A friend and I were talking last night about feeling settled in Boston. We appreciate the lives and communities we’ve built here but we still feel the pull of distant places. “I didn’t mean to get so comfortable here,” I lamented. We laughed at ourselves for wanting more when we’ve had so much already — she’s lived abroad in Mexico and Mozambique, and I spent more than three months backpacking Europe before moving to Hawai’i to work on a farm. It’s always amusing to tell stories about living on Maui to friends I’ve met since the experience. People are surprised when I tell them I lived in Hawai’i for a…
-
-
Guest Post: Haleakalā Crater
Emma is still in India, but before she left, she asked her boyfriend if he would write a guest post for her. I said that I’d be happy to. I’ve been holding down the fort while Emma has been gone, getting to spend some quality time with the cat, so I’ve had plenty free time to work on said guest post. You may remember my last contribution to An Opportune Moment, where I shared my experiences flying for the first time. This time, I’m covering another aspect of Emma and my time on Maui – Haleakalā Crater. And because I had my camera out the whole time we were there,…
-
Maui: Last Look
My last night on Maui, I slept on a beach. My friends and I arrived after dark, pitched our tents, and fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing just a few feet away. We awoke to this view: It was the perfect end to two months in Hawai’i, and it’s also the end of my blog posts about that trip. People think it sounds ridiculous when I tell them I lived on Maui for two months, but I’ve learned that traveling to “dream” destinations doesn’t have to be expensive. I spent less than $1,500 to enjoy two months on Maui, and at least half of that went towards my…
-
What She Packed: 2 months WWOOFing on Maui
It’s my very first packing post! I don’t usually write about what I bring with me when I travel, even though it’s a topic people ask me about. But, before I left for Hawai’i back in January, I did take photos of everything I was bringing with me, so, I figured, why not blog about it? Wondering what to take with you to work on an organic farm in a tropical climate? Or how to fit 2 months worth of items into a 50L backpack? Just feeling a little voyeuristic and want to look at all my stuff? This is the post for you! What I brought to Maui: Clothing:…
-
The Pros and Cons of WWOOFing on Maui
Do you want to live in Hawai’i for free?! Um… maybe. The answer to this question isn’t as simple as you might think. I lived and worked on Maui for 2 months by WWOOFing. To refresh your memories, WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and provides people with the chance to take part in work-trade programs all around the world. In exchange for room and board, volunteers work part-time as farmers. I’ve written about this program and other alternative ways to travel the world before. This time around, though, I want to talk specifically about my experiences WWOOFing, and share with you the pros and cons of…
-
Tea Tuesday: Home From Hawai’i
You may have noticed on the sidebar that my current location has changed. This time last week, E and I said our goodbyes to Maui, and returned to New England. It was an interesting first week back: Monday night we slept on a beach in Hawai’i, Tuesday night we slept on a bench in the San Diego airport, and Wednesday night, after more than 24 hours of traveling, we slept in a bed at E’s parents’ house in New Hampshire. It was our first time sleeping in a real bed in two months! After just one day of recovering from our jet lag, we were off again! Luckily, we were…
-
I actually just write a gardening blog now
I spent seven hours doing farm work in a white shirt today. There’s dirt under my fingernails and mosquito bites all along my arms, but I feel better than I did after working the same shift last Thursday. Last week, I was too tired to blog, and too grumpy to cook dinner. This week, the hot water in the shower isn’t working, and I’m not even dreading the cold shower that awaits me when I’m done writing this post. We planted sweet potatoes today. A few weeks ago, some of the workers cleared out all the unwanted plants from a papaya grove, and today we went through and started rebuilding…
-
Tea Tuesday: The Tea Garden
I mentioned in my last Tea Tuesday post that Hana Farms grows many plants that can be made into herbal tea. They’re also working on making a designated tea garden, which is a number of stepped beds located beside the farm’s communal buildings. Apparently, this area was entirely overgrown just a few weeks before I got here, but E’s sister started clearing the land and uncovered some forgotten stepped beds. The tea garden has become her pet project, and she has been rebuilding the rock walls out of the farm’s plentiful lava rocks, turning the soil, and planting. So far, there aren’t a lot of plants growing, although there is…
-
Maui: First Impressions
I had trouble deciding what to call this post. These can’t really be my first impressions of Hawaii when I’ve only been to Maui. But I haven’t seen much of Maui either because in my first week at the farm I only left the property once. Hana Farms is technically located in Hana, but, until today (my second trip off the farm) I hadn’t actually seen the town. So, are these my first impressions of Maui, Hana, WWOOFing? It’s unclear. Regardless, here’s how this latest adventure is going so far. When E and I stepped off the plane into the humid Hawaiian air, the first thing I noticed was the…
-
Tea Tuesday: It wasn’t meant to be
The farm where I’m working in Hawaii grows many different kinds of fruits and vegetables, including a number of herbs that can be made into tea. The most plentiful and identifiable, at least for me, are definitely the mint plants that grow in and among the beds in the vegetable garden. On this farm, they act as a cover plant, which means they take up space where unwanted weeds might otherwise grow. The mint is not explicitly tended to, in part because this variety of mint grows without much encouragement (it grew beside the driveway of my childhood home), but it’s presence is useful and appreciated. As I was walking…
