January 24, 2016
Day 14: Pahoa: Apa'a Street and the Maku'u Farmers' Market
Last year we cancelled our reservations in Pahoa, as lava marched toward the town. Then we followed events on the internet as the flow burned down one house and threatened the garbage transfer station on Apa'a Street. It looked like lava would flow through town, in the vicinity of the post office, and/or head north and cut the main road in the vicinity of the fire station. Then magically, though the eruption continued upslope, the lava stopped its advance on the town. We cycled up from Hilo for a look, but had to stop at a National Guard barricade on Apa'a Street.
Now a little over a year later we are back, and still eager to see exactly what happened. We never did understand quite where the burned house was, and just from what angle the lava had hit the transfer station. So this morning we began by cycling over there. The National Guard is gone, now replaced by a stream of residents misusing their Sunday morning to carry garbage to the dump. But there is no mistaking that this is now a significant site. Vehicles not carrying garbage were taxis and mini vans carrying those like us - the curious.
When you see it right in front of you, it's like nothing you can gather from the TV. You see the height and latent power of the lava, and you see where it came from and where it was heading. Looking upslope/ up the road there is the main lava flow on the right. That is the side with the transfer station. About 300 feet up from the station a finger of lava crossed the road, and there on the left is where it took out the house. Only the shed and a remnant of metal roof remains to be seen.
The main flow continued to the transfer station, where for some reason it slammed on the brakes. It stopped at the chainlink fence of the station, though in spots it flowed through and down onto the tarmac. It was not the fence that protected the station. The lava just stopped.
The legends of Pele, the Volcano goddess, state that she can appear disguised as a lovely maiden or as an old woman. If people give food to the old woman, Pele is ok, but if not - she descends in fire to destroy them. Whether that is accurate or not, I would like to have this lady working for me - and maybe she could include sideswiping cyclists in her list of burning offenses? Anyway, maybe somebody did some good deeds those days, because Pele dramatically backed off.
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Our next stop was one of the many farmers' markets that we had mapped out on the Island. We had noticed this one along the highway leading to Pahoa by its many covered stalls. Whenever we had been here the stalled had been empty, and looked very inviting as places to sleep. But today was a market day!
We expected it but were still a little surprised to see one to two hundred market stalls all occupied, and a parking lot already stuffed with cars when we arrived, about 10 a.m. We locked our bikes to a fence with our dollar store joke chains, and set off to explore.
One of the first stalls we came to gave us samples of what is becoming a favourite food - kulolo - taro, in various forms. There is watery, pounded taro - poi, and there are versions with sugar and with coconut. Some versions would be used like mashed potatoes, some are dessert. The people, both behind the counter and other customers were eager to show and explain these versions. We actually liked them all, but were most pleased to discover further in to the market the man who had sold us "hulolo" by the roadside the other day. He recognized us, and was very pleased when we told him how much we liked his stuff. He says this way of combining the traditional ingredients of coconut and taro was invented by his uncle. Of course, he says, it has been copied but never equalled. We don't know about that, but we are now hoarding what could be our last tray of genuine "huolo".
The next dramatic thing at the market was of course the piles of fruit. For a year I have gone back in my computer longingly looking at a photo I took of an entire trailer load of papaya. These are the little guys sold for about $5 each back home (and which we never ever buy because of that). Here we casually picked up a bag of four big ones for $2. There was starfruit too, succulent yellow ripe, - and probably my new fruit pinup - cases of hairy red rambutan. And oh, cases of giant fresh ginger roots, and bananas of many kinds, and... If you love fruit, like us, it's hard to contain the joy.
One end of the market was devoted to prepared foods that could be eaten on site. The mixture of ethnic groups in Hawaii made for a wonderful mixture of available foods. The things came from the Hawaiian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Filipino, and even Italian cuisines, and a lot was being prepared and cooked on site. I am glad to report that there were no burgers of fries to be seen.
Two wood fired cooking operations were ongoing. One was a wood fired chicken BBQ, with a homemade rotisserie made from an old trailer, and the other was a wood fired pizza oven, also trailer based. One of the more unique bits of cooking apparatus was a kind of waffle iron with depressions in the shape of a fish. These were filled with a pancake type batter and a variety of other fillings, producing a filled pancake fish. The dish seems to be Japanese, from its name - Taiyaki.
With the mix of ethnicities and lifestyles, a good photographer - with a long lens - could make many good candid portraits at a market like this. With my little camera and not much time, I did shoot a few of the people around. Maybe these shots will give some sort of idea of the human interest of the market:
Gallery of Market People
Quite wilted by the sun, we returned to our room early - before noon - to enjoy our stash of fruit and for a nap. It is too far to go to Ahalanui and back, or that would have been our choice. But later we will sally forth again, this time for a look at the grocery store - Malama Market - that had been closed and emptied in the face of the advancing lava. Now we are just curious about their price for bread and eggs. Mālama by the way, means to take care of, to serve and to honor, to protect and watch over. We like that.
Postscript: Malama Market
Despite the name, the Mālama Market seems to be doing its best to be just an ordinary American small grocery store. I was hard pressed to find much unique or local in there. In fact, the first unique thing I came to was a pile of bright orange oranges. Real, local, oranges are dull and splotchy. But these were from California and could easily be found in a Safeway in Seattle. I took their picture, because after just a couple of weeks here, fruits that bright seem worth recording.
One thing that might have been local and unique was a "Pistachio Pudding Cake". Now pistachios do not grow here (I think), but the lurid green colour seemed vaguely tropical. I can now report that the taste was ... sweet, and the texture soft and moist. I think those are vaguely local attributes.
My last research area was on bananas. I am still hung up on this thing of $1 per banana, though at the market this morning we did get four for $2. Malama had bananas "on sale". I got two for $1.35. I think for bananas at reasonable cost I will need to return to frozen Canada!
Today's ride: 15 km (9 miles)
Total: 445 km (276 miles)
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