tuesday, March 9
I’ve realized that I need actual pants for working around the “farm,” so we go to Walmart for some essentials: peanut butter, sunscreen, and jeans. I find a cheap pair in the boys’ clothing section and we’re good to go.
Once we’re home, we get dressed in our work clothes and pull out string and screen to complete Ro’s garden boxes. We settle into a comfortable rhythm; Mia cuts the string and I thread it through the screens into the garden box frames. It starts raining again, but today it serves as the perfect backdrop to “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” which we’re playing on repeat and belting along to: “I hope you know, I hope you know that this has nothing to do with you – it’s personal, myself and I . . .” I think we’re both thinking about the people we think we’re in love with. We talk about them often, and we don’t have anything left to tell each other. Singing is much more fun. We get bored and start tossing the scissors to each other from across the yard: 5, 10, 20 feet. Easy. Mia shouts, “Scissor me!” and I toss them to her, laughing.
It seems to rain 50% of the time we’re here, but the island is just as beautiful when it’s raining as when it’s not. The luscious shades of nature pop against the gray sky, and the sound of rain hitting the ground around us is the sound of things coming to life.
Wednesday, March 10
Ro’s been talking about how special the green sands beaches are, so we get in the truck and drive back to South Point to hike to her favorite one. With just Mia and me in the car, we blast music with the windows down, even when it starts to rain. The view blurs from landscape to landscape: there are tall trees reminding me of home, blending into the lush Hawaiian landscape. We spot horses and I pull over on the side of the road to try and pet them, but they keep their distance. I wish we had brought carrots.
Mia and I often talk about how different we are: most obviously, she talks a lot and I don’t. She always seems to be trying to get something out of me. She also always says that I’m just like her mom, which confuses me— they fight often, but she really loves her mom.
The hike is only two miles, but this is the first time I’ve encountered ground that seems like it would qualify as rough terrain, and it takes us two hours. There are puddles deeper and wider than swimming pools, and we’re sometimes walking in near-tunnels where the ground’s almost caved in. The ground is orange-red, and somehow transitions into black sand when it meets the ocean. The sky is gray, but it just makes the water seem even more pristinely turquoise. At the beach, the locals hang out at the overlook, watching us American tourists dirtying the beach, where the sand is murky brown-green and nothing like I had imagined. We pay fifteen dollars each to get a ride in a local’s car on the way back. Only a local who knows the land would be able to make it through this drive— it’s like a rollercoaster at a town fair, jostling you in a way that makes you question whether it’s safe to ride.
Ro’s in tears when we get home. Assata has passed, she tells us. The medicine from the vet seems to have healed chicken number two, but chicken number three is a lost cause. She’s been suffering for weeks and she can’t even lift her head. I offer to chop off her head— Ro’s neighbor has an axe— but Ro says, “No, no, no. I’m a Quaker. I can’t let you do that.” Ro disappears with a shovel and comes back with a grim look on her face: “I pray for Antu’s spirit.” I really didn’t want to chop off Antu’s head, but I think that would’ve been better than burying her alive.
Thursday, March 11
Ro has to go somewhere this morning, but before she leaves she asks us to capture a loose chicken that made its way out of the coop. Mia and I come up with a plan: she’ll stay by the door to let the chicken in, and I’ll chase it back to the coop. I warn her, “Just don’t let the rest of the chickens out.” I spend the next half hour chasing the chicken and learning that chickens are pretty fast for such skinny-legged animals. I get it to a few feet within the coop, and Mia opens the door wide open in preparation, letting all of the other chickens escape. “Mia! I told you not to let them out!” “Don’t yell at me!” Ro comes back to all of her chickens loose, and Mia ignores me for the rest of the week.
Sunday, March 14
As we’re about to sleep, we talk and make up. There are a few tears shed, and we both apologize. Three days without talking feels like a long time in Hawaii.
We sneak into the house and make late-night quesadillas on the stove. I’ve learned over the past couple weeks that butter is an elite choice for cooking tortillas, and soon they’re toasting golden brown with the cheese bubbling onto the pan, creating crisps that are worth burning my fingers to grab.
Week 3
Monday, March 15
Ro seems to be in a mood, and so when we wake up she tells us to lay down some stone tiles on top of the gravel in her backyard. We spent a few hours the previous week shoveling the gravel, and I’m glad that there was a purpose for that labor. Ro once had us pull spiky weeds out of the ground only to toss them back in the yard. Later, Ro pulls me onto the patio and we look at the stars together: they’re incredibly bright and beautiful. She tells me about her experiences studying abroad in Japan when she was younger and how traveling alone was so impactful. I don’t think she likes Mia very much, but to be fair, Mia doesn’t like Ro at all.
Tuesday, March 16
I’m forced awake by Mia at 6am, who’s both shaking me and whining, “C’mon, c’mon. We have to, we have to.” I am cranky. The walk to the cliffs is short but feels much too long in my half-asleep state. Once we’re there, though, I’m fully awake.
The morning light is spread across the water, casting a golden haze over the cliffs. Even Mia is quiet. The waves are crashing on the black rocks, but in the morning it creates a sparkling foam that reminds me of The Little Mermaid: the original version, when she dove into the ocean and turned into seafoam over her heartbreak. The water is mesmerizing as it rushes toward land and swirls into the tide pools, crashing and pooling and repeating over and over.
Wednesday, March 17
It’s our last day here. We take the bus across the island to Kailua-Kona and Mia and I sit in different rows; things are fine between us but I think some space is needed. I gaze out the window the whole ride. The island has so many ecosystems: desert, grassland, tropical forest— eight out of thirteen that exist on Earth. I see eucalyptus trees for the first time— the ones in Hawaii are rainbow. They’re glimmering. We’re going home. I’m so tired.
Looking Back
Mia and I don’t talk anymore, but I think we still consider each other friends. Ro married the man from Brazil about a month ago and seems quite happy; they got married at Maku’u cliffs, just like she wanted.
Sole Magazine