Hop on the Bus for Holoholo & Moʻolelo

Hanohano and Maile Naehu share a pule at Molokai High School with participants of the event last year; and Keawanui Fishpond, one of the event’s stops. Contributed photos

By Léo Azambuja

The forecast says no traffic jams, the ride is free and they will even feed you. On top of that, you will learn some important moʻolelo about Molokai. So, what are you waiting for? Hop on the bus and join the Holoholo & Moʻolelo with Hanohano and Maile Naehu.

“We’re going to partner with Molokai High School, and we start with a meetup point there, then everyone jumps on a school bus,” Maile Naehu said. “In the process, we make stops all along the way and tell moʻolelo about those specific places.”

Holoholo & Moʻolelo – Hoʻolehua to Manaʻe, offered by the nonprofit organization Hui o Kuapā, is much more than listening to Molokai stories from olden days while riding on a school bus. It aims to deepen the community’s relationship to Molokai and support its stewardship and protection, according to Naehu, the nonprofit’s program director. 

The free event scheduled for March 26 is open to anyone regardless of age and whether they live on Molokai or not. 

The ride starts at Molokai High School in Hoʻolehua at 8:15 a.m., and heads toward the East End. During the trip, Naehu will share different moʻolelo about Molokai. Her husband, Hanohano Naehu, also shares moʻolelo. The tour is also open to anyone willing to share moʻolelo with the group. 

In Manaʻe, the bus turns around and heads back to the school’s library, where there will be a free lunch and a discussion on the stories and the lessons within them. The idea, Maile Naehu said, is to start a conversation on how to apply the messages within the stories into real situations, and how to use those messages to make better decisions for today and into the future.

“A lot of these stories have themes that are timeless that we can bring into today and learn from,” she said.

In Hawaiian language, moʻolelo can have many different meanings within the scope of a story; from fables and mythological tales to actual historical records. Naehu said she likes to just call them moʻolelo to preserve the mana, or divine power, of the stories. Calling them legends, she said, would take away their mana, and it would almost seem like the stories were not real.

“But these things were very real, and they have these very real lessons within them,” she said. 

Many moʻolelo, Naehu said, explain ways to understand our world around us, the weather, the ocean currents and why they behave in such ways, and where the fish spawn and how they migrate. 

“All of these different secrets to better understand our places still apply to today, the names of these winds and rains, the characteristics of them, so that we can anticipate and understand nature, the natural world that we live in better,” she said.

Last year, Hui o Kuapā held a similar event, attended by people of different ages, mostly Molokai residents. The event was so successful that a lot of people asked the nonprofit to keep offering the Holoholo & Moʻolelo. 

People from Molokai, Naehu said, love moʻolelo that can instill pride in them. They already have so much love and pride for the island, she said, and moʻolelo strengthens that even more, and gives them a deeper understanding of the guidelines set long ago by kupuna, or elderly, about stewardship and protection of the island and its resources.

“That’s the whole, cool big picture and goal,” Naehu said. “Molokai is always just so fierce already in their guardianship, but it can just be even more strengthened by having that secret weapon of understanding our moʻolelo, which I think is really powerful.”

The original idea for the Holoholo & Moʻolelo sprouted about 10 years ago, during the Molokai Nui A Hina mural project at Molokai High School’s library, featuring more than 40 moʻolelo.

“It was a project where we recruited high school and middle school students, and then we had taught them a lot of moʻolelo in the same fashion,” Naehu said, adding they took all the students involved in the project on a bus ride, and taught them many moʻolelo from Molokai.

She said they found out there was a common thread between all the moʻolelo; the idea of fierce guardianship, whether it was by old Hawaiians or demigods protecting the island and its resources. 

“So, I thought that it would be really cool to continue this, but offer it to the larger community,” Naehu said of last year’s Holoholo & Moʻolelo. “It was a really neat experience, because it wasn’t just myself and Hanohano sharing these moʻolelo, but we also opened it for anyone else that was joining us, if they knew different versions of the moʻolelo, to share as well.”

Holoholo & Moʻolelo — Hoʻolehua to Manaʻe is March 26. The bus can take about 50 people. The ride starts and finishes at Molokai High School, from 8:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. After that, participants will go to the school’s library for a free lunch and a panel on how moʻolelo can guide decision-making for the future of Molokai, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The bus will also offer pickups at Kilohana School at 7:30 a.m. and Mitchell Pauole Center at 7:50 a.m., and dropoffs at Mitchell Pauole Center at 1 p.m. and Kilohana School at 1:30 p.m.

Visit @hui_o_kuapa or https://forms.gle/Yfub2wzduoiibAC89 to register. Visit www.huiokuapa.org or email Naehu at alohahaloa@gmail.com for more information.