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A skill for all generations

Waianae nurse Esther Ross crafts a ti leaf lei in the maile tradition Friday afternoon along Lower Beach Road in Kahului using materials gathered in Hana. In the background is her boyfriend, Walter Pu, of Hana and his daughter Mahea Gonsalves of Lahaina. Ross said she has been making graduation lei to sell on Oahu for more than 30 years and on Maui for the past couple years. For her, lei-making is more about passing the skill on to the next generation and having fun together than making money, she said. “It’s mostly to encourage the young ones,” she said. “We all make choices in life. I said, ‘Follow me, and I’ll show you how to do it.’ Nothing comes easy in life. If you’re not afraid of work, you’ll do OK.”

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