2015-10-22 Leeward Exh A (SMA 15-060)

Home

UNGER: Mahalo. Alapa‘i Kaulia --. KAULIA: I o‘u. UNGER: ‘Ē, aloha. KAULIA: Aloha. Mahalo. UNGER: Mahalo. Pomai Bertelmann and Chadd Paishon. P. BERTELMANN: (Inaudible – greeting the audience in Hawaiian.) UNGER: Aloha. Please state your name and where you reside. P. BERTELMANN: Aloha nō. My name is Pomai Bertelmann and I reside in Waimea in Kohala. I am a teacher at Kanu o Ka ‘Āina Charter School, have been there for 15 years. I am also the program director of project, coordinator for Kūlia I Ka Pono Program, a community-based project between Nā Kālai Wa‘a and Kamehameha Schools for nine years now. I come to you today with my own personal story of Kahalu‘u, Kona. My students and I have been coming to Kona for the last number of years, specifically to Kahalu‘u, working with the ‘ohana, genealogical and lineal descendants of the area, as well as those who have been put in place by Kamehameha, as a facilitator or the vessel by which to facilitate kūpuna who have gone on before, by which to facilitate with those who are still here and present, so that the true essence of the space, or the essence of the space can be revealed once again. And it has been our students, and many, many others, who have been able to spend time and become kama‘āina and familiar to the space because of our time there. There was a particular, two particular visits; we were, we requested permission to go through one area, the Lonoikamakahiki residence, and what was pretty amazing about that was the students were amazed that because through the story of Lonoikamakahiki and the Battle of Hōkū‘ula we were able to make a connection to Kona. What was also amazing for them was that there was a swimming pool sitting on the residence. On another time we were taken by our makua who took us through to the Kapuanoni Heiau site, and to our students it was amazing that they, that the wall, or one wall of the boundary of the heiau, was another swimming pool sitting on it. So it is my personal and the support of our school, Kanu o Ka ‘Āina, to be able to say that our students, our children, of Hawai‘i have the inherent right to be able to learn and to grow in a place with the vision that Kamehameha Schools has right now that they are looking to institute and to put together. They have the inherent right to be able to learn from a place where all barriers and all boundaries will be open again so that the essence and the flow of energy and spirit that our kūpuna had envisioned years and years ago will be available and accessible again. Mahalo nui. UNGER: Mahalo. PAISHON: Aloha mai kākou. My name is Chadd Paishon. I’m from Waimea also, the District of Kohala. I come to you really on behalf of our voyaging organization here on Hawai‘i Island, namely Na Kālai Wa‘a Moku O Keawe, and as one of the navigators of our voyaging canoes here in Hawai‘i. It’s definitely in the sense that for me in this site has continued to be the one that continues to allow the next generation to understand the great knowledge that our kūpuna held, that the practices of what 7 EXHIBIT A