Guam sits like a jewel in the tropical Pacific, a paradise of beauty and contrasts. About the shape of a boot thirty miles long and ten miles wide, the island contains high cliffs, white beaches, and swaying palm trees. Jets throw contrails into the brilliant blue sky as white foam-covered waves break from the sea, washing crests into the sand on beaches. The Pacific lies beyond, a deep blue, not tinged with gray or green.
At some point every day, some part of the island receives rain. A resident may find rain falling in their backyard while the sun is shining in the front. One neighbor can work in his garden while another watches the rain from his window. A short time later, the sky clears over the entire island.
Across the road from the outer edges of the housing projects are the slums, a closely woven mass of vegetation, the island’s jungle. At night, the mating call of wild males can be heard, followed by the clacking of hooves and antlers as two enamored males fight over a doe. The snort and bellow of the wild boar echoes in the last dark hours of the tropical night.
The beach glows in the warm winter sun as bodies of different shades of brown, black, white and sunburnt are paraded in and out of the water. Guamanian indigenous people swim alongside military and civilian personnel from military bases. A coral reef nearly a mile out into the ocean separates large waves from the beach. At each end of the moon-shaped Tumon Beach, a towering cliff stands guard. Away from the sunny area of the sand, palm trees wave in the gentle breeze. If one looks closely, the native huts can be seen far back in the trees.
With little warning, serene blue skies and calm seas can turn into a hell of wicked winds, torrential rain, and black skies when a typhoon hits. The rain seems forced through the walls by the fierce whipping winds, driving the storm. The typhoon, enemy of the islands, sweeps with extreme destruction, sweeping away everything that does not yield to its fury.
Guam portrays calm seas and lapping waves; jet and wild boar trails; native huts and housing projects; white sands and military bands. Paradise, a place of beauty, a place of contrasts, lies like a jewel in the Pacific.
