The line snakes out of the gym and up the hill, families anxious to get inside to see their keiki. It’s been six days and five nights with no phone calls, no texting, that one empty space at the breakfast table. Even the moms who have been through this with their older children have that look of “Where’s my baby?”

The doors open at 6:15 p.m., and the crowds pour into Kekuhaupi‘o Gym. Some look for seats, but most are searching for their child. The kids, all 290 of them, are calmly sitting on the gym floor dressed in their aloha-print best waiting for the program to start.

On Friday night the hoike — a performance demonstrating what was learned — for Kamehameha Schools’ Ho‘omaka‘ika‘i summer explorations program was held at the Kapalama campus. This was the last of six sessions this summer, and this was the 50th year of the program, which has brought tens of thousands of children of Hawaiian ancestry to live in the dorms for one week each summer and experience culturally based lessons.

The children have just completed the fifth grade and, for many, are at a prime stage in their lives to learn about both who they are as descendants of Hawaiian kupuna and who they are as individuals when they venture away from their family’s home. It is an intense week of finding both independence and belonging.

It all comes to a head in this gym. The children’s suitcases are packed and lined up behind the performance space. As soon as the program is over, unless they have to fly to a neighbor island in the morning, the kids will go home with their families. There may have been tears when the children said goodbye and set forth, but after a week, only the parents look weepy. The kids look like they’ve had so much fun.

Before the program begins, parents and grandparents wave maniacally from the bleachers trying to catch the eye of their beloved keiki. Some of the kids spot their family members and wave back. A hip grandma with purple bangs, teal nail polish and a pink phone takes a photo of her granddaughter across the gym and texts it to a relative who couldn’t be there. A mom lower in the bleachers starts tearing up during the opening lines of “Hawai‘i Pono‘i” and never stops crying all the way through the event. Her Hawaiian bracelets jangle every time she dabs her eyes.

The performance is impressive. In less than a week, the children have learned so many songs and dances. Each song describes an experience they had or lesson they learned.

The event is just over an hour long, and the whole time, families are waving, wiping away tears and shooting cellphone video. Afterward a check-out procedure is in place where the children wait by their luggage while their parents stand in line to show their IDs. The parents are told to wait in the stands so the children can exit the gym floor. They’re told again. They’re asked nicely. But there is no waiting. It’s been a week, and in just that time the kids have grown up a bit. Where’s my baby?

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.