DAY 25 - Some like it hot

Today we were entrusted again with getting food for the cow, only that we were allowed to take the BIG truck, and asked to cut off a certain type of small trees instead of grass. Driving the truck was certainly intimidating, especially since it has NO clutch pedal (I haven’t found it to this day) and the engine only started when Sarah and I completed a complicated four-hand manouver pushing the gear stick and turning the key at the same time in a very specific manner. Getting to the trees to cut them off was rather challenging as you had to wade neck deep into the Hawaiian Flora that was more often thorny and wet than not, and break off the trees without having red ants fall on you or suddenly finding your foot vanished into one of the treacherous holes in the ground (called ‘pukas’) that seem to be everywhere in untended areas. We did alright though and spent the rest of the day with the usual things. I had to clean out the goat pen as well, which finally gave me a chance to sketch these beautiful animals. (Lakshmi’s habit of galloping wildly towards me while madly headbanging was a bit frightening though at times. She also repeatedly tried to eat the strap on my sketchbook)

This was the vision looming over me every time I bent down to get stuff from under the goat's food-tower.

The main event for the evening was the sweat lodge we’d gone to and chickened out again last week, so today, after having drunk quite enough water, we headed up the road again to give it another try. As we sat down around the fire, a boy in front of us greeted us in a husky voice and indeed turned out to be David!

He cannot hide from us forever.

We also saw a bunch of other familiar faces such as Natasha and Billy from Cinderland, which made us feel a bit more at ease when suddenly a huge circle was formed around the fire and the leader (called simply ‘Uncle’ by everyone) started chanting in Hawaiian and then gave a long speech about a regular there (Bert? Burp?) who’d passed away recently. It only got worse when everyone, going around the circle, had to say ‘Aloha!’ (answered by the group), then say a few words in Burp’s memory and finish with something like ‘Ahoi!’ (Sarah, of course, very unhelpfully couldn’t stop herself snickering when it was my turn). There was more chanting and blessing after that and then we all crawled into the tent and tried to position ourselves comfortably, in complete darkness, touching naked limbs of strangers everywhere you tried to put your hand. Then the stones from the fire were carried in, one by one (and there were about thirty in total), while someone very unskilfully beat a drum. And then the door-flap was lowered, and the steam began. It was, to say the least, really, really, REALLY intense. Fingers going numb, water and sweat dripping from your body, face pulsating, the air you’re breathing out scalding your own skin, all while everyone else is chanting and drumming. I was sitting a bit further away from the rocks than Sarah so I had to periodically stretch out my hand to feel whether she was still there and alive, and also managed to lift a bit of the tent behind me to let the tiniest bit of fresh air in. After the first round (there are four rounds in total, corresponding to different prayer doors or something like that) we managed to shuffle around a bit so that we could both lie down on our backs which made matters a lot more manageable since we were further away from the stones and lower to the ground. Even the appearance of fire ants could not make us sit back up. Finally, finally, it was all over and we had to crawl around the rocks again to get to the door and to the beautiful oxygen-filled cold outside, where everything seemed to have turned into some sort of peace-orgy. Basically everyone has to hug everyone and appreciate the spiritual connection they shared with them, and, seeing as all these people were half-naked, complete strangers and dripping in sweat it certainly was not something I’d considered to be within my comfort zone. It was all over after that though and we said goodbye to everyone to traipse home and go to sleep straight away. Sweating is more exhausting than you think.