It started with a Google search: “volunteer at retreat centers”. Kalani Oceanside Retreat came up. The center is located 45 minutes from Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii. This is the rainy side of the island and so it is wet, lush and beautiful.
I am living in a double room with a woman from Texas who is older. I share a single bathroom with 13 other volunteers! Most volunteers seem to be in their late 20’s and gay – men and women. The center is promoted as a gay destination. We work at various jobs (I work in the kitchen) about 25 hrs per week and the rest of the time is our own. The black sand beach is 1½ miles down the road. One volunteer told me she swam with dolphins at the beach yesterday. Today I went into the one street town of Pahoa. It’s the one place I can get cell coverage. This is a very isolated part of the island.
What have I learned so far?
1. Bugs don’t bother me- there are a ton here! There are lots of tiny sugar ants, flying cockroaches, and mosquitoes.
2. I don’t like being damp all the time. It’s almost like Seattle only warm and so nothing dries out. Mold grows on everything really fast. The winter is the rainy season – something I didn’t know before I came.
3. Sharing a room again for the first time in over 30 years is quite different and a bit of a challenge.
4. Being an oldster is a new experience. Most of the folks here could be my children.
5. Having so many gay men here, I feel invisible as a woman.
6. I am not a hippie. Most people here are very alternative in their views and lifestyles. I am much more mainstream than I thought.
7. I do like that I have a lot of support for the adventure I am on. Most everyone here is on sometime of journey or they have ended a journey by living at Kalani full time.
Surprisingly, I am recognizing that being alone and away from family and friends is losing it’s appeal. Most folks here are looking to ‘find themselves’ and have time to just ‘be’. They are getting away from or leaving behind an old life. I have been doing that for 8 months and now I find I am not so interested in that anymore. I have learned a lot about just ‘being’. Also, I am getting very tired of living out of suitcases and meeting new people all the time. I want to start to integrate being and doing now. Working actually interests me now. Who would have thought that was going to happen?
Personalities here are wide and varied. I watch and listen to the gossip already. There is drama and knowing looks I see from the people who have lived here for many month and even years. There are cliques just like in any small closed community.
Am I glad I came? Yes, if for no other reason than for the experience. Will I stay the full three months that I planned? Somehow I don’t think so. I am looking into going over to Kona, on the dry side of the island where I have a Seattle friend. Perhaps I can find a room and a part time job so I can stay the winter in Hawaii and fulfill a live long dream of not just visiting but living on a tropical island.
Aloha!
