East-West Fest

Yep. Today will be the day that the East and the West will be showcasing their cultures. I stayed up late with my panpacific folks, drinking kava, eating roasted chicken with scones and 'wash-down' with Heineken - yeh my favorite beer since I came to Hawaii--the closest I can get to SP (South Pacific lager). Our group is called the 'kavaologists'. Now you might wonder what the heck is this. Well, the terminology is derived from the popular Melanesian traditional drink - Kava. It has been a tradition since the Spring Semester began that we gather every Friday evening, usually around 8 pm, outside Hale Halawai for tok stories. 'Hale' is hawaiian for house. Believe it or not, we are the only group at the EWC, the pacific islanders, that keep this place alive with our usual disturbances of laughing and singing. Last week the Housing people had to call the security on us 3 times. Well last night we stayed up until 4.00am. Geez, and now my eyes are sore red coz I only had two hours of sleep. Steve and Kuhio (my Hawaiian friends) joined us later in the night. Steve was drunk as hell. They were working at Steve's place and had two bottles of wine before coming over. Savada, my Afro-American friend came by as we were about to leave. Savada and I stayed for about 30 minutes after everyone had left. I still have a 6 pack of Heineken in my fridge.

Well, unfortunately I am not participating at the East-West Fest. My personal reason was that Ronnie (Solomon Islands' friend) and I were the only ones from the pacific manning our stall during the last Fest so I decided that I won't participate in this one. Well, my other more important reason was that I am really busy as this is my final semester and can't really find time to help out or participate in any cultural performances. Too bad! I'll see how the day goes. I wanted to do some work but my eyes are really aching. May be I'll take an hour or two of sleep and see if it helps...

I only managed to take an hours sleep. Went to the Festivities place and got myself a take-out of Indian curry chicken for lunch. At around 6.30pm I went down to the Chinese Dynasty restaurant and got a take-out of seasonal vegetables with beef. And as usual, dropped by the ice cream parlour and got a small cup of vanilla ice cream. Called Enid and Essie tonight. Enid arrived back from Motupore on Friday. They went up to Dr. Moiya's place at 9 mile to pick up his daughters coz I think Dr. Moiya and his wife were out of the country (PNG). Enid reminded me of Essie's birthday, which is on June 16th and Enid's is on June 7th. I do really have a bad memory.