The Dreamstress

Spending the night at Kalaupapa is amazing. I grew up in a very rural location, and our house now is set well off the road, and is very quiet, but neither of these begins to compare to the tranquility of Kalaupapa.  Unless there is an activity which everyone is attending the entire town goes to bed early.  There is no distant traffic, no early flights at the airport, no murmur of late night businesses and parties: just the wind and the waves.

You sleep deep, and wake early, to the sunshine spilling across the pali, highlighting each ravine in the cliff-face, and bathing the whole peninsula in a reflected glow.

After breakfast and devotions (we were doubly lucky to be there on the Baha’i feast of Might – like Sabbath), we headed out into the sunshine, walking through the tiny township, past the gravesite of Mother Marianne Cope, who came with her nuns  to Moloka’i from upstate New York  in the 1880s to help Father Damien.

Fifty other religious orders had turned down Hawai’i’s plea for help from a group of nuns, for fear of catching the disease.  Marianne promised her nuns that none of her order who served in Hawai’i would contract leprosy: a reasonable promise to make in the light of modern medical knowledge, but a giant leap of faith in the face of 19th century attitudes towards leprosy, especially as Father Damien was dying of the disease.  Her promise held true, the faith and assistance of her and her comrades was unflinching and invaluable, and in October Mother Marianne will be made Saint Marianne of Moloka’i: the second Catholic saint to come from the tiny corner of our tiny island.

Beyond her grave are more lighthearted reminders of Kalaupapa’s legacy.  First, a garage adorned with license plates from all over the US, the legacy of all the people that have come to work there, and all the cars that have ended their life in Kalaupapa.  The barge only comes to Kalaupapa once a year (its annual visit is a memorable event), so that is your only chance to get a car in, and no car ever goes out.  Because the county is so small and sparsely populated, and has such a unique set of laws, the driving and licensing rules in Kalaupapa are quite loose compared to the rest of to the state of Hawaii.  Legally blind patients have been allowed to drive, and for a while there was a car on the peninsula that only drove in reverse.

Regular cars aren’t the only thing that end their life in Kalaupapa.  Old schoolbuses have been brought to the peninsula to serve as tour buses, and as we hiked down the pali we could see the big yellow bus whizzing around the roads, carrying the tour group on seats that I probably sat on as a schoolkid.

For all the fun stories, reminders of Kalaupapa’s past are never far away.  Every turn of the road brings a new graveyard, snuggled against the pali or spread out by the sea.

In the newer graveyards the Hawaiian on the old gravestones has given way to English, and the last names show how ruthlessly democratic the disease was, striking all races and walks of life.  The gravestones are much fancier than in cemeteries in other parts of Hawai’i, lending an odd grandeur to the regularity of death on the peninsula (one former patient talked of the constant ringing of churchbells, day after day).

For all the grandness of the memorials, nature is fighting back, breaking down the stones and re-claiming the edges of the cemetaries.

For the historians and archeologists at Kalaupapa, and for those who have family buried there, honouring the history is a delicate balance between conservation, nature, and restoration.  A gravestone lying broken on the ground will continue to disintegrate, a stone wall fallen into disrepair will turn into a jumble of stones, no matter how carefully you monitor the placement of the stones.  Is it better to rebuild the wall, to re-erect the gravestone, and fill in the missing pieces, in order to preserve the bits that are left?

These questions plague those in the history and museum fields everywhere, but in few places is the question more poignant than at Kalaupapa.  What is the best way to honour the history, and to memorialise the people who lived there?

The same questions of history and memory have had to be tackled by the National Park Service and the Board of Health in administering and making laws for what must be the most unique national park in the US.  How do they make the park accessible to visitors, while respecting the former patients who still make the park their home?  It’s a question that affects every aspect of life.  At the moment, 100 visitors a day are allowed on the peninsula, but only as an invited guest of a resident or as part of an official tour.  Only former patients are allowed to own businesses on the peninsula, so the tours are run by former patients.  There are only 13 former patients left, 7 of whom live on the peninsula full-time.  What will happen when they are all gone?  That’s still to be decided.

Other discussions and rules are less obvious.  Because there are so many archeological sites and gravesites on the peninsula, no digging is allowed, so anyone who wants to have a garden has to create a raised bed with fresh dirt.  There is also an ongoing discussion about what to do about housing.  In past decades, when a patient passed away and their house would no longer be used the houses were burnt down, as caring for them took too much in the way of resources.  Now the remaining houses that don’t belong to patients are used by the  NPS and the State to house employees, leading to another discussion about the houses.  Should they be kept as they are, with 1950s kitchens and simple rooms, as living pieces of history, or updated to make them more modern and comfortable for the people who live there? (having been in them, seen ’50s plantation style houses in Hawaii vs. very un-tropical modern remakes, I am a massive supporter of the ‘leave them as they are’ camp).

There are also discussions about how the visitors who come to Kalaupapa get to use the peninsula.  One rule that surprised me (until I thought about it) prohibits surfing.  Why?  Kalaupapa is said to have the best surf on Moloka’i: so coveted were the waves that in ancient times only the chiefs were allowed to surf on them.  Residents were afraid that Kalaupapa would become a surf destination, and the history would be lost beneath the commerce, so surfing is not allowed.  Hunting, on the other hand, is not just allowed but encouraged, because the peninsula is over-run by introduced axis deer, goats and pigs, all of which cause havoc to the natural environment.  Kalaupapa has become a little bit of a hunting destination (though you still have to be an invited guest), but without it their would be a major environmental disaster.

Finally, there is the rule that kept me from visiting Kalaupapa as a child: no visitors under 16.  I had thought this was simply to prevent children from gawking and unthinkingly saying hurtful things, but the real reason is far, far more tragic.  Throughout most of the 20th century patients at Kalaupapa who had children had their infants taken away from them at birth (patients were not even allowed to hold their child once, so some hid their pregnancy and the birth to get a little time with their child), and adopted away.  In an attempt to prevent the stigma of the disease from following the child, their birth certificate would be altered to give a different place of birth, and they would be adopted to families on the US Mainland, to further separate them from their history.  The authorities had the best intentions with this practice; they wanted to protect the child from contracting leprosy, and from the stigma associated with it, but the reality of what happened is heartbreaking.  For patients who had their children taken away, seeing other family’s children was just too hard a reminder, so no children are allowed on the peninsula.

I’m sorry.  I’ve made you cry.  I’ve made me cry too.  Let’s look at some beautiful images of the coast, take a deep breath, and move on to something happier.

How about the other things that Kalaupapa is protecting, in addition to it’s history?  The deserted beaches provide the perfect place for the endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal to rest and breed, and so, for the first time in my life, I was lucky enough to see them.

Sitting on the rocks along the coast, watching the mother and her almost grown pup (the darker one) as they sunned themselves and occasionally turned their heads to check up out, in the absolute peace of Kalaupapa, was amazing.  Only the tragedy of the past has made this place safe enough for these rare animals, so another piece of good has come out of what happened.

After a morning by the coast, contemplating the memorials, chatting with our hosts, watching the monk seals and the waves, it was time to head back up the pali, to home.  We took one last look at the beach, the township, and the view of the trail heading up the cliff, gave our hosts a hug, and we were on our way, with lots and lots of water.

We were silent starting the hike, each thinking of all the things we had seen, and heard, and experienced.  Then Mum said that she felt so moved she needed to sing, and so we started the hike on a melody, singing “There is an ocean, an ocean, an ocean of light, where the rays of the sun and the raindrops unite…”

After a while we fell silent again, and began the hike to nothing but the sound of the wind sighing across the peninsula, and the endless woosh of un-surfed waves.

Yesterday I told you the history of Kalaupapa Peninsula, and I promised to tell you of my trip down to the Peninsula today.  As I tried to write this post, and select images to go with it, I realised I could never get all the words into one post, much less the images.  So this is part 1 of 2 of my trip – day 1.

All my life, Kalaupapa was there: just over the mountain, just down the pali (cliff), visible from the lookout, as unreachable and unattainable as Paris, for all it was so many thousands of miles closer.  I couldn’t visit it as a child under 16, and as an adult I couldn’t visit it without an invitation from someone who lived and worked down on the peninsula, or as part of a tour.  I didn’t know anyone who worked at Kalaupapa, and I didn’t want to visit it as a tourist.

Every trip home to Hawaii I thought of giving in, paying for a tour, and going down just to see that bit of my history, but the time never seemed right.  Then this visit, once I had arrived on Moloka’i, my mother mentioned, quite casually, that the new archeologist down at Kalaupapa and her husband were Baha’is, and friends of my parents, and it might be possible for us to go down and visit them.

And, as it turned out, it was.  On my very last weekend on Moloka’i, Mary Jane (the archeologist) secured permits for Mum and I.  Dad stayed home to take care of the farm and watch out for the ducklings that were due to hatch, and Mum and I headed down the Pali trail.

I should let you know at this point that one of the many things that Mum and I have in common is a phobia of heights.  Tackling the hike was quite an undertaking for us (I fully expected to spend the entire walk alternating between chanting prayers and simple ‘not going to die’ pleas under my breath), so visiting Kalaupapa was a commitment in many ways.

As it happens, the trail isn’t as bad as I had thought it would be.  Lush vegetation hides the worst of the dropoff views, and the scariest parts have been upgraded with bridges and protected with guardrails.

At least we were hiking though.  The alternative way to get down the trail is to take a mule.  In earlier times mail and supplies were taken down to the settlement via mule, and the tradition has been kept alive by the Moloka’i Mule Ride, which conveys people down to Kalaupapa for the tour.  We passed the day’s tour as they were coming back up, and I did not envy them one iota.

The trail wends its way down the cliff-face via 26 switchbacks, each marked with a plaque, so that you can count your way up and down (and possibly to help you identify where you are if someone gets hurt and you need to go for help).  In addition to spectacular views, the trail is marked by stunning examples of native vegetation, from the red lehua flower (the Hawaiian cousin of pohutakawa), to the endangered native Hawaiian hibiscus,  to the extremely rare  Alula, which has less than 65 extent species.

Seeing an alula was a privilege in itself.  The one along the trail was just about to flower, and was protected from invasive foragers like goats and deer by fencing.  You can see it in the fenced area just parallel to Mum’s glasses in this picture:

As we descended the trail, the mist blew away from the peninsula, and it got hotter and hotter as the cool upland forest gave way to more open coastal forest.  By the 26th switchback we were extremely hot, and extremely grateful when the endless steps gave way to more level ground that wound through the last gentle incline which dropped up to the sea.

As we had descended the trail the sound of the ocean crashing against the cliffface had grown louder and louder, from a faint whisper at the top, through a dull roar, and finally, at the bottom, we turned away from the cliff and came out at a long black sand beach, with the characteristic swish of waves carrying tons of sand with each rise and fall of the water.  Behind us were the cliffs, stretching out along the northwest shore of the island, and the pali trail, rising to the uplands.  In front of us was Kalaupapa.

We were collected at the trail’s end by Mary Jane, lovely and welcoming, ready to show us the world she is helping to understand and protect.  I got to experience the classic Hawaiian (and especially Kalaupapan) mode of transport: ‘catching air’ in the back of a truck, with prerequisite dog.

Riding in the back of a truck may be the best way to see all the amazing views that Kalaupapa has to offer.  In the image above you can just see the modern view that amazed me most.  Enlarge the picture, and you should just be able to see the electricity and phone cables coming straight down the pali at the point of the deepest cleft.  They go down at an almost vertical angle!  There must have been some pretty impressive moments with a helicopter to make that happen.

Everything at Kalaupapa is amazing, from the natural beauty, to the ancient history, through to the 19th and early 20th century events that it is most famous for, to the modern engineering that has tried to connect it to the outside world.  First, we went to see some of the natural beauty.  Kauhakö (that should actually be a straight line over the O, but I can’t figure out how to do that in WordPress) Crater is what remains of the low shield volcano that formed the peninsula: a low rising hill punctuated by a deep crater.  At the floor of the crater is a tiny lake, at 800 feet deep, it’s probably deeper than it is wide.  On the day I visited it was a deep, olive green, but on other days it glows blue, or dark brown, or a range of other hues.

On the hill around the crater are example of the two most common human artifacts on the peninsula: stone walls and gravesites.  Everywhere you look in Kalaupapa are stones arranged to form walls, or piled in piers to mark the thousands who were sent there  not to live, but to die.

Beyond the tragedy of the story they tell, and their abundance, two things struck me about the gravestones that are so prevalent at Kalaupapa.  First, so many of them are in Hawaiian.  The Hawaiian language lingered as the predominant spoken language much longer at Kalaupapa than in other places in Hawaii, so many, many gravestones bear the legend ‘He Kiahoomanao‘ (this is the memorial marker) no (of) ______, hanau (born) _______, make (died) _______.  Second, for all that so many of the gravestones are in Hawaiian, and Hawaiian’s were the most succeptible to leprosy, its clear from the names on the gravestones that people of every ethnicity, and every walk of life, caught the dread disease and were exiled to Kalaupapa.

From the crater we headed down and around the curve of the pali, to Kalawao, the original site of the place of exile for Hansen’s Disease patients.  While the Kalaupapa township side of the peninsula had been warm and dry, the problems with Kalawao were immediately evident.  It lies in perpetual coolness and mist, all but abandoned save for one orange cat which has appointed itself the guardian of Damien’s church, waiting daily in front of it to greet the tour group.

After stone walls and gravesites, Kalaupapa is marked by churches.  Religion had a profound impact on the early patients, providing them with care and succor, and sometimes even hope.  Kalaupapa is the second least populous county in the US, but it surely must have the most houses of worship per capita.

The churches at Kalawao are no longer active today though: the settlement at Kalawao was abandoned in the 1930s, with all the patients moving to the warmer end of the peninsula.  The population of the peninusla has dwindled on a yearly basis since then, and all the buildings but the church were allowed to fall into disrepair, the jungle slowly taking over the old boys home, the leprosarium, the houses and cottages that would have surrounded the churches.  Nothing remains but the stone walls and the gravesites.

From Kalawao, we turn away from the pali, heading down and around the curve of the peninsula.  We stop at the rocky shore where patients were unloaded, left to fend for themselves without provisions or a word of comfort.

In a place desperate with sadness, with longing for life, this is perhaps the saddest point: the place where one life ended, before patients had a chance to realise they might be able to make another, very different, life.

The amazing, wonderful thing about Kalaupapa is that after the first few dreadful years, there was life, and joy, and the full breadth of human experience.  Visitors to 19th and early 20th century Kalaupapa came expecting a place of utter desolation and despair, and found instead the resilience of the human spirit.  Robert Louis Stevenson talked of the beautiful things he had seen in the world, and especially of the girls of Kalaupapa being ‘not the least beautiful among them’ by far, and how the young boys in the boys home were like boys everywhere: eternally picking up one amusement and fad after another, one day enjoying jacks, the next all learning to play the ukulele, then abandoning those for ballgames.  Jack London found himself laughing himself silly at the Fourth of July races at Kalaupapa, feeling that one oughtn’t to laugh in such a place, but unable to resist the infectious joy of the crowd.

Kalaupapa today is a balance of the sadness that every person brought with them, the sadness of all those gravesites, the unutterable longing for life that you hear in every wave, in every breath of wind, and the peace and joy that people found, despite it all.  The township of Kalaupapa is both exquisitely charming: a picture postcard of what small-town Hawaii might have been in the ’40s & ’50s, and slightly desolate, with too many empty rooms and abandoned lots.  The whole peninsula is too full of the memories of lives with broken ends: all those people who were forced to leave their homes in the 1860s to make way for the patients, all the patients who were forced to leave their homes to come to Kalaupapa, all the children born there, who were taken away to protect them from catching leprosy.

The whole peninsula aches with longing, perhaps most of all in the long room: a long, narrow building with five doors, two at each end, and one in the middle.  The room is divided along its entire length by a table, but in the early 20th century it was also divided by a heavy fence running the length of each room.  On one side, the patients came in, on the other, their visiting families.  They could see each other, but never touch each other.

The long room is freshly painted, but a layer of dust lies on all the ledges.  It’s both cared for, and abandoned: a rather heavy metaphor, but there it is.