Mahuahua Ai O Hoi

This week we worked at Mahuahua Ai O Hoi, non-profit wetland organization in He'eia, Hawaii. Their mission is to restore the old He'eia ahupua'a system which stretched all the way to the base of the Ko'olau mountain range. Along this purpose, we spent a majority of our time in the developing lo'i, clearing grass and patches of mud along the ground and using this debris to help build up the walls around the lo'i. It was definitely one of the harder, wetter, and dirtier tasks we had thus far in the program, but we stuck through the initially unpleasant working conditions, and did our jobs. We also spend some of our time helping to maintain the nearby stream, which contained the spring water that supplied the lo'i. We removed California grass from the edge of the stream, to better and maintain the stream and perhaps to clear room for future kalo cultivation (I noticed that they were growing Kalo along the edge of the stream as well). Yesterday, we had also collected tree trunks, branches, leaves and other fallen debris (they were clearing a section of the land) and loaded them onto a truck, which properly disposes of the material. It was definitely a testing week for most of us, with greater bumps this time around, but we're glad to have made it this far, and we are more than determined to finish strong

-Robert