After a longer-than-LONG day volunteering to do the gardens project- I found myself asking for a sign. I was 2 weeks in and had already logged over 100 hours...was sunburnt and sore, and realizing that this job would be more difficult than I first understood. The organization that received the grant through the Center for Disease Control is an amazing organization- they are responsible for the recycling programs island wide, Denge-fever prevention, beach-clean-ups and graffiti removal. They are doing so much to make this island a better, safer, greener place...but I just discovered that the entire 18 gardens proposed for the year will be up to myself and Matt Lane (who admittedly knows nothing about gardens). Was I ready to take on a challenge like this? I literally prayed that God would give me a sign on whether or not I should take this job...went home to collapse on my bed..and literally 3 seconds later
...tsunami sirens began blaring.
"You gotta be kidding me" I said outloud.
and I went outside to see what was going on.
I could feel the collective anxiety rise over this island.
A man named Rama stopped to ask me if i wanted to go with him to the
store to buy water....my parched mouth said yes, and I jumped into the
truck.
We spoke about things that mattered,
the veils were lifted-
and we both felt a calm come over us. It was refreshing to sit and talk about something that meant anything while we waited in the stream of cars lined up to get to the grocery store.
Gas stations were out of gas...it took us an hour to get 8
miles away to Foodland. (YES, the store was literally called "FOOD- LAND"...it was something out of a George Orwell novel.)
The grocery store looked like something out of a movie. People fighting over water. I found 2 Aunties fighting over the last spam. Isles were wiped clean. Lines of carts filled with sustenance wrapped around the store, and we took turns waiting in line, and running through the isles grabbing necessities.
Necessities- what a powerful concept that we take for granted far too often living in the Western World.
It was like an anthropological study just looking in each persons cart.
I imagined that each cart had a sign on it that said
"things I can't live without".
Some remembered their chocolate, some
had carts filled with Bud-Light, or spam or had stock-piles of animal parts.
When I finally got to the register- I looked around
at all of the faces... scared and tired and so very very human.
They all had the same look in their eyes...the look someone only gets when
they realize their own mortality.
Decadence and frosting fall to the wayside.
I wanted to hug each one of them and to let them know that everything
would be alright.
There was a "Star" Magazine advertising about "Who has cellulite"....
and for once, no one was looking at it.
The Make-up isle was empty.
Nobody was watching the "biggest loser" playing in the TV behind the Customer Service center.
Because none of it mattered. Finally!!! FOR a MOMENT- none of the
bullshit mattered.
Days like these
we look more people in the eye
We did Say more prayers in our mind
We recognized our lack of self-sufficiency...or our scope of sustainability
and hopefully deepen our understanding of just how critical food security really is.
We either stood in line to buy candles or we had a new appreciation for the alternative energy at our homes.
we stocked up on canned vegetables at the store, or we thanked our garden all the more.
Either way, life became a little more real. We stopped for a moment
and sat in our own vulnerability and felt our mortality and our
immortality all at once...
All was safe and sound on Maui, just a little splash this time. Sadly this was not the case for Japan...
The next morning I woke up and said
"I'm in"....whatever that means...
There is a statistic out there that says that if the boats stopped coming to Maui...there would only be enough food in the grocery stores to supply us for 4 days! 4 DAYS!!! We live on the most isolated piece of land on earth...we live in the midst of this vulnerability...and yet we have the resources we need to be an entirely sustainable island. It is time to take the first steps... ONE GARDEN AT A TIME.
I'M IN.
WHO"S WITH ME?
