Still no progress on the van. I borrowed a wheel puller and it completely failed to grip the steering wheel. I guess I am going to have to break down and buy one.

It is almost Christmas and I hope all of you, at least all of those who celebrate the holiday, are enjoying the preparations. We are done with our gift purchases. I need to wrap Wakana's gifts but that is proving difficult. I can't seem to get her out of the house long enough. At this rate she'll have no wrapped gifts under the tree.

This is actually Wakana's first Christmas. Last year she was sick with her neck problem though we didn't know what it was at the time. She couldn't fully enjoy the season. This year she is in full swing though she isn't sure about the Christian side of it. A background in the Buddhist and Shinto religions does not prepare one for a Christian holiday, even one as secular as Christmas has become. So, she's excited about the tree and the gifts and the food and unsure about the Christian messages. She's impatient to open gifts and unsure about the manger story.

By the by, we were talking with some of our friends about local beliefs the other day. Two of them are haolie school teachers. They remembered discussing Christianity with their school kids. It seems the kids had the attitude that they were NOT Christians, they were Catholic. I think the old Spanish missionaries must have left out a key piece of information when they were enslaving, uh, converting the locals. Frank, a Chamorro from Guam, told us of his niece who held this same attitude. When he tried to explain it to her he raised the ire of his sister-in-law. So he sent her to their priest. The woman, he says, was visibly shaken by the news that she was indeed a Christian.

We have a new canoe t-shirt that looks pretty sharp. On the back it has the star compass and some Carolinian constellations. In the center is the canoe on a course from Chuuk to Guam. Gordon put together a little blurb to hand out with the shirts that explains what is on the back. I quote as follows:

"Paafu (Star Compass)
Paafu is Polowatan for "star compass".
Master Navigator, Manny Sikau, is from Polowat, an island in Chuuk State of the FSM. Mr. Sikau is a "pwo", which means he has been ordained as a master navigator and has successfully completed many years of training. Only a few navigators ever achieve this distinguished status.
The sidereal or star compass is a visual aid to teach students the important directional stars. First, students learn the names of the stars and their positions on the 32 points of the star compass. Later, they will have to identify these stars in the sky and eventually learn the direction to sail to various island destinations.
All of the stars rise in the east and set in the west, with the exception of Polaris, or the North Star. The stars are useful when they begin to rise or are about to set, because that is when they are low on the horizon and indicate a direction on earth. The navigator closely monitors the predominant swell at night and determines the angle that the predominant swell strikes the canoe when on course toward the appropriate directional star on the horizon. By doing so, the navigator can maintain course in the daytime and at night, or when the clouds hide the directional stars.
The significance of the symbols of the dolphin, frigate bird and trigger fish are that these animals are Carolinian constellations used in navigation. Triple dolphins are the symbol of the Carolinian seafarers. They can be seen as tattoos on the inner legs of some navigators.
The center symbol on the front of our T-shirt is the asymmetric bow (straighter on the lee side) of the traditional canoe. This is the logo for the UOG Traditional Seafaring Society."

Note: the front of the shirt has four sets of triple dolphins with the logo in the center. Some of you at the Getaway may have seen me wearing one of these shirts.

Happy Christmas and happy holidays.