While the fellow members of my STINT team are my co-workers
in the ministry that I do at UH Hilo, during our hours not on campus they are
also my family while I’m on the Big Island.
That meant when my birthday rolled around in March, they were ready to
celebrate me, STINT-style.
My birthday began with my team “love-bombing” my door while
I was asleep the night before. We make
personalized door decorations for each person’s birthday on our team. Amanda’s door was covered in Star Trek
insignia signs, Christine’s in Hello Kitty pictures, and Sarah’s was covered
with chocolate. I opened my door that
morning to find my door decorated with a poster covered with haikus my team had
written about me. That was pretty
spectacular.
 |
| One of the haikus posted on my door by my STINT team. Aww. Poetry in motion! |
That night they got me dinner from Full Moon Café, a Thai
restaurant that’s my favorite place in Hilo.
Everyone came over and we all did some line dancing; Katie taught
Slappin’ Leather and I taught Wild Wild West and our team danced around the
living room. There aren’t a ton of
places for me to dance in Hilo, and even where there are I didn’t really have
friends there yet, so it was really special for me to get to dance with my
friends that night.
Then it was time for cake and presents. Christine and Kimiyo had MacGyvered a black
forest cake although we lacked some pans and necessary ingredients for the real
deal. Tasty. I also received the Super Mario Bros. movie
on DVD (“It’s a Blast!” reads the box.
Seriously hilarious.), a TIE-fighter Lego set, samurai sword chopsticks
and Boggle. (I challenge anyone reading
this to a match of Boggle. It’s one of
my favorite games and no one I know seems to like it as much as I do. Sad day.)
Graciously my team played a few rounds of Boggle with me before bowing
out and heading home for the evening.
That weekend I got to pick an activity for us to do, and so
we ventured out to the volcano fields out at Volcano Park down south of
us.
 |
| Volcano fields. We were standing on what was once flowing lava. |
It was an incredible place, and one
of the most unique landscapes I have ever seen.
The rock underneath you is black and porous. Everywhere you can see where the ground was
once flowing, and how it piled up in ripples and then cooled into solid
masses. You can see where the hot liquid
lava took one route or another, and how it cracked and created crevasses once
it became solid again. The fields are
right next to the ocean, so there is a cool, strong ocean breeze crossing over
the fields all the time. We walked out
to where the cooled lava met the ocean, and watched the powerful waves crash
and break on the black rocks.
 |
| Christine and I enjoy the ocean spray |
The land
looks desolate—across from the volcano fields there are forests, but here the
vegetation was all burnt and destroyed from the molten rock covering
everything. But even though the black
sand doesn’t look like it could produce anything, spots of green shoot up and
stand out in the otherwise barren landscape.
We passed a lot of coconuts that had sprouted and were growing new
trees. As the light faded, we had to
break out our flashlights, but further up on the mountain we could see the glow
of red hot lava. It was distant, but
every once in a while it gave off a spurt of light. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to see some more
lava up close before I leave.
 |
| New life growing in the volcanic soil |
All in all it was definitely a memorable birthday and one of
my better ones. The cake might not have
been quite right and I was far from home, but it was a birthday where I felt
known and celebrated. And to me, that’s
a good birthday.
No comments:
Post a Comment