Experience is the Best Teacher

I want to paint a picture for you (and for me to remember later) what it is like here. Glen and Mary's house (where we are staying) is open and you can always feel warm breezes blowing through. The sounds of clocks ticking and chiming precedes their appearance hanging on nearly every white wall. Glen is a clock repairman and naturally has lots of clocks hanging around their home. Some, probably because they were unable to be repaired or just are too old to work anymore. All of them tell a different time which is so appropriate for this place-- everything is laid back, and people are not concerned about getting somewhere by a certain time. No plans are too set in stone. We learned last night that the Hawaiian people here will say that you are "haole" (pro-nounced haw-lee) which means "white" if you are too concerned with things are your to-do list (hmmmm.... I guess I have some lessons to learn while I am here).

The windows are always open somewhat in every room, all day long, even if it is raining or cool out. There are wooden floors throughout their house and makes it feel like you are living in nature even when you are indoors. You can always hear birds outside. The garden is just a few feet away from our bedroom, and it is very lush and green, just like everything else here. The soil here is rust orange and stains your skin and shoes and clothes red. There is a huge golf course that doubles as our "front lawn" and just past that you can see the ocean in the distance. The air is humid here, much like it is in Minnesota in the summertime. You can almost always hear the sounds of chickens cackling, and roosters crowing-- they are reminders of a hurricane past. On sunny days the sky is blue and you can see the mountains standing tall and completely covered in green vegetation behind our house and surrounding the Hanalei Valley. When it is cloudy or misting, the mountains look smokey. I told Zach yesterday that when they look like sihlouettes like that with the fog, they remind me of a Folgers commercial or something.

We drink lots of coffee here (fine by me) and we have been tasting local fruits almost everyday. Guava fruit is soft and peels back like citrus fruit on the outside and has millions of juicy tiny seeds on the inside that you suck on to taste and then can spit out the seed part. We also got to try papaya, which sort of reminds me of a sweeter, juicier melon. And yesterday, someone at a local thrift store gave me an avocado, not like the ones we get at the store in MN, but bright green and as big as a grapefruit. I need to use it soon, because it is getting very ripe.

I hope that gives you a better idea of what it is like here, if you have never been here. It is a beautiful place.