greetings from Guam!

Greetings from Guam! It took us a while to get settled, but we're finally feeling like locals and ready to reach out to our favorite people to give you a quick update. :-)

(Quick backstory: we were supposed to move to Taiwan for my partner's sabbatical this school year (so the girls could learn Chinese), but they had their first COVID outbreak in May (after zero cases April-December 2020), closed the border, and kept extending the travel ban every two weeks, so after renting out our house, then packing and preparing to move three times in July and road tripping around California for a month (thank you to the friends and family who took us in while we were homeless!), we decided to move to Guam while waiting for Taiwan to reopen because it had an 80% vaccination rate, no quarantine requirement for vaccinated people, was American and thus easy travel, and had a Taiwanese consulate.)

So, the good news: life in Guam has been great! We're renting a beachfront condo with a pool and small playground in the backyard, and we've enjoyed snorkeling and kayaking in the shallow, peaceful lagoons in front of our condo and around the island. 

And for those wondering about life in Guam:

The island (population: ~170,000 people) is about 30 miles long and 4-8 miles wide, so we rented a car for a week to explore and discovered we could drive to the northern or southern tip of the island from where we are (in the middle) in just about half an hour of driving-- but there was still quite a bit of interesting history here. Magellan sailing on behalf of Spain landed here with three ships in 1521. We also visited a World War II site that was really powerful. Japan attacked Guam right after Pearl Harbor, and the entire island was a war zone for years. Now, Guam is officially American, but the locals can't vote in our presidential elections.

Guam feels American in that there are chains like Domino's and Winchell's Donuts around, but there are zero Starbucks, tropical island life is definitely slower paced, and most people are Chamorro/Pacific Islander/Asian. Almost everything is imported, so a half-gallon of non-organic milk is $6 instead of the $3 we paid for organic at Trader Joe's, and gas is a bit more than Bay Area prices (around $4.70/gallon), but the quality is also generally lower. The Quaker Oats are marked "export" and have stray husks that you don't find when you buy them in bulk at Costco on the mainland, and you see many of the generic brands from the mainland at double the prices (Kirkland frozen strawberries were $18 compared to the $9 we usually paid for three pounds). We're not quite sure how it all scales because other things like eating out are comparable to California prices, so labor is somehow cheaper even though everything is more expensive.

There is a naval military base in the south and an Air Force base in the north, and both are closed to civilians, which is a bummer because there are supposed to be some really beautiful places to visit on both, plus they have their own schools, gas stations (a dollar cheaper per gallon), grocery stores, etc. They are like small self-contained worlds that are closed to the locals.

When I googled the schools, the population was described as 2/3 Hawaiian (probably the closest option to Chamorro) and 1/4 Asian, so that gives you a sense of the people here. So, unlike at our girls' school in California where Aria was literally one of two dark-haired children in her entire class, Téa says there is one blonde in her whole school/Aria says there are five in her whole school. (They may not be the MOST accurate reporters, but you get the idea.) :-) 

Despite the island's small size (relative to California), we are pretty much the only weirdos actually walking around. Everyone drives, and there is no public transportation unless you're disabled, which blows our minds. While exploring the island both by car and on foot, we've seen maybe five other pedestrians, and 2-3 of them were probably homeless. (But unlike California, they were the only homeless we've seen-- and maybe they're not even actually homeless.)

We had two full weeks of the girls going to school here: they wore their cute little uniforms, learned Chamorro language/history/folklore (a nice surprise), took the bus to and from school, and were fed breakfast and lunch. 

And then, the not-so-good news: even with an 80% vaccination rate for 12+ year olds on the island, Guam had a surge in COVID cases and closed all schools starting yesterday and are reverting back to online learning starting next week. So, the girls have an extra week of vacation, and my partner and I return to not exercising or getting our own work done. :-D

How are you doing? It's been such a strange year and a half! We hope this message finds you and your loved ones well, and we'd love to hear from you soon! :-)