Survivor (Kid Edition)

What do you remember from summer vacation as a kid? Staying up late, reading books all day on the beach, boogie boarding, racing friends across the neighborhood pool—that’s what I remember. And road trips with my family, which meant extra reading in the car and on the beach, camping, running out of things to read, eating fast food, exploring, and trading books (slash fighting over books we stole from not-quite-finished siblings).

And through it all, a pervading sense of adventure. Hiking up a mountain became surviving in the mountains after a plane crash! Snorkeling through jellyfish became SCUBA diving through landmines in search of shipwrecks! Dehydrated days in national parks became what fear of heights? watch me climb into my cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde PLUS opportunities to pose and smile in the background of other family’s vacation pictures! Oops, that’s not adventurous, just obnoxious. I mean…I never did that…who would do that?

Isaac and Ezekiel are totally old enough to see that awesome sense of adventure on their faces and in their questions. We skipped a luau this visit (too long, too late, too expensive, too touristy) in favor of the 45-ish minute Ali’i Tour at Tropical Farms (Mac Nut Farm) off Kam Highway near Chinaman’s Hat. We hit up Byodo-In Temple and got lunch before the 11am tour, and I was delighted that everyone loved it. Hannah even said it was possibly her favorite day so far this trip.

The tour guys did a great job playing up the sense of entering the mysterious world of the Jungle, and everyone—especially our oldest boys—got into it. The chiefs husked and cracked coconuts. The kids all drank coconut water and ate shaved coconut meat. The boys sat transfixed as the chief lit a fire with nothing but wood before our very eyes, then lit coconut husks and a fire knife for awe-inspiring fire dancing.

By the time the kids received woven ti leaf crowns, Ezekiel was ready to set off and survive in the wild. He told Hannah, “If I ever get stuck in the jungle, I’ll start a fire like that.” As we drove off through the final segment of the tour identifying edible tropical plants, we saw a rooster eating a banana up in a banana tree, then the chief passed out ripe apple bananas fresh off the bunch as we exited the jungle bus. We’re ready to survive on our own! (no we’re probably not)

As a side note, the chickens were kind of aggressive that day. One of them pecked me on the shin, and surprised the kids by sitting between them to steal their shredded coconut. My dad, in turn, surprised the chicken and grabbed it from behind! This created kind of a flap (ha) but what really made me laugh was when the chief instructed us to repeat some Hawaiian words and my dad for some reason decided to rotate the chicken. The chicken coo/clucked out an accordion-like sound that made all of us crack up. Oh man. Chicken accordion in the jungle. That’s some funny stuff.

Anyway, kid summer vacation memories get kind of sun-washed, so I have every hope that this very fun day will be remembered as the vacation when we joined a jungle tribe, lived off the land, and caught chickens to survive (and create fine music)!