One Way Ticket

Since November, every place we’ve been has been a place where “they“ drive on the left. Here in Guam cars drive on the right side of the road. Here the US dollar is the currency. There is no need to secure an unfamiliar legal tender at an ATM. During our travels each country visited required us to google the local currency value versus the dollar and then estimate the amount of currency we would need for the stay. Usually these estimates came out on the short side. So there is a sense of familiarity with being in this new place. 

Driving a rental car after not being behind the wheel for almost 5 months also has helped ease us towards “normalcy“, however we have had to rely entirely on our smart phone guidance system. Driving is a mixture of a layer of normalcy on a confusing island landscape in a curving intersecting network of roads. There is normalcy in the grocery stores because we’ve been able to buy Greek yogurt and mouthwash is readily available. Our guide said that all of the goods here must come from the US by US law and that Japanese tourists love to shop for US goods here. However, we have purchased noodles from Korea and beer from China even though the shelves are full of BudLight.

We are disappointed that we are unable to travel to Rota because there are no return flights available before we are to fly to Hawaii. So we have more time here on Guam than we had anticipated. We have rented a small house outside the main urban areas. The house has a relatively full kitchen with a stove. It is interesting how important it feels to be able to cook and eat a self prepared meal. Louise made a delicious beef stew which we ate last night. Tonight Chuck will cook a Hillshire Farm Beef Polska Kielbasa with potatoes fried in butter.

The stores sell American products. The wiring system light switches and toilets all are “normal”. We also have been following on line the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. We have had to some degree a sense that maybe we have been fiddling while Rome is burning. Or that we have been out playing when we should have been preparing for future troubles as in Aesop’s fable, The Ant and the Grasshopper. We have shared ideas about what types of activities will be meaningful when we are once again in the Eau Claire orbit. So our thoughts have begun to wrestle with the reality that this adventure will soon be ending.

We took an island tour with an indigenous activist. His tour told a repetitive story of European colonization and its destructive effect on Chamorro culture and the reduction in the indigenous population. There were 300 years of Spanish colonization. After the Spanish American war, the US Navy commander governed the island. The period of Japanese control during WWII further reduced the Chamorro population with forced labor and concentration camps which were liberated by US Marines in 1944. Our guide was very pro military and pro US as his mother and father were brutalized during the Japanese occupation. However, Japanese now make up the largest tourist population in Guam. According to our guide, Japanese love to shop here supposedly for American goods, which are plentiful as there are two large shopping centers on this small island.

Guam for us still contains much mystery. One thing for sure is that it is a top priority of US military presence in the world. Twice I saw a low flying B-52, the kind that carry nuclear bombs. Guam is a navy and Air Force hub.