Chamorro Village Revisited

Since we could not see the entertainment at Chamorro Village when we went several weeks ago, we decided to go again this week and we went VERY early so that we would have good seats. The entertainment does not start until 6:30 but we were there in place by 5:45. While I kept our place, Wayne went to get some dinner for us. He came back with Bar-B-Que chicken and pork on skewers and corn on the cob that had been grilled. There is a large variety of foods from other ethnicities such as Chamorro, Chinese, Japanese, Jamaican, Greek, Mexican and Filipino.



It tasted wonderful. I have been a little leery of buying from food booths but I guess I had better get over it. I am sure there are a lot of interesting things out there that really taste good.

While Wayne held our seats I went shopping. I had decided that I would go back to the booth with the necklace made with the brown tree snake vertebrae and if I still liked it I would buy it. As you can see from the picture I still liked it. I figure it is something that is unique to here and it is a useful souvenier that will not be tucked in a drawer never to be seen again. I also bought an orchid and started my Christmas tree decoration collection.



























Along with the temporary booths set up on Wednesday night only, the village has permanent stores that sell island handicrafts (probably made in China).



With my purchases completed and dinner a memory, the show finally began. I cannot remember the Chamorro name for the performing group but it translates to Children of the Island. They did numerous dances in a 45 minute show. They were pretty good.





I just have to add a tidbit in with this posting. The missionaries have been telling us about an island custom that is somewhat of a nuisance. There is a tree called the Betelnut and people take the nuts from this tree, wrap it up in the betel leaf along with chewing tobacco and lime powder and then they chew it. When we went through the airport in Saipan I thought it was funny that they had signs posted about not spitting Betelnut. On some of the islands it is a real problem because people spit it everywhere and so there is a lot of red goop on the streets and sidewalks (where there are sidewalks). It is highly addictive and I know the Marshall Islands have recently passed a law making it illegal to chew Betelnut. You can tell who chews because their teeth are red. Well we were in the grocery store this week and saw bags of Betelnut for sale at the checkout counter. We were later told that the bags sell for about $1 which seems cheap but they chew so much that you have to buy lots of bags for one day.