n. Baggage, luggage, freight, cargo, supplies. Kaʻa ukana, baggage car, baggage or freight vehicle.

Many of you traveled this summer, taking advantage of great weather and time off to get away, experience new adventures, learn new things. YAY FOR YOU! Did you have a lot of ukana?

Just so you know, most (if not all) of my daily words are generated from my own points of pondering and daily experiences. This month, I had the good fortune to travel to Denmark (Kenemaka) with my ʻohana, including my mom who was born and raised there. Nine of us. For 16 days. Can you imagine the ukana? Pretty crazy, as you can imagine.

Barely room for Mormor in the back seat.

Yup. That’s our ukana. And not even all of it. As we were leaving Copenhagen, I had to call a cab because the other option was to lug everything 1/4 mile to the metro station (which is how EVERYONE goes to the airport). So out of nine people (two of them young children), two of us (me and my mom) went in a cab and the cab driver stuffed in as many pieces of ukana, big and small, as possible, in his mid sized cab. We are talking 50 lb take it to the limit big ukana, a few medium sized rollies, and a million handcarts because since we can all take on two carry-ons then by golly, we will! Thankfully, the cab driver was a sport, a young man from Iraq, who was quite impressed with his tetris skills. He even took a pic of it so he could “snapchat” it. Lol.

Nui ka ukana – There’s a lot of baggage.

Ke mālama nei au i ka ukana a ke aloha (chant) –  I preserve the love carried [by me]

In the English language, baggage can be that which you travel with, but it can also refer to the “baggage” you carry in your life, whether it is your personal problems or heavy events that have affected your life. BAGGAGE. This ʻōlelo noʻeau is testament that it can be used in the same way in Hawaiian:

He ukana ko ka houpo – A burden on the diaphragm (A problem in the mind).