Travel Reference
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I finally did come across a few, and as I made my way across to them, a flock of Franklin
birds went scurrying and squawking off into the scrub. I looked guiltily about and yanked
a few off the green, spiky leaves, wincing as they stuck into my hand. Serves me right, I
thought. I walked swiftly back to the road as I stuffed them into my bag. What the hell,
you only live once right? Just then I heard and saw the first vehicle whiz past me. It was a
pickup truck heading down to the harbor with some local fishermen. I returned their wave;
that had been a close call; it wouldn't look good, the hauole visitor helping himself to their
pineapples.
After an hour of climbing, I was sweating in the rising sun. I stopped and removed my shirt,
placing it into the pack as well. I saw a couple of guinea fowl running along with a curious
swaying gait. Looking back every now and so often brought me the rewarding view of the
morning sea in all her sparkling majesty. There were a handful of little boats out fishing.
I was well into the great pineapple plantations now and saw the irrigation systems begin
shooting out large fountains of water. There were plantation laborers beginning their day's
work. I waved at them and some waved back. They were mainly Filipino women dressed
in long sleeved shirts and slacks. They wore large straw hats and sunglasses. Their hands
were covered in cotton gloves; some had dust particle masks over their mouths. They were
protected from the sun and the large amounts of dust layered around. They were bent in
toil pulling out weeds. One or two were spraying fertilizer from backpacks fed by little
trailer barrels. On I continued up the road. The earth around me was surprisingly red, and
everything I saw seemed to have a reddish tinge from this dust.
I saw little houses now at the edge of town. Little green and red roofs were peeping up
between copses of trees and bush. There were quaint, little shacks and some that were large
and fancy. They were all made of wood and were painted in a variety of colors from pale
to dark green, beige, white and even pinks and blues. It was all very colorful.
I felt the presence of the many tall, cool, Norfolk pines lining the streets and public park, a
large, grassy square centered within the huddle of houses, shops, and offices. I loved these
trees; they were so tall and green and silent. They lent a very shady, cool quality in the oth-
erwise hot and dusty, little town. As I mentioned earlier, they had been planted hundreds of
years earlier by the missionaries to encourage rain from the passing clouds and, in actual
fact, they did just that.
Cars and people were bustling about their town. The majority of them were Filipinos who
had been brought over a hundred years ago to work the plantations. There were quite a few
Europeans about as well, but they were definitely outnumbered. They appeared to interact
without any of the racism I had grown up with in South Africa. I was to see that the Lanai
locals were a lot friendlier than their Oahu counterparts.
