Our First Week On The Farm

We arrived in Honolulu on schedule last Tuesday. Dick (Tom the supervisor's father) picked us up and drove us to Kahumana Farm. He explained a lot about Hawaii and Kahumana, but to be honest I don't remember too much as I was very tired from traveling all day. He showed us to our room and then let us unpack and get settled in. We stay in the Wwoofer house with 5 other people right on property. We had to try to get right to sleep as we were scheduled to start work at 6:30 the next morning and at this point it was already almost midnight.

Wwoofer House We are 5 hours behind east coast time and so getting up for 6:30 AM wasn't that bad the first time, plus we were anxious to see the farm and where we were exactly. Since we arrived so late the night before, we really had no idea what the property or area looked like. We went to the stables and met everybody we would be working with on the farm.

We work a total of 30 hours at Kahumana at the cafe or on the farm. A typical farm day is 6:30am to 8am and then we have breakfast and a small break until 9. Then we work 9am - 12:30pm. If its a long day we go back after lunch from 3pm - 5:30pm until dinner. Min will work some cafe lunch and dinner shifts which are 9:30 - 2:30 and then 6pm - 8:30. I will also work with Min in the cafe on Friday and Saturday nights. I will get a better picture of the cafe, but this is a picture of the cafe from the stables.

Our first day on the farm was a long day (Wednesday) and we had to cut down trees and put them through the wood chipper so they could use the leaf/wood mixture for mulching.

We were pretty tired after this long day of work especially because it is work that we aren't exactly used to. But all of the wwoofers said that the work would be fairly simple and that that day was a once or twice a month kind of thing. The next few days I worked mostly on the farm and Min worked mostly in the kitchen to train before the cafe chef leaves for a month. After work on Thursday we decided to walk into town to go the the store and see the area that we are actually in. It was about a 2&1/2 mile walk there. The area outside Kahumana is very poor. People are either living in tents, shacks or even old buses/cars.It was very sad to see and an extremely big culture shock. It was very surprising that such a beautiful area surrounded by mountains and beaches could be so impoverished. Apparently all of the west side of Oahu is like this. However, the homes/area in no way reflects the people of Waianae (the town we live in). All of the locals we have met have been very nice and helpful and a lot of them work with us in the cafe as they are going through the transitioning program at Kahumana. I will explain in a later blog entry about all that the Kahumana does and the different programs they have started. The history and everything is very fascinating.

the trees at the end of the day

Me on the farm

Min at the beach We have Sundays and Mondays off, so on Sunday we rode bikes to the beach with some other wwoofers. We went swimming and relaxed on the beach all afternoon - it was beautiful. The waves weren't too bad that day, but we were told that they will get up to 25 feet at the peak of the season. Everybody went back for dinner, but we stayed and got pizza for a change. The meals here are good. Its oatmeal, granola and fruit for breakfast and then soup/salad + an entree for lunch and dinner. It is very healthy, so pizza was a good treat. Monday I rode the bus into town and Min biked and we met at the beach to meet a guy who was going to sell us a bike.We really wanted to buy one since the ones at the house had no breaks and the gears didn't shift. There was really only 1 working bike for 7 people. If we find another good deal, we hope to buy another bike and then sell both of them before we leave to either new wwoofers or on craigslist like we did. There is so much to explain, I will have to do smaller posts on the actual farming we do, the cafe and what Kahumana does for the community.

Min on the farm

Me by the orchard