 Aloha. Aloha to you, Marsha. I am talking to a dear, dear friend, my new best friend, even if we haven't met. This is—I'm talking to Jonathan Green from the Sea Islands, which, of course, are a chain of islands—I'd say about a thousand—tidal and barrier islands on the southeast coast of the United States. From Cape Hatteras down to the tip of Florida, there's about a thousand of those. And most people have no idea that they exist. So when we were listening and watching the storms coming and going these last couple of weeks, there was no mention of them. So I have decided to take this opportunity to talk to somebody from those islands that actually know that they exist. And so tell us, Jonathan, Jonathan is a famous artist, and he has told the story of these islands in his beautiful artwork. So Jonathan, tell us about the Sea Islands. The Sea Islands—the Sea Islands were mostly inhabited by Native Americans. And then, say in the 17, 1800s, it became inhabited by enslaved Africans that fled from their captors here in the South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida area, and lived out on those islands for 100 and 25, 50-plus years without much of America knowing that not only the islands exist, but that the people living out on them exist. Now, they were few inhabited by plantation culture, and many of those islands are barrier islands, so the Africans knew better than to build on the barrier islands, so when they could get as close as possible to the mainland islands, islands closer to the mainland, where they could live out a life without being encroached upon by Europeans, they lived a fairly well-adjusted African lifestyle with much support from the Native American Indians. So as a kid, I can remember my grandparents speaking of barrier islands, saying that it is not the place to build because the islands change. One of the islands in particular is Hunting Island, which is off St. Helena area. As you go out there on the beach, you can see where the land has shifted to where you can walk under an area of maybe 8 to 10 feet of pine trees that the tap root of the pine tree is still in the erosion head and feet of stowell, so that gives you a very clear indication that there is an erosion, and it is also a clear indication that the sea has risen some 3 inches in the past 10 years or so, and so a lot of that is due to the global warming and the changing of the climate and the atmosphere and man's addition to the whole effect of global warming. Tell me with this last storm, were you affected? I know in Charleston you got flooded, but what about the islands? Do they get regular storms? The islands flood regularly, but as the islands flood, it also, the water recedes. Those are the marsh areas, and in the marsh areas there's always canals and areas where waters can move in and move out, unlike if you're in a city or if you live in a lower landscape where the water gets in and it can't get out. Now, tell me about the Gullah people. I read, and I think this is a beautiful phrase, that the Gullah people are Africans with an American experience. So tell us about the Gullah people. Where does the word Gullah come from? What is Gullah? Well, some people believe it came from Angola. Some people believe it came from Gullah, and the Gullah people are primarily people that were incredible rice farmers, and we're talking about some 15 to 20,000 years ago, they have been harvesting rice in West Africa, so they brought along with them this incredible knowledge of rice harvest and rice cultivation, which became the leading agricultural phenomenon, economically speaking, between the late 1700s, 1800s, and very early 1900s, and that made the city of Charleston the wealthiest city for over 100 years, and that was because of rice culture, production by enslaved Africans. Now, we have to go now, as I told you, I promised you, we wouldn't keep you, but we will be back in October to do Skype and talk about rice and your requiem to rice. I am looking forward to that, to understanding what a requiem to rice is. So thank you so much for taking this time with us. And we will be back in October to talk about a requiem to rice, is that correct? Absolutely. Okay. Jonathan, thank you, as always, it's a pleasure. Aloha. Thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness.