Day 5: The Best Day Yet

May 11, 2012

I almost got sick this morning!

Today Cedarville’s Alumni Association hosted a luau for us and the alumni on the island. It was luau so of course we had to have a pig.

Last night Dr. Elliot contacted us about a cultural experience. He said that a local would be coming to light the fire for the pig at 7a.m.

So at 7 this morning I watched as several locals prepared a fire that would later contain Little Wilbur, that’s the name I gave to the pig.  I probably shouldn’t have named the pig; it made it a bit hard to eat him later.

Around 9a.m. Little Wilbur was placed into the fire hole. We were in class at the time but our class and the Old Testament class took about a 20-minute break to watch the long process. I never knew there was such a process to smoking a pig, but I learned due to Little Wilbur's sacrifice.

Process for Smoking a Pig:

1. Dig a hole

2. Start a fire with stones, branches and leaves

3. Let the fire burn for about two hours

4. Let the flames die down

5. Prepare the pig

6. Put the pig in the smoking hole

7. Layer leaves and branches over the pig

8. Layer wet sackcloth over the branches

9. Put a tarp over the sackcloth

While the pig was cooking I had a great day, the first free day of the week.

After class Lindsey, Alyssa and I were walking to lunch when we spotted a HUGE centipede right in front of us on the sidewalk. We whipped out our cameras; we didn’t know how fast it would move, it had a lot of legs.  Well it didn’t move at all, odd. So I poked it with a stick. It didn’t move. It was dead.

I picked the dead centipede up; it was prank time. I scared several girls, boys and professors…it was great!

After lunch a bunch of the group went to Turtle Beach. The beach was one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen.

At the beach we climbed up a huge lava rock formation. It was bit nerve racking for me because basically if I made one wrong slip I would be dead; I’m a bit clumsy so I could see something bad happening.

Luckily only fun and adventures occurred. We saw beautiful waves and wildlife!

Following our hiking adventure, we lived life like normal people would at a day at the beach. We laid out, played Frisbee and we buried each other in the sand.

I’ve been buried in the sand but never like I was today. I literally could not get out of the sand. I couldn’t get out because we dug a hole, I got in, and then I was basically buried alive. The weight of the sand was so heavy that it impaired my breathing.

New Fear: being buried alive

On the way back from the beach Mark, the guy the alumni association sent to work on the luau/our driver for the day, set his shoes on the roof of the car. However, he forgot that he had done that until we were getting out of the car back at the conference center. At that point there was only one sandal left on the roof. Mark was freaking out, “Those are my favorite shoes.”

Alyssa and I hopped back into the car and helped Mark look for his shoe while he retraced the trip to the beach.

He found it!

With the comfort of knowing his shoes were safe, Mark was able to prepare for the luau and so were we.

The luau started at 6 in the evening and continued until about 9. It was very interesting. There was traditional Hawaiian foods and people too, some local women came dressed in long floral printed dresses and danced for us.

After the luau I was hungry so because as I was eating the pulled pork I just kept thinking of poor Little Wilbur. After the celebration was done pretty much all of us students took a little walk to McDonald’s.

Today was basically the best day! It is surprising how close we have come in just five days!

I have also been able to learn a little bit about Hawaiian culture as well. Today in class, we talked about different cultural dimensions. Now I don't claim to know everything about Hawaiian culture yet, but I think that it might be able to fit into Hofstede's Collectivism category. It appears that community is big in Hawaiian culture. It also appears that they are proud of their heritage.  There are different heritages on the Island. The different cultures help form different in and out groups.

That's all that I've noticed so far about Hawaiian culture. I'm definitely not an expert yet, but I can't wait to learn more!