KIKO YAMADA STUDIES you before you sit down.
She notices your eyebrows and teeth, whether your face runs long or wide. Maybe a nose she can exaggerate.
The artist known as Ninja Sketch turns visitors into caricatures in South Kīhei. She stretches a grin, lifts an eyebrow or gives that nose more real estate and leaves you unmistakably yourself.
“People come to get roasted,” she tells Ariella Nardizzi. They leave laughing.
Most visitors arrive picturing Haleakalā at sunrise, a waterfall along the Road to Hāna, palms over water, maybe a honu beneath the reef.
They’re here. Stay awhile. Nānā pono – look carefully – and you start noticing more.
Take the naupaka kahakai (naupaka by the seashore) on our cover. You might’ve passed it on the way to the beach. It grows along the shoreline, including Kāʻanapali Beach, Haleakalā National Park’s Kīpahulu District and Waiheʻe Coastal Dunes and Wetlands Refuge.
Its flower looks torn in half, though all five petals open to one side. Higher up, naupaka kuahiwi (mountain naupaka) blooms the same way.
Savannah Dagupion shares the moʻolelo story behind them. Tellings differ, but the lovers part between mauka and makai – mountain and sea. Before parting, the woman tears a flower in two and gives half to her beloved. Coastal and mountain blooms together are said to reunite them.
Once you know the story, naupaka is harder to just walk past.
On Paddle Imua morning, Māliko Gulch fills with canoes, paddleboards, foils, kites and sails. Jen Murphy follows the eight-mile run to Kanahā Beach Park, where Paddle Imua helps fund Camp Imua.
At Keʻanae Uka, keiki with disabilities spend the week riding horses, kayaking, swimming, pounding poi, making art and taking the stage in a talent show.
Upcountry in Makawao, Labradors in blue vests practice opening doors, retrieving objects and learning 90 commands at Assistance Dogs of Hawaii. Mona de Crinis follows training after a dog is matched with a handler. A trainer may whisper or use one side of the body so the dog learns its future handler’s speech or movement.
And, this being Maui, there are chickens to contend with.
“Our dogs can’t be chasing chickens when tethered to a wheelchair,” training director Emily Stauffer says. That might be my favorite line.
Maui gives you plenty to photograph. Stay a little longer and you learn what’s behind the picture. The flower has five petals and a moʻolelo. The paddlers are helping send keiki to camp. The dog opening a door is learning whose door it will be.
Back in South Kīhei, Kiko talks while she draws. A story or burst of laughter can change what she puts on the page. The longer she looks, the more particular the portrait becomes.
Visitors can do the same. Learn the flower’s name. Follow the paddlers to Kanahā. Ask what the dog in the blue vest is learning.
Nānā pono. Look carefully. You may go home with more than the photograph you came for.
With Aloha,
Chris Amundson
Publisher & Editor
