This week has just flown by and already we’re at Saturday evening. The days really are running together.
This afternoon after our morning shift at the Visitors’ Center we had another one of our volunteer assignments at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The “Hale Ohana Luau” venue as ticket takers is our favorite assignment. We’re in the shade, we’re beside the canal, and the guests are (almost) always happy, hungry, and tired. Many of them are lined up when we arrive at about 4:25pm. The luau opens somewhere around 4:45pm, so we have a few minutes to visit with the people lined up and ready to sit down, rest their feet, and get some food. That also gives us the opportunity to verify that they’re at the right location. There are three luaus and some of the foreign guests don’t understand the difference between the locations. Tonight two of the three luaus were sold out (one was a bit oversold) and ours had about twenty available seats (the overflow came to our luau). We’ve been told that some people will try to get into a luau that they haven’t paid for and will try various tricks. We haven’t experienced that issue (so far). I really enjoy visiting with the people.
One of the performances at the luau has to do with hunting down and finding the pig that will be the meal for the following day. This is quite a dance out through the audience and onto the stage. As we were waiting for other guests to come to the Ohana luau, the person portraying the “pig” for one of the other luaus sat down in the seating across the canal from us waiting for his turn to be “hunted down”. Every afternoon at about 2pm they have a canoe parade along the canal and the place were the “pig” was seated is the stadium seating for the parade. We haven’t been there for that event, yet, but several people have told us it is a lot of fun and very interesting.
At the Zone Conference yesterday we sat at the table with the First Counselor in the Honolulu Hawaii Mission Presidency who is also an executive at the Polynesian Cultural Center. He has just taken on a new assignment to start up the use of social media in the marketing for the PCC. We had a fun conversation and I was pleased to learn that they are finally going to be using this capability.
By golly, the tile replacement project is nearing completion! All the tile is down, most of the grouting and sealing is completed, and yesterday afternoon the work crew began re-installing the lights in between the individual fountain nozzles. One of the fountains is complete, the center fountain is underway, and the left fountain hasn’t been started. Sometime next week we’ll probably see water in the pool and the fountains actually fountaining once again! That will definitely be on the highlight reel!
Another clue that the project is nearing completion is that they’ve finally started cleaning up around the construction area. A lot of trash, empty soda bottles and cans, and scrap material was accumulating around the pool and on the edge of the pool. It sure looks better with the trash gone.
We still aren’t allowed to put a flag on the (very tall) flagpole. The pole is not straight, a fact very apparent in the picture. The contractor thinks it is “straight enough”. The Temple people disagree (as do I, as if my opinion carries any weight…). The dispute has been elevated to Salt Lake. I expect they’re going to require that the pole become straight. This kind of things drives some of the OCD people crazy! Today I had two people ask me why the flag pole isn’t straight up and down. I, of course, had to act like this was a new revelation … “Oh my goodness. What happened? Did the wind blow that hard last night?? ….” Then, it was necessary to ‘fess up and tell them what was really going on. So far it’s been unanimous that the pole must be put straight.
No crookedness allowed in life over here!