By Kim Steutermann Rogers
A little encounter at the Maui airport: Two hours early at my gate, I jot notes in my journal as a quiet man named Henry Atay brushes crumbs, bits of paper and other debris off the carpet. He empties trash bins, polishes railings, and we talk about the brush fire raging for four days now along the west Maui mountains. He says it’s only 50% contained. He says authorities are not sure the cause—be it arson or accident. He shakes his head and says it’s not the visitors who litter our islands, it’s the locals, our kids. He says he sees young guys smoking cigarettes as they drive, holding cigarettes between thumbs and forefingers, hanging their arms out their windows and down the sides of their car doors until—cigarette singing their fingertips—they toss it aside; and he stops his cleaning to look at me with eyes soft and brown like the hint of his Polynesian nose.
Another encounter, earlier in the morning: I am leaving the hotel; it’s 6:00 a.m. and the sun is washing the same, smoldering west Maui mountains, smoke rising to greet morning mist. I ask the bell captain about the windmills dotting a nearby ridgeline. He tells me they produce 10% of the island’s electricity, yet those people up there, and he nods in the direction of gentrified Wailea, they complain, he says, the white windmills blight their views of paradise; and he turns to me, “But it’s for our children, yeah?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, and I look up there at those houses with the views where our children don’t live, and, later, I’ll think, yeah, for our children, our cigarette-flicking children.
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What does it take to foster the idea of respect with children? Respect for ones self, for the land, for other people. As I think back to my own growing children; I remember that I was a participant with them in helping the community. We volunteered with many projects; feeding the homeless, weekend school clean-up, bake-sales and more. I think it helped them with a broader feeling of ownership. They were never careless with their lives. Perhaps it is the careless adults who create careless children, cigarette-flicking children.
This morning I was met with something grotesque and confusing. At dawn I went to the south end of Kealia to walk my dogs and got the faintest wiff of a carcus; not uncommon on this section of beach. I strolled toward the river with the intent to cross over to the beach. There is a giant black garbage sack full of something and a river of maggots pouring forth. It's only 7:30 am so I'll wait for the county to open before calling the board of health.
In a place where the dump is free--in most cities there is a fee of at least 35.00, I scratch my head over someone leaving this on the beach. Obviously it is not laziness or money in question.
Sometimes I see dumped entrails or dead fish by the Wailua River and I understand the crabbers are just fattening the crabs. It's gross, but I get it. What is this then?
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