Bunked in Maunawilli

Konbu. Dark green kelp – that slimy one. That’s what grandma would put in the water. Dashi, the shrimp and seafood bits, the salts, that’s really the start of it all – before the miso base. White miso (which turns tan), usually, (but sometimes the red miso) pre-pasted, sits in the fridge in-between uses, a little bit sour and grainy-cream in taste by itself. You add to it, it soaks in and takes to protein well. It was comforting to smell, the gentle tang and minerally boil of the soup in the evenings in that two story Maunawilli house - made me feel closer to home. This grandma was not my own but she treated me kind and caring as if I was blood, with that same offer of soup and tea on days I would be home sick with her on watch.

Grandma Ellie, as we will call her, was a Japanese born in Oahu, married to a white, mainland-born man (Haole as we say) who raised a hapa son in Kailua and Maunawilli (the subdivisions along the wet jungle Pali leading into Kailua town). Her son ended up meeting a sharp, fiery, Cherokee-mixed 18-yr young-women in Big Island who’d birth five of his children by her mid-twenties. She was why I was living here – she meaning Grandma Ellie’s daughter-in-law, Roxanne, and her twins, who befriended me.

“Ten min of hot water in the shower – not more,” Alex, one of the twins, instructed me. Alex was the one who vouched for me when Noa asked her mom if I could stay with them for a few months. She was quiet but much more kind and observant than her tougher exterior said- she was trustworthy, loyal. Long red hair, slanted Asian eyes, 5’2 or so, white skin and full busted, she and her siblings were used to having to defend themselves in Big Island’s wilder landscape, racial and social extremes. She was dating one of Noa’s friends and had a soft spot for me being from outer-islands as well. Alex convinced her mom to take me into the very full house with her older brother, younger brother, twin sister, mom, Grandma Ellie and papa, in addition to her dad of whom I never saw come down from the upstairs loft.  

“You want the wall side tonight?” the seventeen-year-old twins let me alternate spots of the double- bunk bed we three shared. “Oh, and I borrowed your bikini top by the way, the pink one.” Devin, the younger twin pulled down her top at the dinner table, to show the pink ties. Sharing was not an option here, but I was not going to protest, I was just so grateful to have them want me there. “Ok, cool.” I nodded. We hurried to finish up the fried chicken cutlet, bits of sweet potatoes and rice before the strict bedtime approached. Meanwhile, their mom, wearing her sterling silver rings, black eyeliner, leather pants ready for a night out to kill her stress would be streaming visuals onto her computer screen from the Nasa granted telescope view of light clusters. “You applied to colleges yet?” She’d push me to go where i could get the best living situation and afford the school, instead of, go for best school like others would encourage.

Noa, of course, wanted me to live with him but both my parents and my second set of legal parents, aunt and uncle, forbade it, as I was still sixteen. Not like I really cared to listen to any of them at that point – I was tired of my aunt and uncle arguing, the late night wake-ups, the divorce threats, the random days there would be no money for my lunch amidst their financial power trips and me being stuck in the middle. Mostly, I just was tired of not having any say in my life and feeling so misunderstood. But, my father would for sure take legal action on Noa if he ever found me moving in with a boyfriend… so, I trusted Noa’s lead, and moved in with his former science teacher, a confident, good-looking woman who had actually put him in his place and gained his respect, had put herself through school while raising five kids, obtaining a Doctorate in Astronomy, and signed on to be my legal guardian in December of 2004, becoming…

My new “Mom”, Roxanne.

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual