Alana's Pan-Pacific Expo, Days 3 and 4

On the morning of the second day in Guam, I gave Stacy the camera. This posting is going to be a pictorial description.

Manuel is a security guard and works the night shift at the employee parking lot a big hotel. He picked us up after working and took us on our first important mission of the day, putting in the application for a new apartment. We went by and visited their cousin Rose at the apartment building and saw her new baby. We went and talked to the apartment building management. By this time Manuel was looking totally wasted and so we came back to the ranch, started to prepare the bar b que. Lucy taught me how to make green papaya pickles while the kids played in the yard. Another cousin gives them outdated food to feed the pigs and so Stacy and I fed the pigs some hostess powdered donuts. The pigs loved it!

When we were done, we went back to the hotel and swam while Manuel got some sleep.After a significant amount of sun, Lucy and I enjoyed a cold drink on the patio. Then back to the ranch for Barbecue!

The owner, "Pop" was there and was instructing the men on how he wanted the ladder to go up to the sleeping loft in the 'wind room'. I told Lucy that when I have my land I will hire her and Manuel to come and build me a 'wind room'. It is fabulous. "Pop" comes by with soda for the kids. This darling girl loves soda. Isn't that shocking? "Pop" likes giving them soda.

Lucy cooked some hot dogs and got the other food together while I was watched by the hungry eyes of cute Yapese babies.

Oh, I make it sound like I was the most interesting thing there. I was not, I was just the whitest. More interesting was a tiny boonie chick who "Pop" kept giving to the tiny girl. My belief in reincarnation was validated as I watched this little chick getting manhandled by the baby. I was running through the list of minor and major offenses that this little chicken could have been guilty of previously... it was not really enough for OJ.... but perhaps too harsh for Ted Stevens....

One of the first things I got to hear from "Pop" was how he had adopted Manuel's cousins son. I looked over at the boy with his video game and new shoes. Pop kept talking about his wonderful farm and the party they are having next Sunday for this beautiful girl who he "was going to take but he is too old now." I like to think that it's just the vernacular and the precision of language...that each word has such nuance that there is no way a person could speak three or four languages and realize the power the word 'was' can have....

He then cleared his trachea tube.

Vince asked me if I called him on his.,..well, you know... But I told Vince, "What do you say? The guy is no different than many other old Chamorro guys, lived through the war, thinks he is doing this great service, loves being the chief... Like he would listen?" Vince knows what I mean.

Meanwhile, "Pop's" wife and the cousins and I enjoyed a wonderful meal, the chicken was fabulous. The rice perfect. The papaya... uh...Stacy said, "Nu (Willie's Yapese name) is going to be jealous!" and I will say, yes, he will... so she took this wonderful picture.The next day Manuel came to the hotel and enjoyed an honest sleep while the kids watched TV and Lucy and I went to the school to find out what was going on with Jermaine and his IEP. (This is where I must say that if you are an American reading this blog and you have friends who are Islanders and you are in Micronesia, take the time to accompany them, anywhere. Go with them to any place where they need something and prepare to sit in awe of the blatant racism that you will get to watch.) It is incredible what a white lady who uses a sweet voice and the sentence, "Gosh, according to Disability Law, we should be able to call an IEP meeting at any time, and we are here to do that today." can get accomplished.

Then we took the kids back to the pool at the hotel and they swam while we filled out paperwork. When we left the pool the lifeguard told Lucy and the kids, "Anytime you need to swim, if I am working you can come here, please, no problem. For the kids, it was quite an honor.

"Pops" offered to drive me around the island and tour me, but unfortunately, there was not time for that. (Manuel and I laughed in the car, "He thinks I would come all the way here so that I could drive around with him?") Instead, I got to be with this wonderful family as they took me to all their favorite places. They took me to the store and the beach. We went by the military base which is an enormous part of the island. Manuel stopped the car so I could try to take pictures of butterflies on what Lucy calls the "I Love You" flower. They took me to Lucy's brothers house so that I could meet her mother. This is a woman so poor she gave birth to Lucy alone in the boonies squeezing a coconut tree.

Lucy always tells people, "Kim and Alana are like my sisters." and I hope that there is a way that I can show her that I feel for her the exact same way.

Saying good-bye to them, not knowing when I will see them again, was painful. I take comfort though in knowing that it won't be nearly as long as last time and that their lives in Guam, although challenging, is much much better than what the life in Saipan had been. (Can you imagine?) Times like these, I like saying Aloha instead of Good-bye.