Aloha rainbow--Hawai'i welcomes my daughter back as a kama'aina should be

[DFW]

In her years there, my daughter came to feel as a kama'aina--a true Hawaiian. Her best friends were from the Big Island, and even people on O'ahu told her she talked like someone from the Big Island (not bad for a German). She is now there with her man and their two daughters, visiting with his eldest son (from his first marriage), who is spending a year "abroad" at her old school on the Big Island. While driving down to the volcano, mother nature decided to show them a welcome, Hawaiian style, with a perfectly placed rainbow.



For a young guy who has only lived in Germany, my granddaughters' half brother seems to have adapted to life in Hawaii rather quickly. It has been less than a year, but he is definitely no longer the gawky kid who left Germany for the Big Island last August.

[elleng]

1. ALOHA!!!

[proud patriot]

2. Aloha

I'm on big Island ..

[AuntyGravity]

4. Me too

[proud patriot]

20. Well Cool

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Wonderful photos, my dear DFW!

It's always amazing to see what kind of adult our children grow up into. Congrats on your daughter's happy transition to being Hawaiian.

[DFW]

5. Thanks, Peggy!

She's Hawaiian while she's there, but when she's in Washington, where she went to undergrad and interned for Emily's List, she reverts to being a Washingtonian. When she's back in New York, where she went to Law school, she's once again a New Yorker, and when she's back on Cape Cod, she reverts to being the Cape Codder she was in her childhood summer vacations, hanging out with the locals in Wellfleet and Provincetown. And when she is at home in Germany, she once again becomes the Rheinländer she was growing up. It was very much our wish to have our girls grow up as citizens of the world, not being limited to one country, language or point of view. In that, at least, we think we have achieved a modest degree of success.

[Hekate]

6. Me ke Aloha to you all on your splendiferous journey

[DFW]

7. Mahalo Hekate, but we're not along this time

My daughter and her family had the time. I did not. I was in Holland on Friday and have to be back in Spain tomorrow. Taking the day off in Germany today (some kind of holiday, or so I'm told).

We'll be back there some day!

[Roy Rolling]

8. "Adapted to life in Hawaii"

I am up for that challenge. In fact, I’m willing to visit and practice at the earliest opportunity.

[DFW]

10. Some find it to be more of a challenge than a two week vacation makes it seem.

You still eventually look for something to do with yourself, and my daughter, while loving the place, came to the conclusion that the time had come to move on after a couple of years there. If you grew up there, that's one thing. But she grew up in the German Rheinland, going with us on trips to close-by countries like Holland and Switzerland, and visiting relatives in Washington, New York and New England. She determined, correctly, that if she was to have a job and career that were to allow her to go back and visit Hawai'i--and anywhere else--whenever she wanted, she would need skills that could only be acquired elsewhere. Keep in mind that this is someone who, at age 2, was dubbed by a neighbor "Madame 10,000 volts."

After graduating from that school on the Big Island, she went to undergrad in Washington DC, Law School in New York, and then accepted a position with the Frankfurt arm of a British law firm, and then got head-hunted by the Frankfurt arm of a big New York law firm, where she became their youngest partner ever at age 31. Like our neighbor said, Madame 10,000 volts, although she learned to chill out as well. She can be found in a t-shirt and jeans at her house near Frankfurt (or at her former roomie's house in South Kona, being of that generation), with a glass of lilikoi juice on a nearby table, an infant daughter in one hand, and an i-Pod in the other hand, hammering out legalities for some proposed billion euro project of BMW. She makes many multiples of what I do, but then I was never more than a 15 volt guy.

[Roy Rolling]

17. Ha!

“Madame 10,000 Volts” is a good name. But if you’re a 15-volt guy, isn’t that a competitive edge in a country that once featured a 6-volt Volkswagen in a 12-volt automobile world? 😜

On a positive note, she settled near her hometown. I found Hawai’i primarily a tourist destination—like where I live—and the pressure of a tourist economy with low-paying locals has a limited career future.

Some tims you just gotta move on. ✌️

[DFW]

19. One of her classmates who never left did really well

She invented a cosmetics line which not only sells locally, but is prominently featured in airline magazines on flights to the islands. But my daughter could never have landed her job there. She was right to move on.

I sort of painted myself into a corner, jobwise. I structured it over the years so that no one could take it away from me. Now, 30 years later, I can’t find a replacement. On the other hand, I’m writing this from an outdoor café in Barcelona, Spain, waiting for -a local colleague who is late—he’s originally from Málaga-, and enjoying the scenery. He wanted to see me today because it’s a holiday here in Spain, and no one will interrupt us in his office.

That’s one of the advantages of Europe. My people back in Dallas take two hour flights to run to Chicago or Phoenix for the day. With me, the short day trips are to Spain, France, Switzerland, etc. The pitiful thing is that some of my Texas-based colleagues think I’m the one who should be envying them. If they only knew!

[BlueMTexpat]

9. How lovely!

So glad they all got to have such an experience!

[mitch96]

11. Love the composition of the pic. The way the utility lines and the road all lead to the rainbow.. Neat!! nt

[DFW]

14. That with the utility lines was probably luck.

I think they took the photo for the rainbow arcing across the highway. I sometimes see similar scenes here, but from my window on a high-speed train, and the perfect shot is long gone before I can get my phone out.

[FakeNoose]

12. I love how some forward-thinking colleges have foreign exchange programs

It's a good thing for the students who get to take a year at another school abroad, and it's also good for the students who stay home and get to meet the international visitors.

My son (now in his 50's) went to University of Notre Dame back in the late 80's and early 90's. Notre Dame had (and still does have) a very active foreign exchange program with several colleges and universities in Europe. My son was interested in the University of Innsbruck where approximately 30 students from Notre Dame went to Austria for a year, and the same number of Austrians came to Notre Dame for the same time. They were able to maintain their grade averages, earn college credits, AND do a lot of really cool Eurorail trips around Europe during that time. It's an amazing experience for all involved.

[DFW]

13. In Germany, it's the high schools that encourage the year abroad.

My elder daughter spent a semester "abroad" at a public school in Dallas. The kids all stared at her like she was from another planet when she rode to school on a bicycle. She ended up coming back to Düsseldorf and graduating high school here.

The younger one opted for Hawai'i and got in, so I started blowing my inheritance money early on her. She liked it so much, she said she wanted to stay another year and graduate. I said OK, but remember that German universities won't admit you without that 13th year. She said, then to hell with Germany, I'll apply to college in the USA. She got in to GW in Washington, DC, and finished her education in the USA. Her high school in Düsseldorf had some rather snotty administrators who thought there was no better Gymnasium (upper level high school) around, and were very put off when we showed up to fill out the (in Germany mandatory) papers saying she was leaving the school. One requirement was that you had to state what school she was transferring to. With typical German arrogance, the form only left space for the school's name and city. Foreign countries don't have schools, after all, do they? So in the line for "school transferring to," we filled in George Washington University, and for "city," we filled in Washington, D.C. The snotty administrator came to review the form, and her mouth gaped at both "University" and "Washington, DC." Her nastiness gave way to wonder, and she said only, "viel Erfolg (much success)."

Actually, I was part of a very new (back then) program called "Schoolboys Abroad" in the late sixties. It was a mixture of local teachers from Barcelona and some teachers from the USA that came over for the year. We students lived with local families, who spoke Catalan, which is how I learned it. School was in Castilian, as Catalan schools and newspapers were still forbidden by the Franco regime. But it was a very eye-opening experience for me, and I was a heavy advocate of early school overseas ever since. Imagine what the Middle East would be like if every Arab high school kid had to spend a year of high school in Israel, speaking Hebrew with a Jewish family, and every Israeli Jewish kid had to spend a year with an Arab family, taking school in Arabic and living in an Arab country. I think there would be a lot more understanding and a lot less violence between the two peoples. Already at one dorm for graduate students from overseas at my college in Pennsylvania, there were two roommates, one an Israeli Jew, and the other a Palestinian Arab. They became best friends, although I never found out anything about them after their studies were done.

If EVERY high school kid in the world were to take a year of school abroad, preferably in a different language, it wouldn't be too soon, as far as I'm concerned.

[FakeNoose]

15. Amen my friend DFW - your posts are always so interesting and inspiring!

[DFW]

16. Thanks! Though I don't know if I inspire anybody

A bunch of whacko suggestions is what I usually end up offering, but I always liked Bobby Kennedy Sr.'s outlook on that--thinking of things that never were, and wondering, "why not?"

[Emile]

18. Black sand beach.