Papahana Kuaola- The Taro Patch

We have been able to connect with a homeschool group here on the North Shore. This week we were able to join them at Papahana Kuaola- an educational taro farm. Taro is a edible plant that they use to make poi. Papahana Kuaola was organized farm used to teach people about traditional taro farming. To many Hawaiians, Taro represents the staff of life. (This is what I learned as the class). We showed up and had a 45 minute interactive lecture and lesson on Hawaii. Jake jumped into this Canoe Hut and so the teacher, Mahi, took the opportunity teach about it, and even had the kids get water and pour into onto the hut to see how water proof it was. Here are the two pictures below.

The water experiment. This hut wasn't weaved very tight, so Ellie got the brunt of the water tossed. She didn't mind and they all came out laughing. Mahi said that in really rainy areas they would make two layers of the grass roofs.

Then we went outside where Mahi cut down several branches and the kids were to take the leaves off the trees and put them in the buckets. These leaves were going to be use for fertilizer for the bogs that were used to plant the taro in. It was also here that Mahi gave us the lecture on going into the mud with the risk of getting leptospirosis(Spelling?). Awe, I am sure my Dad is dying and more so when he see the rest of the pictures of us dancing in the lepto mud! I admit it wasn't lecture I was wanting to hear, but we decided to take the risk knowing there is medication to cure it if we got it. (FYI, the next morning Sam got up and said he was going to throw up, and my mind instantly went to the taro mud. But I think he ate something wrong and he got up and felt better quickly. But I thought to myself...here we go.)

As you can see they threw the leaves into the mud. 

The girls-not sure they want to get in.

Sam and Ellie pushing the leaves into the mud with their feet.

Still working.

Jayne joined in, so then Jake had to join in. He didn't last long, but it says something about the fourth child- they are not be out done.

Jayne with her mud socks on. 

I took this picture to show how amazing these taro fields were. It was right up against the steep mountains. You can see the kids following the leader. 

 Now it was time to learn to plant the taro. 

        

Here's Ellie at work planting. Jayne didn't want to get back into the mud so he handed out the taro roots.

They were working hard. After getting all the plants in, they then got the mud and water and to wet the taro mounts.

 

Jake and Sam after they got out. Lookin' good.

It was then time to wash off in the spring. They took a long time since the instructor said if they didn't get the mud off it will stain their skin. My kids could probably used a bit of darkening, but oh well. Then the kids were given fishing nets and let loose to fish in the stream. They caught little catfish and some shrimp. Since the flooding in February the river had been washed out, so the fishing wasn't as good. They had set a trap with a coconut but caught very little. Below is the kids pulling the fishing trap.

After lunch we hiked up the stream to a little waterfall where the kids could swim. They swam both above and below it. I am pretty sure they thought they were in paradise. Below is Ellie sliding down a little waterfall slide into the deep side of the pool. It was really fun but I didn't have time to take some great pictures because I was trying to keep Jake alive. He wanted to stand at the top of the falls and throw rocks. It was pretty slippery so I had to keep a close watch. We were all worn out by the time we got to the car. We had to hurry home for Sam's fire stick class. Jake was out instantly when I put him in his car seat. Great adventures.

(PS Sorry that my watermark is on all these pictures. I had done a photo shoot and worked on the pictures and then forgot to turn off the watermark. Opps.)