29th till the 3rd- Punatics

So I was at my friends house in Puna, well it wasn't his house, he lived in the chicken coop behind the house. He was a Vietnam veteran who pursued armed revolution in Hawaii following what he saw and the conclusions he reached. He then eventually sold out and worked the Honolulu fish market, he was the king of the market. He could play the game and as such they built a $7m dollar empire from the ground up. However, my friend realised that they were fishing the world's breed stock, and that rich americans could go by fish from a place like Fiji, destroy the island's fishstock and turn a few million in the process. When the first gulf war began he droped out, it was too much. He left the buisness to his brother and headed to Pahoa, hippy haven of the big island, where he was a tomato grower for a number of years. I met him through a friend who stayed at a farm I was on who knew him from activist work during the build up to iraq this time round. He was also a renowned hemp activist and was integral in changing peoples perceptions around the world through information campaigns about

I arrived, it had been torentially raining for the past week and I was cold wet and smelly. I'd only had a few hours sleep cause I'd been out at the lava and was relieved to get to my friends place. We had some whiskey and joints and talked story about the state of the world and reflection on a radical life. I helped him build a cinder floor in the hot house that he was moving into and we rolled out carpet and a tarp and moved his books and clothes across from the leaking chicken coop. Over the next few days I helped cut trails and tried to dig a outhouse hole in the lava but to no avail.

My friend was depressed and crazy and cynical but I guess fighting in war and seeing no change will do that to someone. He has enough military pension to get by but no way to build anything or get off the ground. It was an interesting few days, great to have company but so sad that people are so lost about how to act or what to do in the world today.

I left on Saturday the 3rd when my course was begining. I rode into town and showered at Sharrons and then they gave me a lift round to the Kona side where I met my pickup for the course, Plants in Human Affairs.