Aloha is Love

Linda Burton posting from Honolulu, Hawaii – “Aloha is love,” reads the first line of the children’s book entitled Let’s Learn the Hawaiian Alphabet (ISBN 1-59700-102-3, author Patricia Murray, illustrator Sharon Carter). We’ve asked everyone “What does “aloha” mean?” and every reply has been different. It could mean hello or goodbye, it could simply be a greeting, or it could mean “I love you.” Hmmm, a word to use with care! Every tour guide and every tourist spot has nudged the crowd to shout it out – A LOW HA! And we always fail the test. “Not very good!” they tell us, so we get a little louder. Still, a word has to have meaning to you when you say it, or it doesn’t sound like you really mean it, so ka-chung, the tour guide shakes his head and laughs. Kayla and I wanted to learn some real Hawaiian words, and use them properly. “Mahalo” we try to remember to say for “Thank you” and sometimes we get a smile in return. We’ve studied the street signs to get familiar with spelling, and Hawaiian names. “There are only twelve letters in the Hawaiian alphabet,” Kuka told us. Kuka was our soft-spoken driver on Saturday, delivering us safely to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie. Kuka went through the vowel sounds with us as we rode north; Vanna’s Wheel of Fortune would sound different here though the letters look the same. “U” is not “You,” it is “Oo” – we know not to say “you-ka-lay-lee” any more! But back to the book. » read more