Christmas Imu and Other Sports

Our first Christmas away from family. Does it feel like the holidays? Well, sorta, kinda, not really, I suppose so. We have had various changes over the past few years in the Family Christmas that this one just seems like another new kind. There was the Christmas in the Caribbean with the boys - no Kaylen, no tree, really no presents. Then there was the Christmas when Nathaniel was on his mission - no Kaylen, no Nathaniel. Now we have Christmas in Maui - no Kaylen, no Nathaniel, no John. Sad? No, not really. Different? Yes, very. We bought a tree at K-Mart. It's lovely and will go back into the box after the 1st. All our favorite family ornaments went on and Robert and I enjoyed it every night.
So what did we do for our first Maui Christmas? Why, what every other real Hawaiian family does - we had an imu! For those of you who are imagining that we were involved with some sort of large exotic bird (that's an EMU, by the way) and imu is a traditional Hawaiian ground oven. People have been cooking underground longer than they've been using ovens. Our high priest group decided it would be nice to build an imu in our back yard and offer it to anyone who would like to bring their food over Christmas Eve to cook overnight to be ready on Christmas Day. For my Kiwi friends, you'll recognize it as a Hangi. For my East Coast friends, you'll be reminded of a clam bake - without the clams.
Ok, back to the imu....
1. Three old guys get together and dig a pit. A BIG pit. 2. They go out and cut kiawe wood (it's the same wood as mesquite or acacia. 3. The build a dome of lava rock interspersed with kiawe. It's constructed around a vertical log which will later serve as the wick. The engineering is critical, it's built so that as it burns, it collapses inside and flattens evenly out.

Robert and Librando uncovering the pit

So well put together. Do you see the center stick?

There's the center log sticking out of the top

3. To light the imu, they pull the center log out, stuff burlap down it and pour in the kerosene.

4. One match!

5. Now that it's burning, they put a rock over the hole left by the log. That forces the fire to burn from the inside out.

So now it gets hot, hotter and super-duper hot!

Then they throw the split banana stumps on top (they're full of water so they'll be doing the steaming inside) and lay banana leaves on top of that.

The food pans are placed on top of the banana leaves and then, it's all covered with wet burlap bags, tarps and DIRT!

All wrapped up inside, no smoke or steam escapes and we wait until Christmas morning to unwrap our big present!

And the next morning....

Kau Kau! Merry Christmas Everyone!