Kalaupapa National Historical Park & MOLOKAI Tuesday, January 12

Nearby Sailboat Before Sunrise

 

VERY SPECIAL TRIP

We all wake up in the dark for a 6 AM breakfast.

Did I tell you how beautiful the boat (yacht) is?  Cherry wood, great big windows everywhere, half as many friendly and helpful crew as guests, deliciously exotic and healthy food.  I have never lived in such luxury.  Name of the group is Un-Cruise.

 At 7:30 AM we board four, 9-passenger planes going to Kalaupapa National Historical Park, Molokai.

Why go by plane when it’s on Molokai and we’re already on Molokai? 

 
Long time ago one-third of the island collapsed into the sea, creating a 1600 foot cliff.  We could go down by mule, or hike a very long, steep trail, or fly for 5 minutes to get to the bottom.  

View From the Air

Kalaupapa is a peninsula reached only with great difficulty.  This is why it was selected as a location to isolate 8,000 patients with Hansen’s disease (leprosy), beginning about 1866.

Thanks to my friend, Brenda, I read a wonderful book called Moloka’i which is a surprisingly true-life but fictional account of a young girl sent there, leaving her family behind.  The youngest patient sent there (for real) was four; the oldest, 97 years old.  No family members were allowed to come along unless they, too, had the disease.  Can you imagine how terrible that must have felt?
 
The very first group were sort of dumped there with no resources whatsoever.  The thinking was:  they’re Hawaiians so they can live off the land.  The fact that they were sick and had no family with them apparently did not enter into the thinking of officialdom. 

Bust of St. Damien

A priest from Belgium volunteered to work at Kalaupapa; Father Damien is the most famous of the care-givers, builders, and resource-seekers.  After 12 years he contracted Hansen’s disease, dying in 1889 at age 49.  He was canonized in the 90’s so he is now Saint Damien.  

There were many others, however, who sacrificed a great deal to help these patients.  And the patients helped each other by developing new families.  One sad policy:  newborns of infected patients were removed from the island.

Store Owner, Grace

 Not until fairly recently (about 1944) was a sulfa-based medicine created which stops all symptoms; there is no cure because the bacillus continues to live in the body.  Pat, our knowledgeable and compassionate guide tells us, “Patients were imprisoned here for the crime of being sick.”  

Sign in Grace's Store

Only nine patients still live at Kalaupapa, aged 74-91; no one is required to do so.  The only folks who can reside here (besides patients) are employees, including those of the Park Service.  A patient must sponsor your visit.  Grace, who runs the snack store, sponsored us.  We all buy refreshments to say thank you.

We tour the entire village, including churches built by Father Damien.  Apparently he was an accomplished builder. A funny Irish priest now serves St. Philomena’s.   

The village is quite lovely now, with stunning vistas of the ocean.  I hope patients gained solace from the beauty.  





Pat, our guide, asked living patients what he should tell visitors.  They told him he should say how important churches were in helping patients through tough  times.

A store run by another patient has enticing books but I can’t buy  something heavy.  I feel badly but others line up to make purchases so at least our group as a whole is helping out.  

Hiking Up to Kauhako Crater

Pat then drives us to the base of the trail to Kauhako Crater.  Only Road Scholars are permitted to go there.

 

Top of the Trail

Scenery at the top is beautiful but voggy.  (Do you remember what vog is?) 

Hand Made "Rope"

An offering packet (like what I gave Pilipo), hidden near the precipice, is tied to a rock with a rope woven of 3 tea leaves. 

I barely see a small lake at the bottom of the crater.

(At the end of this letter I include plants I see on this trail and in the village.)



 




These signs at the tiny airport show concern about exotic (as in imported) animals and plants.

Five minutes in the air and we’re back topside Molokai.  Because the skiffs won’t come for us right away, we get a tour of the town (bigger than Bishop but smaller than Watkinsville).

I had asked C. where I should go to get a true Hawaiian shirt.   She old me to find an insurance office where they also sell tribal shirts.  “They just got a new shipment,” she said.  I buy one I’ll wear at the Captain’s dinner in a couple of days.

And at a real store I get a CD of Hawaiian music played by a Molokai musician.  Since the area is economically depressed, I feel good about those purchases.  

 Cruising the supermarket, I find that a gallon of milk costs $8.99.  

Then, ice cream.  Lots of exotic flavors.  The sample of purple sweet potato ice cream is just so-so.   Kona coffee in a waffle cone is perfect! 

The drugstore gives a free ice cream cone if you get a flu shot.  Why doesn’t CVS do that?


After dinner the boat heads for Olowalu, West Maui. 

Here are a bunch of plants I saw this day: