NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

One of my jobs this summer is to run community conversations with Nedine Songeni for Humanities Guåhan at the Department of Corrections. I first started doing these types of conversations or civic reflections many years ago, when the Humanities Council introduced them as a means for talking about the military buildup. I along with several others underwent a training period and held these conversations with diverse groups across the island. Since then I've also helped them a few more times on organizing civic reflections. It is an interesting model, and what I've always found nice about it, is that it requires the use of humanities text, whether it be an article, a text, an essay or a short film, as a means to stimulate conversation. Rather than a debate or a lecture, you build from a text which can be interpreted in many ways to sort of try to unpack many of the things members of the community may be feeling and may or may not be talking about. A few years ago Humanities Guåh

Earlier today I had the honor of giving a presentation before the Guam National Football (Soccer) Team. They have a friendly tournament coming up on island where they'll be facing off against teams like Saipan, Macau and Mongolia. I was asked by some of the coaches and staff for the team to speak about traditional navigation and use it as a metaphor to inspire the players. Traditional navigation in Micronesia is something to absolutely be proud of, even on Guam where it was lost for centuries and is being incorporated back into life again. People say that Magellan put Guam on the map. He did so only for Europeans. Peoples in Micronesia had their own maps and Guam was already on them. Chamorros had their own maps and these maps stretched from Asia to the Marshall Islands covering thousands of miles. To fixate on Magellan putting Guam on an map helps us forget so much that we can and should be proud of. Magellan puts Guam on the map 3500 years after Chamorros put it