Who Gets Confused About Hawaii Names?

Do you know about our little town, Waimea (Island of Hawaii)? Waimea means “reddish”water, and there is a bit of water tainted with red dirt in the State of Hawaii, so needless to say, there are several towns named “Waimea”, on Oahu and Kauai and possibly more. Until my move to the Big Island, my only reference point was Honolulu, where everyone referred to the Big Island community of Waimea (Island of Hawaii) as”Kamuela”. Imagine my confusion and actual embarrassment moving to a town, knowing it only as Kamuela, and finding out it is truly, “Waimea”.  

I loved the first time I made the outrageous mistake of calling it Kamuela and was abruptly told by a long time resident, (of several generations or more), that I must be living in the post office…because Kamuela is the designation assigned to this community by the U.S. Postal Service to eliminate their confusion (pre-zip codes, no doubt).

Hot off the press this week from Yahoo and Pacific Business News:

http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2010/08/23/focus6.html  http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-475406-waimea vacations

Waimea (Big Island) Treats for the palette, not to be  missed….

Dodie MacArthur

MacArthur and Company/Sotheby’s International Realty

http://www.bigislandreale.com

http://www.letsgohawaii.com

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