Posted on: Friday, January 14, 2005
HAWAIIAN STYLE
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By Wade Shirkey
Advertiser Staff Writer
It's a Wai'anae thing: At year's end, no one is safe from the Moniz Family's annual Wai'anae Scavenger Hunt.
Winners have proudly proclaimed their status on front-yard banners: "MONIZ SCAVENGER HUNT WINNER!!"
Each year, a military command post is set up at matriarch Annie Moniz's home. Battle plans are passed out and enemy lines drawn over Thanksgiving dinner.
The contestants — family members all — are due back to declare a winner over the Christmas meal.
Items on the list for the scavenger hunt range from the wonderful to the wacky: a cowbell, tomahawk, rooster feather, life-sized Big Elmo doll, mistletoe — even the self-written poem for the latest contest. (Niece Kori Yomes, 14, scored with her poem, a mildly risque ditty about Mrs. Claus.)
There is no end to Moniz's imagination and daring. "I used to do 40 items," she said, "with extra points for beauty of originality." Now, with busy schedules and such, it's whittled down to 28.
The scavenger hunt started as sort of an "Easter egg hunt on steroids," held at the 'ohana's annual Easter gathering at 'Aiea State Park. The event proved so popular, it was moved to Moniz's Wai'anae residence for convenience's sake.
Prizes have ranged from candy to a Neighbor Island holoholo package worth $1,500. But, says Moniz's daughter Lisa Lamarca, "It's not the prizes, it's the winning!"
Ahhh, Wai'anae pride! After 15 years, it's a family — and community — tradition.
The scavenger list is faxed to friends, co-workers and school chums, and dispatched worldwide by cell phone and Internet. Family members have niele-ed out snow globes on the Mainland, and original Bing Crosby "White Christmas" albums from San Francisco.
They are none too shame to hit up co-workers, school classes — even strangers on the street and newspaper columnists. It's a Moniz thing.
Lamarca admits no one's beneath a little spying or "sneak and capture" warfare. Contestants lock their valuable finds away in closets and car trunks.
"One daughter," said Moniz, hid an item for the latest content — a Santa Claus picture made of uncooked rice or beans — in her entertainment center. "The mice ate it," said Moniz laughing. The daughter had to start from scratch.
Bugs, lizards and spiders liven up the contest, and they must arrive at the Christmas judging table alive. Therein, said Moniz, lies the fun.
One year, the required cocoon proved befuddling. "They kept turning into butterflies," said Moniz. "My son cheated by puncturing or freezing his."
In one contest, Lamarca "cheated" on the required gingerbread house — she glued graham crackers to a cardboard box. Her homemade nativity scene was downloaded pics off the Internet.
And, Lamarca said, her father still hasn't discovered that she destroyed his mango picker trying to get Item No. 9: "One real bird's nest."
Rudy Lamarca, 12, scored item No. 2, a European postcard, from his teacher, who had a brother in Germany.
And Item No. 12 — the cowbell? "Easy," said Rudy: the fishing section at Wal-Mart.
The current champion: Moniz's daughter, Marlena Yomes.
But now Moniz and her scavenger hunt co-conspirator and husband, Robert, are "moving Vegas."
The tradition will continue with scavenger lists mailed home. Who knows, said Moniz, smiling kolohe-like, maybe a family Vegas reunion for judging.
Wade Kilohana Shirkey is kumu of Na Hoaloha Roselani No'eau halau. He writes on Island life.
