Kiloing

The Hawai’i summer program unfolds around the indigenous cosmology of āina. Through embodied learning opportunities at local organizations, we traced historical and contemporary land-based architectural approaches grounded in building relationships with the land, our ancestors, and the people of Hawai’i. Kilo was practiced daily as the primary tool for us to unravel the many complexities of the land that sustained generations.

What does it mean to kilo?

I was taught before how to wander and explore new things; however, this feels different. Like an outsider, trying to connect with a place I’ve never been.

Kilo is constant; everywhere we go, I find myself listening to the lapping of water, the kids’ laughter, the drips in the ceiling.

I am an observer, an outsider listening in.

I wonder how to care for a place that I’ve never been; however, they welcomed us with open arms. Whose stories do we carry with us, and what stories did we take away?

Where are stories held? In homes? In the trees? In our families? Stories are held in nui ice cream before dinner, the lyrics sung in a karaoke hall, and remnants of mud and sand in the shower.

I collect stories, the experiences of yesterday.

The mangrove roots sink deep into the mud where they are not always meant to be. Tugging, digging, sinking, sawing; pulling old roots to reveal the land that existed long before.

I am a caretaker, a visitor of the aina.

Home is not a single place; it is where my ancestors are buried, where my family lives, and where I spread my roots.

I came as malihini, left as hoaʻāina.

Appendix:
Āina - land/that which feeds
Kilo - deep observation
Malihini - stranger
Hoaʻāina - friend of the land