Pāʻina, pule, a me hula.

Or to put it another way, party, prayer, and hula. Yesterday was the end-of-the-semester party for the whole Hawaiian Language College, with each class performing something such as a hula, or a mele (song or chant). It was started off with the most beautiful choral a capella rendition of the Lord's Prayer set to music I've ever heard. In Hawaiian, of course.

E ko mākou Makua i loko o ka lani,

E hōano ‘ia Kou inoa.
E hiki mai Kou aupuni,
E mālama ‘ia Kou makemake ma ka honua nei,
E like me ia i mālama ‘ia ma ka lani lā.
E hā‘awi mai iā mākou i kēia lā
i ‘ai mākou no nēia lā.
E kala mai ho‘i iā mākou i kā mākou lawehala ‘ana,
me mākou e kala nei i ka po‘e i lawehala i kā mākou.
Mai ho‘oku‘u ‘Oe iā mākou i ka ho‘owalewale ‘ia mai;
E ho‘opakele nō na‘e iā mākou i ka ‘ino.
No ka mea, Nou ke aupuni,
A me ka mana,
A me ka ho‘onani ‘ia a mau loa aku.
‘Āmene

Our class performed our haʻiʻōlelo (speech) and hula smashingly, if the crowd reaction is any indicator. I can say that the difficulty level of our performance was pretty good for a first-year class, after watching all the other classes perform.

After the party as I was walking home, the storm that had been threatening to rain for two days finally opened up and poured. Several times I was wading through water up to my ankles on the journey home, as the drains simply couldn't keep up with the influx of water. But all that rain had a brilliant bright side, as I discovered when I got up this morning: we got snow on Mauna Kea!

View from our front yard.

I'm on the schedule to go up to the Vis tonight with the UAC, so I may have more pictures for you soon! (The snow won't be down to the level of the Vis, but I might be able to get some spectacular shots of the mountain above us.) A hui hou!