After this legislative session, we once again have too many examples of how not to be a good leader in Hawaii.
I have a story from Kohala on the Big Island about how to face challenges in Hawaii. Maybe it will help our legislators stuck on the pay-to-play train to understand what it means to come together to actually help our communities instead of remaining under the thumbs of their benefactors.
Just before 4 a.m. last Saturday, Willette Kalaokahaku Akima-Akau was woken by her husband, Eddie, who told her that the driveway to their home across the street from the docks of Kawaihae Harbor was flooded with 3 to 4 feet of water.
A thunderstorm from the west had pushed tremendous amounts of water onto the slopes of Kohala Mountain. The water rushed through gulches back down to the sea. A river formed between her house and the Blue Dragon nightclub next door, sweeping up two of her family’s vehicles and pushing them 50 feet before they hung up against the trunks of mango trees.
There had been rain before, but not like this. Historically, this part of Hawaii only gets 7 to 10 inches of rain a year. More than 6 inches fell in a few hours and the strength and swiftness of the storm moved big rocks, carved gulleys and resculpted shorelines all around Pelekane Bay.
Akima-Akau was brokenhearted to see the damage, but with her family safe, she began to focus on her community.
Her efforts displayed the kind of community-focused leader we’re desperate for in Hawaii.
Akima-Akau was recently elected president of the Kawaihae Canoe Club (I was also elected to the board), and the club was to host a long-distance race Saturday with more than 500 paddlers from across Hawaii island.
The storm forced the race, with 92 six-person crews signed up, to be canceled. The harbor-side grounds of the club had a huge ravine torn through the parking lot that extended to the beach, filled with brown water. A concrete barrier had been snapped in half by the force of the water. Roads across Kohala were littered with rock and debris. Canoe hulls overflowed and had to be bailed out by hand. A brown plume of ranchland run-off extended a mile out to sea.
The real estate brochures and listings for this part of West Hawaii leave out the mentions that after significant rains the waters off Kohala are silty like coffee grounds, sticky with mud instead of sand. Goat carcasses are often swept into the coastal waters by flash floods. It’s said the sharks dine well after big storms.
Embodiment Of Laulima
Instead of racing, canoe crews shoveled debris from the beach and club members brought in their own heavy machinery to fill the gully and smooth out the beach. This was the true embodiment of the Hawaiian notion of laulima — many hands working together to get the job done.
Club members and friends came over to Akima-Akau’s house to help dig out the driveway. Despite being buried in muck, her almost-high school graduate boy was convinced that once free, the white truck would start on the first crank. A friend said he’d buy the truck for a thousand dollars because it was already filled with pohaku ready for an imu.
The members of the club had prepared a huge Hawaiian lunch for all the paddlers, which was repurposed into a thank you lunch for volunteers, plus the police, county and state workers that had cleared the roads and highways.
Despite the destruction, disappointment didn’t win. There was instead a spirit of kokua and connection.
We’ve seen too many stories about our leaders being involved in pay-to-play politics, thwarting clean elections and failing to keep our communities safe. The selfishness and cynicism has dissuaded many of us from participating in the most basic level in our politics.
For too many decades, Hawaii has been trapped in a terrible cycle where temporary residents have repeatedly made short-sighted choices that have harmed the permanent residents.
Those choices have undercut the possibility of dynamism in places like Kohala. A Civil Beat story on Sunday highlighted how Hawaii island is losing residents in their prime working and childbearing years and that older people and retirees are moving to the island.
Akima-Akau, a middle school teacher at a Hawaiian immersion school, has practiced a culture of pilina, of creating networks and breaking down the silos that exist in a part of Hawaii that not only has great wealth, but a long-standing local community fighting to hold on to their culture and keep their children from leaving Hawaii forever. She has done the hard work of establishing a culture of collaboration.
Last month, she accepted an award from the Hawaii Community Foundation and Na Kalai Wa’a for work the club has done to practice, teach and perpetuate a culture of kuleana.
That spirit of helping, of kokua and connection is the real stuff of leadership. I was reminded of the many times I’ve witnessed communities come together, including in times of even deeper crises, like the Maui wildfires.
Akima-Akau — and the people who showed up to follow her lead through helping and supporting — are great examples of how to lead in Hawaii.
True leadership in Hawaii these days is not about any one individual stepping in to save the day. True leadership in Hawaii is people like Akima-Akau who inspire others to want to make our communities, and Hawaii, better, together.
