Mango Festival

June and July are the months for mangoes here in Guam. We had a great time at the mango festival. If you look closely you'll notice the mangoes hanging at the posts for the tent. These are green mangoes and they eat them sliced with salt and pepper, tabasco, or any number of other sauces. The local mango is much smaller than the ones you are use to seeing in the grocery store, but they are very sweet and tasty. At the festival they had grilled mango, mango tea, mango smoothies, mango ice cream, and all kinds of mango salsas and chutneys. Not to mention the mango games.

Here are Sweetpea and Bud waiting with a bunch of local kids for the mango bobbing to begin.

It was suppose to start at 11am. The time now is 11:15 and they are still waiting on the tables to be set up.

Finally, at about 11:30 they are ready to start. It was quite funny watching the whole thing get set up. They used a bucket brigade to get the water over to the bowls it took them about 10 minutes to get enough water in each bowl. Stem and Bud were troopers and got really wet but were not able to get even one mango out of the bowl. Have you ever tried biting into a green mango? It is very hard and just will not sit still in that bowl of water. Anyway, a local girl won she got 5 of the 6 out of her bowl in the allotted time. It was a lot of fun.

After seeing all the dishes at the festival I was inspired. Not to mention I had a refrigerator full of mangoes. We got the 12 green mangoes the kids were bobbing for and also our neighbors have been very generous with all their produce and fruits. So I tried my hand at mango salsa. Root thought it was wonderful, Stem and Bud said it was too hot, and me, well I'm just happy that we are all blooming where we're planted.

My mango salsa

booney pepper, one has about the same kick as 4 jalapenos

Mango Salsa recipe

2-4 mangoes

a tomato or 2

cilantro

hot pepper, I use 2 boony peppers

lime juice

a little fresh ginger grated (optional)

Local's vacation

Lost Pond>

locals beach house

coconut crab out of its shell coconut crab in a shell

in the jungle

hiking on the beach

playing at lost pond

hiking on the beach

animal pool at PIC

balance beam at PIC

trampoline at PIC






puffer fish in the swim through aquarium

Hi all,

Sorry its been awhile but we took a locals vacation. Since most of the locals cannot afford to fly off island for a vacation they go PIC, that's Pacific Island Club, it is a resort hotel. For the price of your room you get breakfast and use of all the facilities. This includes, a pool with 2 slides and a balance beam, pool with rolling logs, pool for sports, pool for laps, pool with big animals anchored in it for the kids to climb on, and one of those spray pools.

Also, they have a beach area a swim through aquarium, (see picture above of a puffer fish)tennis, batmitten, archery, ping pong, many golf, and a trampoline. You get use of all this from 10 am on day of check in until 5pm on day of check out. We had a blast, but we only lasted until 1:30 on day of check out because we were all so tired. We even got to spend some time with our friends that were staying there because they are PCSing back to the states. Seems when you are in the military friends are always coming and going. Thats the cycle of change I guess.

We also spent some time hiking and went to this cool place called "Lost Pond" We had to actually wear hiking shoes to hike down the beach due to volcanic rock. Then after about a mile and half hiking down the beach we finally came to a stopping spot.

We went snorkeling in " sharks hole" there aren't any sharks. However, I think I've mentioned how the reef extends way out and the water is pretty shallow, well we swam out about 50 yards to this big hole in the reef where the water gets deeper and you can see some very interesting fish. We saw a huge blue starfish, it was about 20" across and an arm was about an inch circumfrence. That was really cool.

Then we had a picnic on the beach got back on our hiking shoes and hit the jungle. About a 1/4 mile in we found lost pond. Its this fresh water pond completely surronded by jungle. The water was so cool and refreshing. We had fun trying to catch small fish in our hands and listening to the barking frogs ( they really sound just like a dog barking). We got to see several coconut crabs, named for their love of coconut.

The coconut crab is the largest land living anthropod, an animal with an exoskeleton, in the world. Our pictures are of babies. They are born in the water and live there for 28 days and then loose the ability to breathe in the water. As young they are like hemit crabs until they can no longer find a shell big enough. Then they use cocnut shells until they develop their own hard exoskeleton. They can get up to a length of 16 inches and a weight of 9 pounds. They are big enough to husk and crack a coconut with their claws, which is their favorite food along with other fruits. They can live to be up to 30 years old. Their primary predator is man, they are considered a delicacy in the islands.

When we see all these wonderous sites, I try to remind the children how blessed we are that God created all these things for us to enjoy. Every time I turn around I am amazed by His creation. I just don't understand how some people can think that its all just an accidental occurance.

Please forgive the way the pictures came out, this was my first time and they didn't come out where I wanted them. I will try to be more consistent with my posts. Next time low tides and the mango festival.

Till then we are blooming where we're planted.

Stem