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Another guest post from my mother, to go with the box she sent me from Hawaii.

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Kona Airport to Waikaloa Beach Resort, Hawaii, Hawaii

Hawaii waterfallI doubt that I’ve ever been in a place with “Resort” in the name. My husband and I have lived a bit more roughly on travels and moves around the world. But all that changed a month ago on our first trip to Hawaii. His conference on satellite imaging of hydrologic data was to be at Waikaloa Beach Resort on the Big Island and I went with him. I went under-prepared but not without preconception. So, the drive from the Kona Airport to Waikaloa was the first surprise – no lush, tropical land but instead, a barren lava flow, the land hardened black rock. While I intended to see afresh, to see what it is itself, the little comparison brain started ticking right away. It looked so much like the Desert Road, the road that goes across the eastern slopes of Mt Ruapehu just south of where we live in New Zealand.

I’m older. I’ve travelled a fair amount, and without a doubt more than I expected when twenty-two and afraid I would never get beyond Kansas where I grew up. So my challenge is to see afresh, not through eyes dulled by familiarity or eve comparisons of “this is like that.” I want to see with the eyes of a child, a whole world that is new to me. When headed to a tourist destination, all well-traveled and brochure, how does one see it without a frame constructed by others, carefully surrounding it?

Waikaloa Beach Resort, Hawaii, HawaiiI quickly found that I’m not, at heart, a resort person.

I found it pleasant, but was uncomfortable with too much service and also with the way I saw some of the guests treating those who worked there, sometimes rudely, sometimes not seeing them at all.

But there were interesting stories among the waiters, the cleaners, the man who fixed the malfunctioning lock on our door. How had they ended up here? What part of any American dream were they aiming for – many were from other countries. I like to collect stories from people as I travel. The stories remind me that my take on things is not the only one – like when listening to a woman from the Philippines tell me how much she loves Imelda Marcos, one of the more reviled women in history.

So, while my husband went to conferences, I walked along the lava-roughened shore, littered with white dead coral. I found sea turtles, watched humpback whales breaching, and snapped my tourist pictures of sunsets among the palms. I live a calm life in a relaxed town in New Zealand; Waikaloa Beach was an echo of that. I felt the Polynesian kinship between New Zealand and Hawaii. They both have the same word for Women – Wahine – and I thought yes, this is where my neighbor’s ancestors may have come from. The world could learn from both places.

The ukulele plays on and the good voices echo into the night.

hawaii sea turtle on the beach

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An interesting lesson today about finding good English language news sources for Mexico… Anyway, here is what I scrambled…

Mexico

Mexico

Alternatives to drug war championed at conference (Sept 28)
$22 million loan will help with Tijuana water and sewage (Sept 29)
Immigrant deaths near US-Mexico border in 2009 expected to surpass previous year’s total (Oct 2)
Immigrant deaths near the US-Mexico border at a glance (Oct 2)
Mexican Consulate marks Binational Health Week (Oct 2)
City, Baja California officials working on tourist-friendly police force (Oct 6)

This site requires registration for a free 1 day pass, so I’m including a teaser…
History via cell phone (Oct 2) President Felipe Calderon last weekend announced the start of the project “Mexico is my museum,” designed to bring the history of the Revolution and Independence in touching distance of the 76 million Mexicans that own cellphones.

The Disturnell map of 1847

The Disturnell map of 1847

For more background (& more maps):
Perry-Castañeda Library
Map Collection – Atlas of Mexico

Why all the Mexico posts? ‘Cause I’m headed their for my first visit one week from today… Yes, I plan to post pictures…

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