Here is a more detailed report from last week. I am now back in the office and very glad to be here. This is the easiest day I have seen in over a week.

I went out on Monday to arrange for the utilities to be turned on. That was a long and arduous day. I got home at 4:30 PM to find the door was not locked as I usually leave it. There was a foul odor in the air. I opened the door on to a scene of wreckage and the reek of smoke and soot. My house had burned while I was out.

Now that the investigation is over it appears that someone had broken into the house and stolen my camera and Wakana's laptop computer. They may have also taken my passport and social security card. They then set a pillow on top of the computer monitor and turned it on. The firemen report that the house was full of smoke when they got there. It was a smoldering fire. It wasn't until they ventilated the upstairs rooms that the flames came up and they could put it out. We lost a lot of our stuff. Anything that was made of fabric is full of the soot and smoke smell. We may be able to clean the clothing well enough to wear but the bed and easy chair are gone.

Next day we started in the new house. It had been empty for about a year and a half. We had to clean and paint the whole thing. What a chore. We had planned to do this work over the rest of the month. Now we had a week. I bought a new bed and a dresser. The kitchen cabinets were full of termites and ants so we tore them out. The air conditioner didn't work and the refrigerator wouldn't cool. Some of the windows were broken. The bathtub was full of rust and debris. The sewer line was plugged. The driveway was silted up with four inches of mud washed down from the neighbor's new yard.

While we worked we stayed with a friend, and our future landlord. We slept on his couch and on the floor. The village was having water problems so we weren't able to shower. We would arrive at his house after a long hard day, drenched in sweat and covered with dirt, barely able to stand. To clean up you would turn on the water in the bathtub but there wasn't enough pressure to take it up to the shower head. Instead you had a Taco Bell plastic soda cup which you would fill and pour over yourself. There was no hot water. Once you were wet you could lather yourself with soap and then rinse with the cup.

Last night, Monday, August 24, 2004, was our first night in the new house. It still looks like a construction site with paint cans and tools scattered around. The range is in the living room and there is a roll around dishwasher waiting to be removed. We also have a water cooler in the living room. But we slept in a bed and we got to take real showers. The house is near the naval magazine and for some reason has water while the rest of the village is dry. What luxury is a hot shower…

Oh, then after all that work we heard of Chaba. Chaba is a Thai word that means "sweet flower". It is also the name of the typhoon that was bearing down on us. We spent Sunday in the pouring wind whipped rain putting up storm shutters and preparing two houses for the storm. Then I helped Gordon get his own house and his neighbor's house ready. Gordon was house sitting for the neighbor and we stayed in the empty house to ride out the storm. Chaba passed about 90 miles north of us so our winds were only in the 60 to 70 MPH range. It hit Rota and Saipan pretty hard. Now that Chaba has moved on we hear that the sustained winds are up to about 180 MPH.

So let's see, fire, typhoon, hmm, I guess that's the list. I figure the big earthquake is next. And that's the news from Guam.

I hope you can see this. It is the satellite montage from our neck of the woods. Next time you hear Florida complaining about storms just think of this picture. Chaba and Aere