The Longest Day, Part Deux

Thursday truly was the longest day we've experienced in quite a while. Between three airports, messed-up seat assignments, flight delays at every opportunity and pouring rain on our arrival in Kona (the open-air airport), you'd think it must have been awful. But, it really wasn't.

The boys really seemed to enjoy themselves while traveling, probably because we made sure they didn't get to spend a ton of time together. Michael sat with Steve and mostly played his GameBoy, while David and I drew pictures, listened to the in-flight music stations and napped a little bit. Both kids were real troopers to last through such a long day.

One of the neatest parts of my day was meeting a sculptor from Maritius named Dick Jean Lewis. He was our seatmate on the San Francisco-Kona leg of our trip and was on his way to take part in an artists' competition in Waimea. He and I talked about his art -- he uses wood to carve realistic figures often based on historical events, as well as the school he started in his village of Bambou to help give new options to children who otherwise would be lost to drugs or prostitution.

His government paid for his ticket to the artists' competition, choosing the cheap but long route of Mauritius to Dubai to London to San Francisco to Kona. When we talked, he had been flying for about 27 hours, including a 5-hour layover in London. And he was going to begin his demonstrations and competition work the next morning!

We had some other interesting conversations as well. He asked me if I thought Hawaii would be like "Hawaii Five-O," and if there were lots of cowboys in America like J.R. from "Dallas." I explained how what he was doing by operating his school was a way to pay it forward (great book; awful movie).

While I was talking to him, I really felt like I was in one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments. I mean, how often do you meet someone who is basically an activist, someone who saw a real problem affecting his world and did something to fix it? Honestly, I felt a little ashamed as well to be taking my hard-earned, long-saved-for vacation trip, when I started thinking about how many causes out there could have used this money. But then I realized that, had I not come to Hawaii, I probably would have never met Lewis.

So, long day, long post. See you tomorrow.