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Why not just wait 6 more years until she is ready for college - she'll be better educated, will keep her friends, and have better life experiences.
That is a consideration. Like I said, private school is always an option if the public school there did not work out. I would like for her to get the public school experience. I think through the public school system she will experience more of the cultural differences and assimilate better into the culture. I just hope that she will adjust well to the differences.
There are many awesome threads that I have been reading which is an eye opener. It will be an adjustment to not be able to do the things we take for granted on the mainland. I can see why people get island fever. So I think anyone who makes the move to Hawaii needs to really take that into consideration. I think it will be beneficial to have the means to be able to visit the mainland to help curb island fever. Anyway I just want to make my wife aware that the things you are use to and love here won't be like that there.
As has been mentioned here before, Hawaii is the United States, but it is not America, it is Polynesia, things are different here. That will never change. It is a different world. You have to adjust, it won't adjust for you.
As has been mentioned here before, Hawaii is the United States, but it is not America, it is Polynesia, things are different here. That will never change. It is a different world. You have to adjust, it won't adjust for you.
Of course. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Going in with the attitude as you mentioned will go a long way. One of my rules of thumb has always been treat people the way you want to be treated and if someone doesn't treat you the way you are treating them, that is their burden to carry. It does not take much effort to be respectful and kind to others. Life is too finite to be a pompous *ss.
Even Hilo itself feels pretty rural and it's the largest population center on the island, so you don't have to look very far for "rural" to find it. There aren't a lot of different routes to get between Hilo and Puna so living close to employment, services, supplies and activities will save you a lot of driving to and from. The "subdivisions" in Puna are only housing areas so frequently you have to drive quite a ways to get to anywhere.
In any case, don't buy a place until you've lived here for half a year or more. There's so much difference between the areas that it would be almost impossible to find the sweet spot that is just perfect for you from half the planet away.
The high school near the University in Hilo has a good reputation although I've forgotten it's name at the moment. There's likely to be a lot less crime in Hilo than in Puna as well. Due to the distance between houses and the amount of them that are empty during the day as well as seasonally, there's loads of theft in Puna. There is a lot less crime as you head out of Hilo towards Waimea, you may want to look in that area.
Teaching English in Hawaii would be a little interesting, I'd expect. We have two official languages: English and Hawaiian and we have a large portion of the population which speaks pidgin, too, although I don't know if that's an official language or not.
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how much teaching experience you wife will have when you move here, all beginning teachers get the same wage, I believe. You can check the state DOE website.
When house advertisements say "electric service available" and there's a house already there, then one would think that meant the house is connected to the grid. When it is a vacant lot and it says "electric service available" one would figure it would be able to be connected. Sometimes they will say something along the line of "SSP" or some such is already paid. When the electric company puts poles along a road, there is a surcharge to pay for the poles and folks who want to connect have to pay that fee. Sometimes that fee will be already paid for a lot or not. If they have an electric stove, they are probably on the grid. Stoves and water heaters use too much electricity unless they have a big solar system.
For utilities; electricity is very expensive per kilowatt hour, something around 44¢ per kilowatt. It adds up quickly until you get used to not using electricity.
There is no natural gas in Hawaii, so folks will frequently use propane for water heating and cooking. Solar water heating and solar electric are popular, although not frequently found on rental houses.
There is limited mail delivery unless you are in town although some of the subs have a bank of P.O.Boxes where folks stop by the side of the road to pick up their mail. Otherwise, folks have a P.O.Box at the post office.
Water in Puna is frequently by catchment where rainfall on the roof is collected into above ground swimming pools. (Once when I was living in Puna, my mainland sister visited. She was surprised that everyone in my neighborhood had a swimming pool, I guess she thought we were more upscale than we were.) If there isn't enough rainfall, then you pay a truck to bring a load of water to your house. There are also roadside spigots where you can fill up containers for drinking water if you don't want to drink the catchment water. There are several small water companies on the island, although usually the choice is between catchment and County water. County water isn't terribly expensive, it runs about $40 - $60 a month for a small family. County water tastes good, too.
There is almost no trash pickup, you get to drop it off at a "transfer station". A place where there are big dumpsters which the County empties.
Generally no sewer fees since most folks have cesspools. Which, because of the porosity of the ground (notice I did NOT say "soil"? That's an important omission and relevant to many properties in Puna) anyway, cesspools generally don't need to be pumped often if at all. When buying property in Hawaii, nobody does a "perc" test since frequently they can't keep the water around long enough to measure it's absorption rate.
Cell phone reception in Puna goes pretty much not only area by area, but specific area by area.
Only if my wife is offered a position will we make the move. It would not be prudent to make the move unless she has emoyment. My pension should be sufficient to be comfortable, but would not want to take that chance. Also my wife loves to teach, so unless she is able to continue her career, she will not leave what she loves doing. If she is offered a position, it would depend where on the island she is teaching at would determine the area where we will live. I do agree that renting first and then finding our sweet spot for where we want to buy makes the most sense. It would give us the opportunity to explore and see what area best suits our needs. I did check out property listings north of Hilo and you do not get nearly as much for your money as you do toward the Puna area. I assume that generally has to do with being within higher risk lava zones and theft. Not much you can do about the lava, but a couple good German Shepards and Smith & Wesson should handle that issue.
True, teaching English could be a challenge for her under those circumstances. I wonder how that obstacle is overcome. I'm sure that has to be frustrating.
Thanks for clearing up the electric service available concern. We would make sure to purchase a property that is already hooked up to the grid.
That is funny with the catchment system. That is what I first thought when looking at listings. Why does everyone have their pools covered. I don't mind the catchment system at all. Did a little research on them and it seems as long as it is properly maintained and have a good filtration system connected to it, should be fine for drinking.
Where I grew up we use to have to take care of our own trash too. We just burned it. Not sure if you can do that there, but if you can, wouldn't want to do that anyway. It is not pleasant buring trash and would be much easier to haul it.
Cell phone service would be nice. Maybe in four years service will become more spread.
I really do like the area north of Hilo. I have read many transplants are happy there. Starts getting a little pricey there, but could always find a fixer upper for the right price.
What leilaniguy means is that the culture and most of the people are Polynesian, or mixed w/ it. That's the dominant culture on the islands, and you adapt to it. Or not. It isn't going to adopt to other cultures. So if you're thinking you might find the usual mainland celebrations of Irish, Italian, Latino etc cultures, complete w/ enclaves and festivals and such, no.
Your wife could probably get a sub position in a Nu Yawk minute. I knew people that subed on the BI that you would have never imagined would be in a school system, and yet they basically worked every school day. Great way to get into the system. Unfortunately, it's not a system that many like. The DOE is infamous for hand sitting, cronyism, and never improving the quality of education for its students. But if you really want to get a feel for how things work in Hawaii (especially in the Puna schools!), think of it as a crash course on things. It's really your wife who would be getting the education.
What leilaniguy means is that the culture and most of the people are Polynesian, or mixed w/ it. That's the dominant culture on the islands, and you adapt to it. Or not. It isn't going to adopt to other cultures. So if you're thinking you might find the usual mainland celebrations of Irish, Italian, Latino etc cultures, complete w/ enclaves and festivals and such, no.
Your wife could probably get a sub position in a Nu Yawk minute. I knew people that subed on the BI that you would have never imagined would be in a school system, and yet they basically worked every school day. Great way to get into the system. Unfortunately, it's not a system that many like. The DOE is infamous for hand sitting, cronyism, and never improving the quality of education for its students. But if you really want to get a feel for how things work in Hawaii (especially in the Puna schools!), think of it as a crash course on things. It's really your wife who would be getting the education.
We really don't get into the mainland nationality celebrations. I'm American and that's that. Now us moving into another culture, we will adopt their way and never expect them to adopt our ways just as I would not like someone moving into the U.S. expecting us to adopt their ways. I think when someone moves into another culture they should assimilate into that culture, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be proud of their roots.
Subbing is a possibility, but not preferred. She did that a couple years and a sub is basically nothing more than a babysitter. She is use to having her own classroom teaching, not babysitting. She will also keep her eye out for the private school positions as well. When I have a year left to retire I may throw in some applications for employment and see what happens. Being a retired NYC police officer, not sure how I would fit into the job market on the Big Island, but maybe something on the federal side.
Our friend's mom is a teacher in the public school system and her experience was that the job was easy to get, the problem was that the requirement to get the foot into the door was that they had to accept whatever location on the island they assigned. (You find out location after employment offer accepted). So her first year she lived in Puna and had to commute every day to Kona because that is the job they offered her. After that first year she was able to get a job closer to Puna. I don't know if they use the same system now, but since things here change slowly (or not all) I would doubt if it's any different.
Our friend's mom is a teacher in the public school system and her experience was that the job was easy to get, the problem was that the requirement to get the foot into the door was that they had to accept whatever location on the island they assigned. (You find out location after employment offer accepted). So her first year she lived in Puna and had to commute every day to Kona because that is the job they offered her. After that first year she was able to get a job closer to Puna. I don't know if they use the same system now, but since things here change slowly (or not all) I would doubt if it's any different.
That would be fine. As long as she was able to teach on the island we would like to live on. Puna to Kona must be a long commute. If that were to happen to my wife, we would just rent over there then and wait to see if she could land something in Puna.
My wife and I will be visiting the Big Island for about a week and a half for the first time in a couple weeks. Really looking forward to it to get an idea if that is where we want to live. We are going to visit different parts of the island to see what works best for us. I know a week and a half visit will not be enough time to determine if this is what we really want, but hopefully it will give us a better idea. I have two years left till I retire, but my wife is going to apply for the 2017-2018 school year and see what happens. If she gets an offer for a teaching position and it's on the Big Island, we will have a tough decision to make. If we decide to make the move, I will have a year left and that is what will make the decision the toughest at that time. I will be able to visit four times for 3 weeks at a time. So basically almost every two months I will fly out there. For us to move there next summer makes sense in that our oldest daughter will be graduating high school and can start her freshman year in college there. Also, we would like to get our youngest daughter there as young as we can so she can start growing up with the kids she goes to school with.
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