Interesting day. This morning as I headed out to meet with the Seafarers the plumber arrived. Since I'd been witing for him for two weeks so I stayed home while he changesd out the angle valves under the kitchen sink and the valve in the toilet. He had a helper with him and they talked in Tagalog as they worked.

Finally I got off to the meeting. When I got there they were holding a formal meeting. We talked for a while about the upcoming fund raising aactivities and plans for PacFest 2004. Then we started to work on the canoe. Or, rather, Manny and this old guys started to work on the canoe while the rest of us stood around and watched. The old guy had only one hand. They told me he'd lost the left one to a shark. He and Manny worked on the yahms. They fussed with the placement of the pontoon and fit the broken yahms in place. It was hard to stand by and watch but the Chamorros were working in their own language. Actually it may have been a different dialects. One young man laughed and said they were working in three different languages.

They inspected all the wood the others had cut and declared only one fork usable. We still need three more. The old guy, I wish I knew his name, attacked the wood with adze and machete. His machete rose and fell like machinery carefully hacking off precise chips. He would chop, turn the piece, chop some more, turn the piece and chop some more. When he knocked off the previosuly curved piece was thinner and straight as an arrow.

It rained the whole time they worked on the piece. I finally headed out. It was such a luxury to not have to go to the office. I drove up to the Faith Bookstore. I'd been trying to get there because they are reputed to have the best collection of books on Guam and Micronesia around. They do have a pretty good collection. The real find though was their map department. I found a great topographic map of Guam and a small map of the Pacific islands.

Then it was off for groceries and home.