Imagine you live in an apartment or condo and you’ve been in this condo for many years. Everything‘s going well, you live in your daily life like normal, until one day you go to boil water for some pasta and smell jet fuel out of the faucet. You take a good look at the water, and it looks oily.

…Yep, it’s jet fuel.

This is just about sums up what has happened on O’ahu at Red Hill. The navy has a site used for jet fuel storage dangerously close to where the community’s drinking water is, and guess what, that fuel founds its way into that water source. Thousands of people both on and off base have had traces of fuel in their water. Some people have even had acute to severe health problems.

This isn’t the first time the US military in Hawai’i has made a grave mistake on these islands, and to no suprise many have suspected the military attempting to cover it up. So in any instance where the military or government does something wrong and doesn’t do the write thing, Native Hawaiians step in.

Kapukaki is what I learned to be the Hawaiian name for Red Hill on O’ahu and not long after the political shenanigans, Native Hawaiians set up shop right in front of the Naval Commanders’ Headquarters, in the form of a ko’a (shrine) and ki’i. This was built in traditional fashion with stone and rock to dedicate a shrine for protection over the water supply, the āina (land), and of course the people. Many native Hawaiians came together to partake in blessing, protocol, ho’okupu (offering), and hula as the situation at hand at the time was not improving.

FULL VIDEO: Ko‘a Building and Dedication Ceremony

Being in a cultural hālau hula allowed me the blessing, honor, and privilege to be able to not only be a part. But to also stand alongside the very people who struggle to be heard by a large oppressor, that is the US Military. We gathered resources from our parts of the island and came together to bring our ho’okupu and blessing as a unit. Not just as one hālau, but as a community of cultural practitioners who only want what’s best for Hawai’i nei and it’s people.