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Reply to "Puna"

Puna is a zone most who reside there probably wish I wouldn't tell you about.

Or more specifically, the zone along the shoreline near the Red Road.

A bit of an eye-opener really.

I friend has been living here for about a year so I took them up on their endless invitations to come for a bit.

So in what would be about the equivalent of a lower 48 county, this zone is served by what is a rural road, some parts paved, some not. This road is never more than about 100 yards from the ocean. It traverses through jungle and over lava flows. Every 50 or 100 yards there is a two track and down each one of these are numerous parcels of land accommodating residents. All of this is off-grid, although there is wi-fi coverage amazingly in some places. The resident live under tarps and in very innovative minimal structures that resemble what would happen if someone started building a house but stopped after getting just the roof up. These places are furnished various was from delux -like everything you'd see in a house furniturewise- to bare basics resembling just an encampment. Occasionally someone has a few solar panels. Water is from rain catchments.

Practically no one I've met in the neighborhood works.

Need breakfast, stroll over to your guava and mango trees, or take a short walk to the beach with your net.

Most the people here seem to have families, lots of children. I've met numerous women in their early to late 30's with four or six kids. They all go to the public school and that's about the extent of the family's interaction with the mainstream social fabric.

Since my friend is native american and lives on a parcel owned by a native american I've been socializing at numerous social functions like traditional birthday ceremonies, swet lodges, and 'meetings' -the native american church kind that go on for two days and involve eating 'medicine' and assorted other rituals I of course don't quite comprehend the significance of.

Since the weather here never various much, it is always between 70 and 85 degrees, can rain off and on for ten minutes ten times a day or not, you can see how life here is way more than easy. And reeeaaaaaaalllllly slow-paced.

At a traditional ceremony/party for a boy's first brithday last Tuesday we were at a residence out of some post-civilizational scene. Deep in a cane field among two minimal 'houses' and a huge tarp awning with about 40 adults and as many really young children everyone looking like they were out of some wilderness novel. Sweet. The food was amazing, nothing cooked, and even the birthday cake was all raw ingredients with intense colors of blue and yellow.

Pictures later. It's time to get naked down on the beach.

Aloha.
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