Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 7, 1 July 1997 — A frightening tale of time travel [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A frightening tale of time travel

by Jay Kaho'onei Radford High School, Class of '98 Onee upon a time in a liftle village in Kāne'ohe on the island of Cahu lived a beautiful girl named Ku'uipo. She loved all of nature and every living thing. She and her people always respected the balanee and harmony of life and the land. Ku'uipo was ^

a very hard worker. She especially loved helping her father take care of the Konohiki's fishpond. The fishpond was very big, not as big as the He'e'ia thoug It also had Ku'uipo's favoriti

fish, weke and pāpio. The Konohiki would let her 'ohana take some fish onee in a while. One day when Ku'uipo was out pieking 'opihi with her mother she saw a flash of hghtning go through the sky and hit the hau bushes. She had to investigate. She ran over to the hau but slowed down when she saw it. It was something Ku'uipo had never seen before. It looked hke a big, tah box. Just as Ku'uipo was going to touch it the door opened and out stepped a girl who looked almost like Ku'uipo. "Who are you?" Ku'uipo asked. "I am Jayme. I eome from the future. I am your great-granddaughter." Ku'uipo started to laugh. Jayme told

her it wasn't a joke, and if Ku'uipo wanted to see, she would have to eome with her. Ku'uipo decided to go with Jayme just to see if what Jayme said was true. So both girls went into the box. There was another lightning flash. Ah of a sudden the door opened and the girls got out of the box. Ku'uipo thought that they still were in the Hau bushes by her village, but to her despair they had eone to a whole new time, the future.

As soon as she stepped out she could tell the difference because her village was gone. All that was left was something called a golf course with fake grass. Her fishpond was gone. It was filled up with dirt and had wooden houses built on it. Ku'uipo dropped to the ground and cried out, "Auwe! Auwe! Why?! Why did they do this to my beautiful village and fishpond? Why?!" Jayme tried to explain, "The government took over the Hawaiian's land, overthrew our beautiful monarchy,

and took away our religion." Jayme went over to Ku'uipo and told her to eome with her to her car. "What's a car?" Ku'uipo asked. "It's a way of travehng around," Jayme replied. They both got into Jayme's car and Jayme drove them to Kailua Bay. On the way Ku'uipo noticed three more "golf courses." "Why do they need so many?" Ku'uipo asked. "For more tourists." Jayme then explained tourists to Ku'uipo. Ku'uipo was so sad; she didn't understand why these haoles would destroy all the living things, bring dangerous diseases, bring animals and plants lestroy our native things. Vhen they arrived at Kailua Bay,

Jayme showed her what pollution was and all the haole fish that were taking over. Ku'uipo was sad to think her people let the balance

and harmony slip away. The next plaee they went to was a kalo farm where Ku'uipo saw the worst thing any Hawaiian could witness, Hawaiians drying out their kalo patches. "What are they doing?! Why are they doing that?!" Ku'uipo screamed. "Because of all these things called apple snails, that eat up all the kalo, and the farmers have to dry out their kalo patches and put pesticides. Soon the land won't be good enough to grow anything on," Jayme replied. Jayme took Ku'uipo to a fish auehon. This really tripped out Ku'uipo because her people would just trade, so she didn't understand buying and selling. Jayme explained a little but Ku'uipo still didn't imderstand. So Jayme took her to one last plaee, the Pali Lookout. This was the saddest plaee Ku'uipo went to. After this last trip, Ku'uipo asked to go home. Jayme took her back to the time traveler box and took Ku'uipo back home. When Ku'uipo got back all she kept thinking about was what she saw at the Pali. One lonely 'ōhi'a tree in the middle of thousands of foreign plants, in other words "a stranger in her own land." Is that what we are?

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Eel peneil drawing by Kanoe Hook