Kaleomanu‘iwa Wong in an interview with Hayley Ikeda of Kalaheo HS for an upcoming HIKI NO segment on Ulupo and the Kawainui Master Plan. "To just look at it as a marsh is to erase our relationship with Kawainui." -- Kihei de Silva
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Aloha mai, Today we had a great second Saturday community work day. Amongst us was Alina Bwy, the Kailua Intermediate teacher who organized 125 of her students to walk over 1 mile up the hill to come to Ulupo and learn about our wahi pana. Since this was a Saturday, she didn't bring all 125 of them back this time, but she did invite a few of her students who brought their families. Also with us was Jen Boneza and her ohana. As a kupa of Kailua, she has all kinds of ideas for telling our moolelo of Kailua through film on OC16. Of course we also had our aloha ʻāina warrior Ryan. When not working at his full time job, or at school, or working the loʻi in Kahana, he is here at Ulupō with us. Community volunteers were also present who came down to work, learn, and eat off the land. In total there were about 20 of us. Our main project was to dig new auwai to improve soil and nutrient retention in our loi, and have the ability to properly build and improve the quality of the soil we are growing kalo in thus increasing the quality and quantity of the food we are growing and the people we are feeding. We also began digging and making long puʻe, trying out the lalani style of planting that places like Hoʻokuaʻāina just up stream in Maunawili have poi-fected. When the hana was pau, we harvested kalo and spent time sharing moʻolelo of these wahipana. He lā hana keu no a ka maikai. Ke aloha, Kaleo  It's a little hard to see from the screen-shot below, but well worth the squinting: four endangered ae‘o (Hawaiian stilts) are having a great and noisy time at the far edge of the farthest of our upper-Ulupō patches. The Army Corps of Engineers recently spent millions to build the artificial ponds at Mokulana for the purpose of providing a protected habitat for the redux of Kawainui's native birds; Kaleo Wong seems to have accomplished something similar, but on a smaller scale, in a restoration-of-traditional-use context, and with no money at all. Here is Kaleo's story: "We recently reclaimed a loʻi that has been under the control and entanglement of invasives for many years. Last week it was planted by@shellknoets and her English class from ʻIolani. There is zero wait time to harvest the ʻiʻo from Hāloa. No need wait 1 year until the kalo matures. The ʻiʻo and the hua (fruits, gains, effects, results) of this work is immediate. It is seen in the faces and in the ʻano of the kids. It is seen in Hāloa back in the lepo. We also see it in the returning of our native birds. In this case the endangered aeʻo, a bioindicator that we are indeed returning the ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono. We are not just growing kalo, we are growing consciousness." -- Kihei de Silva  Rick Kaimi Scudder (‘Ahahui Mālama i ka Lōkahi), Kaleo Wong (Hika‘alani), and Ati Jeffers-Fabro (DOFAW) are featured here in separate interviews conducted by "Sustainable Hawai‘i" host Kirsten Turner on OC16. "My job at Hika‘alani," Kaleo says, "is connecting our community back to Kawainui...back to the land...through cultural connections, spiritual connections, nutritional connections...and I would estimate that upwards of 1000 people in the last year have come down to work with us at Ulupō and Kūkanono alone." -- Kihei de Silva |