Aloha Festival Parade 2012

Today was the Aloha Paikau (parade) and for the first year, we were part of the procession!

The preparation was cumbersome - memorizing songs & chants, foraging all the greenery, assembling the float, etc - but it was totally worth it!  The float looked AMAZING, the kids had a blast, and we WON first place!

This is a side view of the float.  Its a 30 ft trailer decorated with a bamboo structure that the dads built.  All the greenery was foraged from our area.  For my part, I put those red ti leaves in place and wove a few of those palm leaf guard rails.  We are all better off without a close up of my handiwork.

I feel like a lot of the detail probably went unnoticed from the street.  The larger flower arrangements were gorgeous, but I was completely in love with the braided lei that were snaking up the posts.  Just look at those red and yellow lehua blossoms!

The kids sat in chairs and the adults sat on lauhala mats on the floor.  I was prepared to walk so that was a most welcome surprise.

Ikaika and his friends

Ikaika and his teacher

Ikaika and his 'spot'

I enjoyed the parade - singing, waving, all of that.  Mr A played the ukulele.  Koa sat in my lap.  Ikaika was in his little chair.  He occasionally sang and was happy to see some aunties and uncles along the parade route, but I don't know how into the whole thing he was.  He seemed bored/annoyed when I told him to wave and I had to remind him more than once to keep his feet off the rail.  Oh well.

He really enjoyed wrestling with the other boys before the parade started!

Ohana Arrayan

We spent 2 hours cruising around the ho'olaulei'a at the park then it was back to the school so we could tear down the float.  I was impressed by how much of the float was repurposed.  It was a pretty sustainable project with only a few zip ties going into the trash.  Most of the foliage was either put toward upcoming cultural events, taken to family graves or found a new home above my front door (like the brown and green lei pictured below)