Today I learned about the colorful language of Hawaii.

My older daughter and I love “treasure hunting” at thrift stores. You find things there that you can’t find during your basic Wal-Mart/Target/K-Mart experience. There are quirky things at a thrift store - like a set of ears of corn with little shoes glued on the bottom, little hats glued on the top and big eyeballs glued on the middle. One hat had a bow - I'm assuming it was the girl corn. They were cute. . . in a weird, anthropomorphic food sort of way. Kind of made me wonder if the reason they ended up in Goodwill was because they were overpopulating their previous home with those little baby corns you find in stir-fry. I mean, why else would you give up something so fascinating?

Anyway, during our most recent trip to a second-hand kids' store we found a bright green book entitled “Na Waiho’olu’u” or “The Colors” in the Hawaiian language. My daughter was born in another country, Japan, while my husband was in the Navy and we lived overseas. She has a certain innate desire to learn about the far corners of the world and especially enjoys learning words from other languages. So when she found out what the book was, she excitedly asked if we could get it for part of our “Mommy School” lessons. And I love it when my daughter is excited to learn about the world, so we came home with our bright green book and started learning...

The Hawaiian Colors:

‘Ula’ula – Red
‘Alani-Orange
Melemele – Yellow
‘Oma’oma’o-Green
Polu – Blue
Poni-Purple
Akala-Pink
‘Ele’ele –Black
Keo’oke’o-White
‘Ahinahina-Gray
Maku’e-Brown

(You can highlight the color names with your cursor

if you have problems reading them.)

I googled “Na Waiho’olu’u” and learned there’s a children’s song about colors, that my daughter will no doubt sing on a loop until she has it memorized.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2qX9elO6XU

I think about Hawaii sometimes because it was a path that we didn’t take. My husband had the choice of being stationed in either Hawaii or Japan, and we chose Japan. But there are times when I ponder what it would have been like if we’d have made the other choice. Our home has a lot of Japanese art and influence, our lives and habits have a lot of reflections of our life there. What would be different? What would we have learned about instead? Hula skirts vs. kimonos. Aloha vs. konnichiwa. Pineapple vs. mochi. While we have no regrets whatsoever about our choice, it’s an intriguing thought to entertain the “what-might-have-beens” of those three and a half years. I blame too much Sci-Fi, with their conveniently interesting parallel universe story lines. :)

I would love to visit Hawaii someday, and I suppose you could say it's a goal since a trip to every state in the U.S. is on my Bucket List. We'll see where life takes us...

Hmm....What should I learn tomorrow?
I'll keep you posted.