Guam post

So today we went to the Micronesia Fair where they have vendors from all the islands around here. Every island has different traditions, crafts, and customs. I took some pictures to show you all.

First off, we walked into the park and there was a carabou (local cow) there. If we paid for it, the kids could have ridden a carabou like this. (This particular cow was one I saw on another day but I forgot to get the picture.) So we didn't ride the cow because I forgot to go back there.

 
 Look at these flowers! They are huge. These are our friends Allie and Ashlyn.

And here are my cuties.

And this was the coolest flower ever.

 OK. This was interesting. They had these sticks out on the table and they each have a different carved pattern. We were told that the men in Chuuk (pronounced Chewk) would wear these in their hair, each one having a different pattern. The women were supposed to observe the men during the day and differentiate between the patterns. So at night, the men would come to the woman's house and put his stick in the doorframe. Then the woman would feel the pattern and see if it was someone she wanted to "be with". If it was then she would take it into her house and the man would know that he was welcome to come in. If it wasn't, the woman would just throw the stick on the ground. (Harsh!) Either way, I thought this was interesting.

 So this guy was husking coconuts like a pro. He had his machete and was chopping them until the coconut spits some water out, then you could buy it and drink straight out of it. I have done this before for free so I wasn't going to drink mostly flavorless water today.

 This was my friend Russ (and Aspen) trying to play a conch. Russ needs some more practice. :)

 This is a lady who taught us how to weave. She takes these long stalks of leaves and splits 2 leaves in half. Then she starts to braid them...

 as you see here. She handed this braid thing to me and told me to keep going. I was totally confused because with the way she told me to do it, I just kept turning it and turning it. I was pretty sure that I was a disaster of a weaver.
As a side note, you can kind of see the mat we were sitting on. It is white and next to the basket. Go to the end of the blog to discuss this. *

She made this headband for Ashlyn.


 But then she turned my circular weave into a rose. Now if she had just said that in the first place...

She also made Katy a ring and Cody a whip  (for a cow).

 After that we came across some carved sculpture things. These are pretty crazy to me so I did not purchase any. Can you imagine having these in your house?

These are some of the other items they had. These are turtle shapes with a very nice, polished rock in the middle. We also saw turtles carved out of coconut shells. Very pretty.

 After that, we ate lunch. This is typical Chamorran food. It is called red rice, jerk chicken, and ribs. They make the meat in the big charcoal smokers - which makes it very good. The "red rice" (which is really orange) is made with achiote powder. It can be flavorless depending on who makes it. This is very popular here along with Chicken Kelaguen(not pictured) and Lumpia. I forgot to take the picture before my kids ate it but the lumpia (fried egg roll thing) is between the corn and the eaten chicken.

Kaitlynn loves the ribs right of the bone. Cody was liking it today but Katy eats more than her weight in ribs when we have them.
The Chamorran diet causes a lot of people to be overweight and have health problems but boy do they eat well. This food is yummy!

*She said that they live off the land so they sleep on these mats that we were sitting on. Let me tell you, they were hard! She said that it is a cultural thing as well as a lack of money thing. It is just what they do. I understand that they are used to that but it makes me wonder why Heavenly Father allowed me to be born into a house where we sleep on clouds while others don't get that priveledge. Then I wonder why we care so much about our material possessions. These people are happy and they have so few things. They are a family centered culture but everyone has to pitch in to make things or else you couldn't survive. Basically they live in the 1800's with some conveniences of the 21st century. (They get bottled water rather than tracking their water down and hauling it back to their "house".)

So why do we, as Americans feel that people with less should have more? Because we have more? How happy are we with more? These are rhetorical questions.

So to end my long day, I got to go to the Relief Society Broadcast with some amazing friends. we all rode together in "Lily" (As Katy has named our purple pilot). It is a week later than it is in the states because our Saturday night comes before Salt Lake's. So this weekend is RS Broadcast and next weekend will be General Conference (observed).

I have to say that although people may be jealous of us living on a tropical island I believe that what you should be jealous of is that Heavenly Father has sent us to a very foreign part of the world and expects us to learn some hard lessons - which allows usto grow. However, he has provided for us some very amazing men and women who love the Lord and who have bonded with our family in such a short amount of time. Most people take years to become such good friends with others but I truly believe that Heavenly Father has sent some people that are perfect for us to be able to lean on and us, them. I am not sure that living somewhere where you have everything at your fingertips provides this kind of opportunity. We have access to relatively little in terms of easily accessible modern items. Because of this, we have great friends who make up for these things that we are going without.