Maui Hale Symposium Completion

The hale building symposium completed today with five teams building on five sites over three days. The photo at right shows what a completed hale looks like, made of wood, stone, and leaves, lashed together with nylon cord (a modern change obviously).

The judges have scored the competition with the results to be announced tomorrow at the Hana Taro Festival. My role in this was to observe and score each day's work (a different team each day). The principles of competition are:

• Laulima: everyone contributing effectively
• Lokahi: harmony, cooperation and teamwork
• Uʻi, Nani: aesthetics, beauty
• Maikaʻi, Pono: correctness
• Kawikiwiki: timeliness

I observed three different teams over three days and saw first hand their various ways of working and responding to challenges. Throughout the work was without exception remarkably amicable and focused on helping everyone grow their skills and learn both the construction details as well as the cultural aspects. 

One story from the symposium may convent a bit of the real meaning of this event. Going into the final day, the team I was observing still had none of the palm leaves used to thatch the roof, and was busy building with all hands and had no time to go foraging leaves. Finally mid-morning they sent two guys out to collect leaves and soon after they left a truck pulled up loaded with leaves - another team had finished early and brought their spare material, knowing the leaves were needed. And once they got there they all pitched in and helped prepare the leaves and pass them up to the team who were thatching in parallel to quickly wrap up the job to completion. They took the principles of Laulima and Lokahi to not just one team, but to all participants.