But in many ways you are as far from either island as you are from Tokyo or San Francisco. There are no stoplights on Molokai. Its only real town, Kaunakakai, is three blocks long. True, there's a library, a medical clinic, a small hospital, and two grocery stores, but no building is taller than a coconut tree, and the shops are made of wood and tin and their floorboards creak with age. The cars in town are dusty and old and, here and there, abandoned in the front yards of tiny bungalows.
Work is scarce.
Unemployment hovers around 15 percent, about twice the state average. Even so, Kaunakakai is a vibrant place. When Raiatea tore through the hiccupy, yodel-like high notes on a traditional Hawaiian song, the crowd erupted in cheers. To indulge such tastes you must drive 17 miles west, through deserted pineapple fields and desiccated cattle range ridden with mesquitelike kiawe. Its managers live in Honolulu and its owners in Singapore.