The high school students participated in an event that was a mixture of Pili Pa’a and Pō’alima ‘Ula’ula today, February 1.

“I learned through the activities that it isn’t about winning or losing, but rather coming together as an ‘ohana (family) and practicing our Hawaiian values,” junior Kamaile Pahukoa said.

Students worked in teams to complete five Hawaiian activities. The bonding activities included games, such as Go Fish, in which students named Hawaiian fishes; Taste Testing, in which they guessed Hawaiian foods; Makahiki games; hula; and Name that Plant.

“My favorite activity was moa pahe’e because it’s the game that I got to play and it’s a game that the ancient Hawaiians played,” senior La’akea Baz said.

“With Red Friday, we wanted to try to tie everything with testing people’s cultural knowledge on plants, fish, food, music and those things. So a lot of it is identifying who we are within the Pō’alima ‘Ula’ula days. It’s identifying who we are as Hawaiian people and wanting to represent ourselves in that manner. Also, at the end, trying to unify everybody as one school,” Vice Principal Mr. Leo Delatori said.

Each team was made up of students from all four grades. The mixture of students from each grade, who used their own mana’o or knowledge and no’eau or talents, to complete the task made it easier for students to get to know each other more through some fun-filled activities.

“I like Red Friday because of the activities that we get to do and because we get to meet all the other classmen, and it was just a good bonding experience for us,” senior Tatiana Keali’inohomoku said.