Hana Hou
Hana hou. To do again, repeat; encore. [From the New Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary by Mark Kawena Pukui.]
My life is fully scheduled, filled with people to meet, decisions to make, children to tend to and adventures to be had. But what if life didn’t involve running to and fro, keeping up with the Joneses, accomplish, produce, accumulate? I know of a magical place where the inhabitants march to a slower beat, where material accomplishment isn’t the metric of success, and self-expression is the most valued personal attribute. It takes more than five hundred hairpin turns and over two hours to transition from civilization to this special land, but when you arrive in Hana Town, Maui, State of Hawaii you are most definitely not in Kansas anymore.
Looming ten thousand feet over Hana is Haleakala, an active volcano that first began to form the southern lobe of Maui about a million years ago. Haleakala’s slopes feature microclimates ranging from dense rain forest and jungle on the windward (east) side to desert on the leeward side. These microclimates support a broad range of agriculture. Fish from the ocean, sugar cane in the lowlands, pineapples, coffee, coconuts and macadamia nuts in the transition regions, while bananas, passion fruit and bamboo proliferate in the rain forest, and finally cattle roam on the steppes and highlands.
Hana, which was founded hundreds of years ago by Hawaiian royalty, is located in rain forest on the southeast side of the island of Maui. Originally Hana was home to tens of thousands of native Hawaiians, and then decades later, fewer than ten thousand sugar cane farm workers, and then many decades after that, to even fewer cattle ranchers. Today, Hana is home to fewer than two thousand full time residents, virtually all of who rely on the tourist trade to make a minimal living. Add to these a few hundred retirees and other parolees from the mainland madhouse, and the population is fully described.
In Hana, life is about the ocean and the people, the land and its history. Co-existing with nature’s extremes, such as hurricanes, volcanoes, and bugs is more significant than the need for air conditioning, shopping and Starbucks. Cell phones? Useful only in the very center of Hana, but not more than a mile or so either direction from the town square. Need access to the internet? Plan on “dial up”. Or perhaps a satellite dish could do double duty, since satellite is the only source of TV. Want a fast car? There’s no point. The speed limit is 10-15 miles per hour everywhere. Boat? No can do. The shore is too rocky and the surf too rough. But at night, the waves lull you to sleep, accompanied perhaps by a soft rain. No loud motorcycles zipping by at high speed, no honking, and no sirens wailing day and night. Quiet, safe, slow, friendly.
It’s a simple life. Hana hou.
– Chris