PUNSTER’S DAY Day 312 of 2007 53 days left in this year

HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY – Olu‘olu: Kind
HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “Open out the chest that it may be spacious.”
(Be gernous and kind to all.)

NOVEMBER 8, 1883: Mother Marianne Cope arrives on Molokai with three Franciscan nuns to begin their work at the Kaluapapa Leper Colony, as it was called back then.

Ten years earlier, Father Damien had arrived, and began the work to turn a scrabble of a town, surrounded by high cliffs and set away from the leering eyes of the public, into a decent, private and even happy place for people who suffered from Hansen’s disease.

When Mother Cope arrived, she found a small, spartan town with patients’ basic needs cared for. She set about enlivening the village. According to Mother Cope’s nurse, who tended the nun in her later years, “She revolutionized life on Molokai, brought cleanliness, pride and fun to the colony. People on Molokai laugh now—like other people in the world, laugh at the same things, the same dilemmas and jokes.”

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