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We bought our house and discovered Punaweb later.No regrets so far except may be being too excited and somehow contributing to our friend's mistake.
I read this thread and thought it may help some people
While I don't completely agree with BradW his post can be helpful.
http://punaweb.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2360&whichpage=9
"Puna on the Big Island is an ugly place. Hawaiian Beaches and surrounding areas the most so. PunaWeb is a dis-service to those who sell their all elsewhere and move over, starry eyed, as we did, and spend much of their life's savings and all of their dreams, to live and be happy in unparadise. It ain't there. You'll move back.
We tried, then tried some more. "Kill Haole Day" in public schools, "Born Here Not Flown Here" on t-shirts eveywhere we looked, "Go home haole" yelled at us from the Post Office to the beach. The finger. Our neighbors were pigs with everything from major family abuse against each other to big-time meth factories. And if the local police were aware of obvious illegal activity, they could not care less.
How many folks become dis-inchanted and move back to the Mainland? The answer is most. Why is that? Please save your money and find your place in the 48. Let the BI sink, without you, into the ocean where it belongs."
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I love it here. Sure beats the hell out of Fairbanks Alaska!
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Sounds like paradise to me.
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ok macuu222 now your offending me. im in Fairbanks right now with thick ice fog and minus 52, the coldest its been in 5 years, how can you say Puna with trade winds, fresh air, jungle, great food and sucba Sundays is better? peace
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I'm twiterpated for anyone who loves living where they've settled. It's hugely important to genuinely groove your life's spot. Mine was not Puna. Mostly, it was the race thing. I worked hard the five years I was there. Very aware going in there was potential for friction so I took it easy and tried to blend. But racism there is too deeply ingrained. People who blindly discriminate don't care about or for your efforts. So, after five years, I sold my stake and moved elsewhere. So many others have done the same. I've lived all over the planet - you'd be surprised, and Puna is a head shaker.
Now I live up on a little sagebrush step out on the desert in the Pacific NW. My newer home and 6+ acres here cost exactly the same as my home in Puna sold for. My new neighbors do not knock the teeth out of their family members, nor do they manufacture meth, nor chain their animals to property corners neglected till they die, nor rattle my windows with their stereos for days and nights and days and nights. Complete strangers do not yell at me to go home, nor ignor me in favor of locals at retail establishments. I have no rats, no frogs (at night there is only an occasional coyote way off in the distance) and I don't sleep with earplugs anymore. I bought a camper and spend a week or so at a time out exploring the Owyhee Desert. I raft the Snake thru Hell's Canyon and do the Salmon and Grande Ronde and Clearwater rivers in my driftboat, and I ask myself, "what the hell was I thinking?".
I read a piece the other day in the news comparing the relationship between lower IQs and racism, and I laughed out loud. Puna.
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I am glad that some have found a place to live in peace, for us, it has been here (but we did not leave a place that we were not at peace with, just moved here for a difference....mainly WEATHER..& truly do love the weather here...)
I would never move anywhere expecting it to be paradise, & would never advise anyone to buy a house starry eyed & using up a life savings without getting to know the area, at least some what.... We did move here, having never before even visited, but it was so that I could study here (where else but here can you study the geology, endemism & marine science that you can here?) Our plan was not to buy a house here, but we did, because we liked the area, we liked the people we met, we liked the cultural diversity, we enjoy the theater/concert venues available & we liked (OK- LOVED) the weather...and found a place with good bones, that had had a horrible remodel (the remodel from hell....) & and old very settled neighborhood in crossroads of the east side, in a small kine town.
But we were used to small time agricultural areas (spent most of our lives where radio & TV stations had the morning farm reports...), the mainland home we sold, I had lived in for over 20yrs & we were still "the new neighbors"....we were not from around there, having been born 2 counties away, mind you that the county in-between was one of the largest in the nation....& one of the most culturally diverse (Cook Co....home of Chicago)... but I had always lived in the agricultural collar area...
I have yet to understand why some move here expecting to live in the 'aloha/paradise' dream vacationland (whether they had one here or not) I would not have expected paradise & aloha everywhere here, no more than I would expect Orlando or Anaheim to be the Magic Kingdom with "imagination as the destination"! REAL world exists here, but we have found closer friends & much more tolerance here than many other places we have visited...and lived.
And I do not think that here is the perfect place, but neither is there....it is what you make it, and I wish for all to find that place where you are at peace.
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I never knew there was a desert in the Pacific Northwest. And, strangely, Owyhee is what Hawaii used to be called!
Yes, racism and stupidity go together hand in glove.
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Sometimes when people come on vacation to Hawaii or they read about the laid-back local ways, etc. it gets romanticized in their minds. We have had struggles here just like anywhere else and still love it here. I am about as haole-looking as you can get and once in a while I get the stink-eye, but ya know...that's not exclusive to Hawaii.
They say the island will spit you out if you don't belong here. Carey was spot-on with much of what she said...it's not vacation...it's real life. We also have made wonderful friends with such great integrity...we never had that on the Mainland like we do here. People stayed behind their walls in Arizona...we knew a few neighbors but never spent time with them like we do with our wonderful friends here.
I wish for you the joy you sought here in Hawaii. Sounds like you are getting peace and joy from your new home. That's what it's all about...no one place fits everyone.
Oh yah - in Arizona there was plenty of domestic violence as well...it was not uncommon there. It was not uncommon in Los Angeles, or Buffalo - where I was raised. It's sad that it even exists but please - it's not exclusive to Hawaii. There is much to learn and enjoy here - diversity is among the very top things I love! Namaste.
[:X]
Carrie
http://www.sapphiresoap.etsy.com
"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future..." Galadriel LOTR
Carrie Rojo
"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future..." Galadriel LOTR
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No regrets, 10 yrs on Maui and the last 5 in Puna
I have commuted for work in socal through out this time - We arent missing much in my opinion 'cept maybe the in and outs......
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/20...tings.html
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Yes Rusty H....I see what Im missing
https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fb...3283904844&set=a.10150563283774844.395653.6828054843&type=3&theater
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