How Cola Gave Molokai Clean Water
Community Contributed by Chik Hirayama
Community Contributed by Chik Hirayama
`Olelo Hawaii filled the Molokai High School Hawaiian Immersion graduation ceremony, and dozens of lei rose to the noses of the graduates last Friday evening.
The ceremony was the culmination of five students’ knowledge of Hawaiian language and culture: Kekukuimawaenaokamokumaikekuahiwiakalaniikekai Kaiama-Lenwai, Kealakai Alcon, Keakaokalani Kaiama, Ka`imiola Sagario and Kailana Eheu`ula Ritte-Camara.
Each graduate spoke in Hawaiian for about 10 minutes in front of an audience of 100 people at their garden at Molokai High School. The students also recited their “Oli Mo Okuahuhau,” or genealogical recitation.
While St. Damien is a household name on Molokai, Blessed Mother Marianne Cope isn’t far behind in the process of being declared a saint. A relic of the venerated nun, who served in Kalaupapa with Damien, will be on display on Molokai on May 6 and 7.
Not only did Mother Marianne leave her home in New York to care for Hansen’s disease patients in Kalaupapa and Honolulu for 35 years, but she also founded the first hospital on Maui, as well as Hilo General Hospital and orphanages for children around the state.
“I am hungry for the work, I am not afraid of the disease, hence it would be my greatest delight even to minister to the abandoned lepers,” said Mother Marianne in response to a request to serve in Hawaii, in 1883, according to blessedmothermarianne.org.
Students at Kualapu`u School transformed their auditorium into a multi-cultural mecca last Thursday with a school play about Hawaii’s history.
“I wasn’t nervous today,” said La`a Sumarnap, a sixth grader of Kualapu`u School.
Last Thursday’s play portrayed important events from Hawaii’s history, starting with the formation of Hawaii’s archipelago, to the banning of hula, and the migration of Chinese, Japanese and Filipinos who worked on Hawaii’s plantations.
“We made our drums out of tires and tape,” he said.
Kenilyn Nishihiri-Aki, a sixth grader at Kualapu`u , summed up the play.
“We all have aloha for this place where we live. We love the Hawaiian culture,” she said.
About 2,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly confined in camps around Hawaii during World War II – 2,000 stories previously untold.
The National Park Service (NPS) recently uncovered six previously unknown internment sites, for a total of 13 around the state.
Kaunakakai was one of those sites. The old jail, the island’s oldest wooden building now standing vacant in Malama Park, was used as a holding site for four known Molokai residents picked up during WWII.
Sites like these, where little remains to identify their historical significance, are being studied by NPS to determine whether they should be brought into the NPS system. Planners and NPS officials are hosting meetings around the state to gather public input on all the sites, as well as collect information on each island’s specific locations.
Judy Bittenbender, a local resident who attended last week’s scoping meeting on Molokai, said preserving these sites are important, “in part for the future generation, as so many of our seniors are passing on.”
By Associated Press and Molokai Dispatch staff
Not many people in or outside of Hawaii know the state hosted internment camps – preliminary studies have identified 13 sites in Hawaii where people were confined for varying lengths of time between the 1941 start of the war and the war's end in 1945.
Honouliuli Gulch on Oahu, which held 1,200 people between 1943 and 1945, was the largest camp in Hawaii.
The National Park Service is holding public meetings over the next month to get input on internment camps in Hawaii during World War II to help it determine the best way to preserve these sites and share their history.
Community Contributed
By G.T. Larson
“We are life that wants to live in the midst of other life that wants to live,” Albert Einstein once said.
Many of us love this island, this land, but the question should be asked: do we love the life of this land? Much of our attention has been given to the interaction between humans and everything else, for we are the only creatures on Earth capable of destroying all the life of the land or protecting any of the life of the land.
The early Hawaiians knew that the natural world was their sole source of food, clothing and shelter, which necessitated a deep since of respect, even reverence for the land. Today, the preservation of the natural world has been somewhat relegated to the realm of being a nice thing to do, a good cause, be green, save the whales and all that. But the true essence of the land, the lessons contained therein, lessons that speak of balance, lessons, that for some of us, speak of the Creator, are being drowned out by the noise of the world.
As we enter the 60th anniversary year of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, those that witnessed the most widespread war in history are becoming few and far between.
Molokai is lucky enough to still have a number of those heroes in our midst, and they have been gracious to share their stories. Now in their 80s, still with sharp minds and cracking jokes, Molokai WWII veterans come from all branches of the military, and each have stories to inspire us.
“You have to appreciate that throughout history, there is a war every 25 years. That’s generational,” said Padraic “Paddy” Evans, who served in the Army Air Corp from 1942-47. “We’re a small, elite group…becoming smaller every day.”
“It was terrible,” said Ben Munesue, who served in 1943. “I feel fortunate to still be alive.”
National Park Service News Release
Ka Ohana `O Kalaupapa, in partnership with the National Park Service (NPS), proposes to build a memorial to honor sufferers of Hansen’s disease (leprosy) at Kalawao on the east side of the Kalaupapa Peninsula. The authority to establish this memorial is in Senate Bill 22, signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 30, 2009.
An Environmental Assessment (EA) has been prepared to provide the decision-making framework, examining two locations within the Old Baldwin Boys Home at Kalawao, and a no-action alternative.
Community Contributed
By G.T. Larson
In the early 1960s in the North Atlantic Ocean an island was born. Witnessed by millions via the media, it rose from the sea in an explosively spectacular birth. Within weeks the newborn land – rough, craggy rocks, black sand, steam and sulfur fumes – began to show signs of life. Tiny green leaves appeared in crevices watered by the mists, fog and rain of its nourishing host. Surtsy, south of Iceland, emerged from the womb of the sea in the same manner as our island home, volcanically. The short recent history of islands such as Sursty is a microscopic view of our history.
As soon as Molokai cooled enough to support life, life supports established themselves. Some of our diverse plant life traveled, as the Polynesians would later, by sea. Many more, probably most, came the same way modern day visitors come, by air. Except instead of Boing 747s and Airbus A300s, they probably arrived by `Iwa (Frigate bird), Kolea (Pacific Golden Plover), and Koloa Maoli (Hawaiian Duck), to name a few. Seeds specifically designed to travel attach themselves by spurs, sticky fibers, etc. or are eaten in berries and seed form to be deposited later in another location.