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Fifty Golden Bracelets At the base of Mauna Kea rests a kind town called Waimea. It rains sideways at least twice a day, but you’ll always see sunshine. There’s only one road that leads to the cherry blossom field next to the hospital where you can buy strawberries and lychee from a Tacoma truck bed. When the clouds take their leave under the moonlight in Waimea, new constellations can be created. Waimea is where I learned to make poi. Pounding poi is an art form that has been a heartstring within Hawaiian culture for generations. The dusky purple root of kalo is ground by hand until it becomes a thick pudding. I learned this from Aunty Keala. Ku’ualoha Keala is a mentor. During the summer and after public school hours have passed, she spends her time caring for children in the Honoka’a community on Hawai’i Island. Some of them have parents who work in the evening, others don’t have anywhere else to go. They find her for guidance they don’t know they need. She teaches them and they follow her. At the end of my first month in Waimea, Aunty Keala offered me a seat at the imu, a celebration of the culture where leis are made, pigs are cooked in the earth and stories are passed. I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond when she extended this invitation to me. I wasn’t sure I belonged. But I went anyways. I felt like an outsider here. Despite the aloha presented to me on this night, I didn’t feel like I had earned the right to be in the presence of these people I revered. I took my time walking through the crowd of individuals deeply devoted to their tasks. As the flesh of my feet graced the coolness of the ground below, Aunty Keala motioned for me to sit with her while she worked. “Move with the kalo.” Aunty Keala tells me. “If we force it, tita, they neva like cooperate. Move with the kalo.” I followed the movement of her hands carefully with my eyes. Her fifty golden bracelets sang as her fingers danced with the root. “Do I have the right to be doing this with you?” I asked her. “Caregivers come from anywhere, tita. You give care to the kalo, you give care to Hawai’i.” She answered. Somehow, I no longer felt like an outsider. “Kalo is more than just a plant. You neva fo’get that behbeh girl.” I hear Aunty Keala tell me sternly, but so softly encapsulated. As we finished transforming the root, a foreign yet comforting wave of satisfaction washed away any doubts left in my being. We packed the poi into little baggies for the vast meal that was to be shared among friends, sons, daughters, lovers, aunts, uncles, strangers. Without speaking, she hugged me and walked into the crowd. I walked on, barefoot, watching strong women and men dance hula. Their movement as graceful as waves slowly breaking on the shoreline. Little girls with white flowers in their dark brown hair sat in the grass weaving lei. Their small hands were so delicate, their movements so natural, it was as if their fingers were woven with the ti leaf. The soft blueness of the sky was beginning to morph into golden strands of sunlight that looked as though it had been finger painted. I caught sight of Aunty Keala once more, this time towards the center of the crowd, her body not quite visible beneath the mass of plumeria flowers and toddler feet that surrounded her. The light of the dimming sun made her skin glow with an aura of rose as she continued to work, the same subtle smile never leaving her wrinkled and full lips.