DAY 18 - No Sweat

Once again nothing major was planned for the day so we just got on with our work, the only new thing being that now that Kyle’s gone, Judy and I had to go and cut some grass for the cow which will be a daily task from now on. For the evening we had planned to go to a so-called sweat lodge only a couple of streets up from this house that we’d been told about by various people, so without really knowing what to expect we headed out at 7 and wandered up the dark street of Maku’u. We found the place easily enough, looking like someone’s front garden with a huge bonfire in the middle, various altars on either side and a small tent surrounded by a couple of people talking and smoking. We introduced ourselves and sat down, still not quite knowing what to do. As we sat in silence looking at the fire, suddenly Sarah turned to me with a panicked expression and hissed ‘It’s Skye! Skye’s here!’ and sure enough I recognized one of the people as our near-kidnapper. He came over to say hi soon and explained how the procedure would work - basically they'd put huge rocks from the fire in the middle of the tent and then put some sort of herbal water over it while there was chanting and drumming going on. While that sure sounded exciting, we grew a bit concerned about our current water supply and went into the nearby house to fill our bottles up. The people there kept asking whether we had been drinking properly all day, and when we denied that, the immediate sharp intake of breath and tskkk-sound they made didn’t seem like good news. So after brief consideration we decided not to join the sweating today and come back next Thursday prepared better, not wanting to be ‘those girls’ who pass out or hyperventilate on their first time there. We hung out with the people in the house for a while, where, even in this tiny kitchen under these bizarre circumstances, half a world away from South-Africa, the death of Nelson Mandela was discussed by stoned-out-of-their-face white people and Hawaiians alike.

A sentiment probably uttered by every single person on the earth today. RIP Madiba.

We left just before the ceremony began, quite excited for next Thursday (possibly even more excited by the news that Skye was heading out to California during the week).