Want Me To Jump?

Kayla Shumate, age 10, traveling with grandmother, posting from Honolulu, Hawaii—G mom and I are at the Polynesian Cultural Center, sitting on a wooden bench watching the Samoa tribe show us clapping differences. A new man comes up and is making us laugh already. I knew I was going to enjoy this. He first shows us how to crack a coconut. He rips it open with his bare hands. He shows us the tiny face inside. He picked up a rock and banged it on the coconut. It cracked in two. He called up a kid in a red shirt, and shared the coconut with him. The host said “ugh disgusting.” We all laugh with tears in our eyes. After the laughter calmed down he showed us how to make fire. He got a long thin stick. He broke it in ¾ and ¼. He scraped the two sticks together and smoke came up from the two. He picked up dry grass and put it up against the two sticks. Then fire rose from the burning dry grass. He pointed to a man standing next to a tree and said “This man will show you how to climb a palm tree.” He climbed up the tree like Spider Man. When he reached the top he asked “Want me to jump?”

“Yes!” cheered the crowd. “Want me to jump?” “Yes!” “Are you crazy?” “Yes! Wait what?” The crowd roared with laughter. The Samoa tribe was done. After exploring for a little while we went to ukulele lessons. I was so excited. The new host came in and gave all of us a ukulele. A ukulele has 4 strings. I learned 3 notes. The first note was F. The second note was C7. The last note was G7. The easiest one was C7. You just go to the very top of the ukulele and hold the first string down. That is C. C is the only one I remember. We played all the notes together to make one small song. I played the ukulele!

Then we went to a luau and a show in the big theater. After that, I jumped on our bus and slept all the way back to our hotel.