Hawaiian Christmas 1992: New home, Paka-lolo and Family Reunion

In September of 1992, my mother and I left our home and family in American Samoa to go to Hawaii and find work in order to buy plane tickets for the rest of the family to join us. 

Our goal was to have them with us by Christmas.  But, we weren't earning enough, fast enough to accomplish this.  We did, however, have enough money to bring my two teenage sisters over with the hope that they would find jobs and help with the money situation.

Once my tall, tanned, blond and blue-eyed sisters arrived, my mom gave them the task of finding us a rental home someplace near since she and I worked 12 to 14 hours a day for FEMA during the Hurricane Iniki disaster.  We left it to them to make the phone calls and travel by bus to look at rentals and secure housing for us.

According to them, it was a despicable job.  My two sisters are like night and day and asking them to work together was like tossing a cat and a dog in a basket and asking them to help each other get out.  They looked at one house in Kaneohe and called it good, paid the landlord the security deposit and rode the bus back to Honolulu with the news.

So, we moved out of my Aunty P.'s house (see previous post) and into a three bedroom, one bath home in the shape of an L.  There was a basement which had been divided into two apartments.  We had no back yard as it was perched on the side of a hill above a dense jungle.  We had no front yard either, as it was at the end of a small cul-de-sac and ccompletely paved over.

Our first night in the house was quiet and peaceful.  We had no furniture.  We made our beds on the soft, clean carpet with sheets and pillows we had purchased at the local JC Penney.  Our windows were covered with a screen and had glass louvers that we could adjust to allow for the south pacific breezes to blow in from the ocean about a mile away.  Faint reggae music could be heard from the apartment below and as I lay there in the semi-darkness, listening and chatting quietly with my mom and sisters, I detected a sweet scent wafting in through our windows.

I breathed in deeply, trying to place the scent, but could not identify it.  I took in another deep breath, and then commented to my family, "Do you smell that?  What do you think it is?"  My sisters inhaled deeply, as well as my Mom, who groaned and told me to close the windows.  Alarmed, I asked why.

"It's paka-lolo," she explained.  Paka-lolo is Hawaiian for pot.  I glared at my sisters who sat there with wide eyes, "How could rent a house with neighbors doing pot?" I accused.  My younger sister pointed at the other and claimed innocence in the housing decision.  The other sister, rolled her eyes and said, "Next time we have to rent a house - you do it!"

Me on the left with my two wonderful sisters.

A week or so later, we sent these two same sisters of mine to get Christmas decorations and do the grocery shopping in preparation for the arrival of the rest of the family that was due to arrive 2 days before Christmas.  My sister, the one with the mile long legs, dragged our other sister down the road to the nearest grocery store and bought the makings for our Christmas dinner. 

On their way back, they stopped by a roped off area of the parking lot where Christmas tress were being sold.  My long-legged sister is the queen of flirt and somehow managed to secure a large Christmas tree for us.  The other sister had to drag it home and together, (they finally worked it out between them how to get along) they propped the tree up in the living room inside a used tire they found alongside the road, strung lights around the tree and draped it with silver string "icicles".

We didn't have stockings for Santa to fill, so Mom and I collected the old coffee cans from our office break room and then decorated them as best we could with white copy paper that we cut into snow flakes and red and green markers to add festive color.  We even used the left-over party decorations from the office Christmas party to decorate our home with.

By the time the rest of the family arrived, on December 23rd, 1992, our home was decked out and everyone was so happy that we were finally reunited.  I was so excited to see everyone.  I missed them so much - more than I ever expected to. 

Reunited after nearly four months

When we got home from the airport, we spread out a white sheet on the living room floor, and had a feast of roasted turkey, rice, mashed potatoes, salad, pineapple, bread, pies, macaroni salad and candied yams. 

That Christmas was one of the best I ever had.