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Growing up in an extended family system.
Dec 18, 2005

Hafa Adai from Guam,


I grew up in an extended family system.  My grandparents had 12 children.  My mother was the third from the oldest.  After the children were grown, my grandparents ended up with 33 grandchildren.  I am one of those 33 grandchildren.  We're already more than enough to make our own baseball team.  Seven of those grandchildren were born and raised in the US mainland, and we did not meet them until the 1970s when they decided to visit the family in Guam.  Two of my aunts married Stateside Americans, and they moved to the States where they had children.  Therefore, I grew up with 26 cousins.  Most of them were boys.  In fact, 20 of them were boys and there were only 6 of us girls in the extended family here. 


In my family alone, I am the only girl.  I don't have any sisters.  I have two younger brothers.  Being the oldest, it was my duty to teach my younger brothers to fly straight and walk right.  However, that was not an easy task.  For some reason, boys don't really like being taught the errors of their ways by a female.  The rule in my family was "the younger should never show their tongue to the oldest, and the oldest should never raise their fist against the younger."  That means, I had to find a way to teach my younger brothers to fly straight and walk right without resorting to force or violence.  Another rule in the Chamorro family is "anything bad that happens to the youngest, the oldest is to be in trouble for it."  Keeping my youngest brother out of trouble was hard.  The kid was accident-prone and ended up in the hospital more times than I can count.   It wasn't my fault that my youngest brother thought asprin was candy and swallowed the whole bottle when he was only 2 years old.  Besides, I was only 6 years old at the time, and I didn't give him the asprin.  It was my 5 year old brother who gave it to him. 


Having my first cousins around constantly was like having so many brothers and sisters.  It is also the responsibility of all adults in the extended family system to discipline the children, not just the parents.  Na famta i direchon i taotao tano.  It takes an entire community to raise a child in the right way. 


Every child is taught to respect all elderly persons by smelling their hand regardless of whether they are related to them or not.  This custom of smelling the hand of the elderly is called manngingi and is taken seriously in our culture.  The Filipinos also have a similar custom.  The only difference is that the child must take the hand of the elderly person and put it on their (the child's) forehead as a sign of respect.  Because I have both Chamorro and Filipino heritage, I was taught both ways. 

Si Yu'us Ma'ase
Selene
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Posted: Sunday December 18, 2005, 6:15 am
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Selene L
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female, age 51, single
Hagatna, Hagatna, Guam
SELENE'S SHARES
Mar
5
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Hafa Adai from Guam, March 1st marks the beginning of Chamorro Month.  Chamorro Month is a time when we commemorate our culture.  During this time, people would wear the traditional Chamorro attire.  Yesterday, I've taken out all my tra...
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Hafa Adai from Guam, March 1st marks the beginning of Chamorro Month.  Chamorro Month is a time when we commemorate our culture.  During this time, people would wear the traditional Chamorro attire.  Yesterday, I've taken out all my tra...
Feb
21
(2 comments  |  discussions )
Hafa Adai from Guam, George Ray Tweed was an American radioman who escaped capture from the Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation of Guam.  Tweed became a war hero in the United States, with photographs and stories of him in life ...
Dec
22
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Hafa Adai from Guam, One of Guam's son was killed in combat in Iraq.  His name was Richard Aguon Naputi Jr. from the village of Talofofo.  He is also the 11th person to die in Micronesia.  The war in Iraq has been a very contr...


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SHARES FROM SELENE'S NETWORK
Oct
26
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http://www.dropby.co.uk/t his is a new site a sort of face book for the over 60's there are pages of help , groups, etc, not many of us yet but everything starts small please come and see us
Jan
24
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check it out:http://www.chicza.com /index.html
Jan
23
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http://plantabillion.org/
Dec
18
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http://www.organicconsume rs.org/
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check out the very important messages from Matthew Ward! here you can read about a lot of things going on today and why things are as they are!it is telepathically received by Suzanne Ward.http://www.matthewbo oks.com/mattsmessage.htmt hanks


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