My Kona Coffee Shack

A  L  O  H  A !

Back home in Waikiki, I get to

walk scenes like this every day.

The beach & sea are beyond

these trees & lawns at

Fort Derussy. Link

Our first Hawaii home was an actual

coffee shack in Captain Cook, Link

above Kealakekua Bay on the west side of Hawaii Island [the Big Island]. We would turn off

the belt highway, and climb

Rabbit Hill through the coffee trees

with four wheel drive.

Above the coffee farm, our

shack was built into the hillside on

poles. We hiked it's jungle path ever day.

I describe all this in my Hawaii Novella:

"Aloha Where You Like Go?"

Link

Amazon Prime members may read the

Kindle Edition for free!

500 Pound Sack of Kona Coffee

Historic Kealakekua, below our first Hawaii Home

Link

 “The Kona coffee, raised on the uplands of the Island of Hawaii is superior to any other coffee raised. I think that I can safely say this. The flavor is truly superb. One has never tasted coffee who has not drunk Kona coffee.”

Hon. Henry E. Cooper, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hawaiian Republic, 1896

Coffee Cherries - 

The green beans are inside!

First the white blossoms would bloom.

Then the cherry fruit would appear.

Then the family with their baskets

would pick the cherries as we drove

past, careful to raise no dust on

the lava and dirt road.

"donkey" by All Suggestions Welcome is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In the early 1900s, donkeys were brought from Africa

to work these coffee farms of Kona on the Big Island.

Their braying became a familiar sound in the district, and they came to be called: "Kona Nightingales."

"A native of Hawai‘i Island, Dr. Bergin is passionate about preserving manageable herds of the Kona Nightingales here on the island. “They are part of our history and culture…literally part of the landscape of the Big Island. To lose them would be a huge loss,” he says." Link

Linking To
Saturday Critters

&*&*&

Love You,

                                 cloudia

A Windward Walk

A  L  O  H  A   from   Oahu!

Click to see hiding mountains

 Over the mountains

from where I live

 (Kona side)

is

The Windward Side

(Ko`olau Side)

of Oahu.

It's a good place 

for mornings,

sun rising

out of the sea.

Look!   BUNNY!

Here, 

Sea is Close,

Other Land is far

(Alaska)

Fresh Trade winds

carry the scent of

mountain snow 

and open

ocean waves.

The Mountains-

 Always Close. 

They Have Your Back

in this 

sweet rural district.

\]:[/

Thank You

for Joining us!

               Warmly, cloudia

US Post Office Kaneohe, HI 96744

Hana - What?

Kupuna playing Hanafuda

"I should not talk so much about myself, if there were anybody else whom I knew as well." Thoreau

"There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad." Dali

Japanese plantation workers in Hawaii

(note the Samurai sword)

“I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine”
Oliver Goldsmith

When we moved to Kona on the Big Island (Hawaii) back in the 1980's it was a very different place than it is today. The old folks still remembered Territorial days, and many of them had grown up on, and/or worked the sugar plantations. Obituaries in the daily paper routinely listed places of birth as Japan or China, perhaps Hamakua Plantation, or a tiny Hawaiian fishing village that was only a fading place name that fewer and fewer Kupuna (seniors)remembered.

The local beach park on Ali`i Drive south of town wasn't a place reserved for tourists - excuse me - "Visitors." Kona still belonged largely to the "local" people. Many of us still lived high up on the hillsides and used 4 wheel vehicles daily. It was still common to have "catchment" water systems for home use. Large, wooden tanks beside our "shacks" saved the carefully channeled rain that drummed on our corrugated tin roofs. We washed with it, many drank it. Outhouses like ours, da Lua, or "pit," were common also. The little girls dancing hula every afternoon at the beach park with their kumu (teacher) did not work for the tourism board, they were simply doing what little girls still do after school here in Hawaii. It was just as normal to snorkel daily among friendly Honu "Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles" and colorful reef fish.

We noticed the old timers playing an animated card game. Pretty flowered cards, smaller and thicker than western playing cards, were "THWACKED" down on the picnic table to the delight of all. They reminded me of the domino players I had encountered in Jamaica. "It's called Hanafuda," the old ladies told me. The game was played throughout the "Japanese Camps" of the plantations. I got to witness the last of that generation still playing the game. Yes, it was still a common sight back then to see the seniors playing. Decks were available at Longs Drugs in Kailua Town (they didn't call it Kailua-Kona yet).

I haven't thought about Hanafuda in a really long time. It is one of those flavors that grows fainter as the world becomes smaller and Hawaii more like other places. A local yoga sensei, 71 year old Helen Nakano of Oahu, is trying to preserve Hanafuda in the islands by teaching the game to 1,000 local Keiki (children) by the end of the year.

Variations of Hanafuda are still played in Japan and Korea. The 12 suits stand for the 12 months and are "faced" by flowers, birds, and animals emblematic of those months in Japan.

Around 100 years ago in Japan a company was started to produce Hanafuda cards. And the company is still producing Hanafuda decks to this day, although they are better known for the more modern amusements that they provide worldwide. The company's name: NINTENDO!
A L O H A! Cloudia