Hello again,
It seems like the time flew by, doesn't it? Then again, we have done and learned so much in just 5 months on the Big Island it feels like a year since we left Boston. And now with our flight back to the contiguous 48 fast approaching, it's hard not to feel some pre-nostalgia for our time here (I don't say mainland because it makes Hawaii sound unimportant). Every day has been a new and wonderful experience for us. Many of the people we have met here treated us with so much malama (care) and pono (respect), we know they will be lifelong friends. This island is a place that is very giving and has very positive energy to it.
There are so many things I will miss about living here. Number one is probably sleeping under clear starry skies with the ocean dancing a stone's throw from our tent. I will also miss the abundance of fruit and vegetables found here. Mangoes and papayas are so plentiful that even nomadic travelers like us never worry about going hungry. Coffee and noni fruit and coconuts grow on the side of the road everywhere and cheap farmers' markets are plentiful. We hitched a ride today with Joshua, an island semi-celebrity/tour guide who hasn't bought food at a store in six years. That brings me to another aspect of Big Island life that has certainly made our lives bearable: hitchhiking. Travel for us would be almost impossible here without the kindness of drivers. People have given us hundreds of rides covering thousands of miles in our time here, often going out of their way to bring us to our destination. Sure, we have had some long walks down hot or rainy highways, but for the most part hitching has been an easy and pleasant experience. Without it, Susannah and I would not have seen a beach during our first three months here, or been able to get into town to go to the market and get online to post on this blog, or made friends with locals and tourists alike. Hitching is certainly the best way to meet a wide variety of people. In Boston it is easy to get around without a car by biking, walking, or public transportation. But riding underground in a metal canister surrounded by tired or annoyed people is not exactly conducive to making new friends.
Then again, there are things that we will be glad to have back in our lives, not least of which is electricity. We have lived without refrigeration or electric lights for so long those things seem like luxuries. Hopefully we won't take them for granted when we get back. Another thing we're looking forward to is having personal space, like closets and rooms and beds. Living out of backpacks for 5 months in a tent measuring 8'x8'x4' is a hard thing for two people. We had a brief respite at Josanna's Garden, where we had a real futon bed and could stand up in our space. Still, I know we are both getting a little tired of carrying our home on our backs everywhere we go. Now I know why turtles don't own clothes and books.
One thing we don't miss (perhaps surprisingly) is having a toilet. Outhouses are convenient and easy to use, don't waste water, are cheap to maintain, and return the food we eat to the land we eat it from. With a little microbial encouragement they will not smell bad or overflow, and will create new usable soil in just months. Having a toilet is a waste of water and resources. Still, the middle of the city is not a good place to implement a composting toilet system, so we'll be stuck with modern bathrooms for a while yet.
Also, because of our good fortune hitching, we have seen just about everything we wanted to on this island at least once. There is very little in the way of nightlife and live music here, so it will be nice to get out there and hear and play music again. We can think of only one or two things that we haven't yet experienced here, but I'm sure we won't regret not doing them, and so now seems the right time to leave the island. Without a job or farm to work on, life can get tedious even in paradise. With that said, we'll be glad to be home again, wiser if not wealthier, and look forward to seeing you soon.
Also, don't worry, we'll keep posting pictures and thoughts as they come. Talk to you soon!
