Kamehameha Summer School: Overview of Week 1

This week during Hawaiian class we learned multiple things such as: Nā Ninau ‘elima and ‘umi, the KEAO rule, the Pepeke Aike He/Ho’ōle, the Pī’āpā/Papani, Nā Helu, and finally spelling rules. Nā Ninau ‘elima and ‘umi consist of simple questions like: what is your name, where you are from, where do you live, what grade are you in, what is your parent’s name, how old are you, where is your house, what school do you go to, and when is your birthday? The KEAO rule basically said that for Hawaiian words that begin with the letters K, E, A, or O you need to put a “Ke” in front of it and for the words that don’t start with those four letters you put a “Ka” in front of it. The Pepeke Aike He was a general statement and consisted of simple sentences, using Keia, Kēnā, and Kēlā. The Ho’ōle is the negative form of the Pepeke Aike He.  The Pī’āpā is the Hawaiian alphabet. It consists of thirteen letters such as: a, e, i, o, u, he, ke, la, mu, nu, pi, we, and ‘okina. The Papani are pronouns such as: I, you, and he/she. Finally, Nā Helu is the numbers and we learned all the numbers from zero to one hundred.  Nā Ninau ‘elima I believed was simple and easy to learn quickly, but Nā Ninau ‘umi, even though they are still basic sentences are a bit longer. So, I believe they will require more time and effort to memorize than the first five questions/answers. I was able to pick up the KEAO rule, the Pī’āpā/Papani, and Nā Helu pretty quickly. At first I was a bit confused with the Pepeke Aike He/Ho’ōle, but studying a bit harder and with a little help from my parents I was able to understand it. We also participated in a lot of activities this week during the class. On the first day we observed our Nā Kumu preparing pa’i’ai and learned about connections. We also learned about how the older siblings care for the younger ones and in return the younger ones respect the older ones. Then we read a book in class about Hāloa and about his parents, Wākea and Papa. Wākea and Papa and their other partners were responsible for creating the Hawaiian Islands and the Hawaiian race. We also went to the Midkiff lab twice this week. The first time we went to the lab we broke off into groups and participated in a scavenger hunt. The second time we went to the lab, we created a blog so we could go upload our reflections online. On Friday we were able to play Jeopardy against the other classes and it was really fun. Of course, since our class is the best we won. After the game was over, all the Hawaiian 1 classes went together to plant Kalo. First you put a little bit of dirt in the pot, then you put the sapling of the Kalo into the pot, and then put more dirt over it. Overall this has been an amazing week and I can’t wait for more!