Guam's traditional sailing canoe sails to Malesso. TASI visit stelstarguam.com
Showing posts with label TASI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TASI. Show all posts
Monday, January 04, 2010
Sunday, January 03, 2010
A home for Saina
A home for Saina
Monday, 04 January 2010 01:29
by Zita Y. Taitano | Variety News Staff
GUAM’S sakman outrigger canoe “Saina” will have a new home at the Ypao Beach Park in Tumon by the end of summer.
Artist Ron Castro’s rendition of the latte house that will be built for Saina. Photo courtesy of Ron Castro
Members of Traditions About Seafaring Islands or TASI have been gathering the right wood to build a latte stone house for the Saina. The house will have latte stones similar to the ones found on Tinian and Rota.
TASI member Ron Acfalle said the group has collected Gagu or pine wood. “They are really strong wood that we use here,” he said referring to a Chamorro village set up in the park that was part of the recent Micronesian Island Fair.
“The latte will come up first and it’s going to be 12 feet and the structure on top will be 27 feet for a total of 39 feet so almost close to four stories high,” he said.
The latte stones will not be made out of the limestone ancient Chamorros used in the past. They will be made out of concrete because there is no equipment available on Guam to cut the limestone for the latte, Acfalle said. The structure will be about 80feet tall and about 35 feet wide, he added.
The project is scheduled to be completed in about eight months although Acfalle would like to see the hut up sooner. “We need to take it slow here so that all those who find they want to be a part of this will be given that opportunity. Summer time will come in about six months,” he said. “That might entice some of the locals who come from school.”
Acfalle wants the community to be part of the project. “It’s really important that’s really known it’s for our brothers and sisters,” he said. “Our goal really is to touch everyone’s heart. To bring harmony to kids who are lost in the culture and the elders who want to see it.”
The latte house is the second building TASI has built for canoes. The first one, Sayan Tasi Fache Mwan, is located at the Hagatna Boat Basin next to the Paseo baseball stadium.
Tony Taga, 40, of Dededo, is looking forward to completing the project is glad to be part of the effort.
“I just want to give back to the culture and learning about (my) family’s culture,” said Taga, who is also a direct descendant of Rota’s Chief Taga.
According to legends, Chief Taga was instrumental in the building of the latte stone structures in Rota and Tinian.
He said his family and relatives in Rota are not aware that he’s helping with the construction. “They don’t know yet, but I know they’ll be proud of me that I’m helping the culture so I know they’ll be happing that I want to learn something,” he said.
Also proud to be part of the process is Ben “Guelo” Rosario, 45 of Rota.
“Helping the latte house is a very great opportunity or great experience because right now the engineering building of the Latte house has been gone for over 300 or 400 years. Maybe 500 years,” said Rosario. “I think building this is part of our mission to perpetuate the culture and to experience the engineering of the latte.”
Monday, 04 January 2010 01:29
by Zita Y. Taitano | Variety News Staff
GUAM’S sakman outrigger canoe “Saina” will have a new home at the Ypao Beach Park in Tumon by the end of summer.
Artist Ron Castro’s rendition of the latte house that will be built for Saina. Photo courtesy of Ron Castro
Members of Traditions About Seafaring Islands or TASI have been gathering the right wood to build a latte stone house for the Saina. The house will have latte stones similar to the ones found on Tinian and Rota.
TASI member Ron Acfalle said the group has collected Gagu or pine wood. “They are really strong wood that we use here,” he said referring to a Chamorro village set up in the park that was part of the recent Micronesian Island Fair.
“The latte will come up first and it’s going to be 12 feet and the structure on top will be 27 feet for a total of 39 feet so almost close to four stories high,” he said.
The latte stones will not be made out of the limestone ancient Chamorros used in the past. They will be made out of concrete because there is no equipment available on Guam to cut the limestone for the latte, Acfalle said. The structure will be about 80feet tall and about 35 feet wide, he added.
The project is scheduled to be completed in about eight months although Acfalle would like to see the hut up sooner. “We need to take it slow here so that all those who find they want to be a part of this will be given that opportunity. Summer time will come in about six months,” he said. “That might entice some of the locals who come from school.”
Acfalle wants the community to be part of the project. “It’s really important that’s really known it’s for our brothers and sisters,” he said. “Our goal really is to touch everyone’s heart. To bring harmony to kids who are lost in the culture and the elders who want to see it.”
The latte house is the second building TASI has built for canoes. The first one, Sayan Tasi Fache Mwan, is located at the Hagatna Boat Basin next to the Paseo baseball stadium.
Tony Taga, 40, of Dededo, is looking forward to completing the project is glad to be part of the effort.
“I just want to give back to the culture and learning about (my) family’s culture,” said Taga, who is also a direct descendant of Rota’s Chief Taga.
According to legends, Chief Taga was instrumental in the building of the latte stone structures in Rota and Tinian.
He said his family and relatives in Rota are not aware that he’s helping with the construction. “They don’t know yet, but I know they’ll be proud of me that I’m helping the culture so I know they’ll be happing that I want to learn something,” he said.
Also proud to be part of the process is Ben “Guelo” Rosario, 45 of Rota.
“Helping the latte house is a very great opportunity or great experience because right now the engineering building of the Latte house has been gone for over 300 or 400 years. Maybe 500 years,” said Rosario. “I think building this is part of our mission to perpetuate the culture and to experience the engineering of the latte.”
Friday, October 23, 2009
Rising Seas, Rising Awareness
Published on Thursday, October 22, 2009 by The Baltimore Sun
Rising Seas, Rising Awareness
Climate change threatens to drown Maryland's coasts and islands, but it's not too late to act
by Mike Tidwell
Here's an idea: Why don't the residents of Smith Island - at the fragile center of the Chesapeake Bay - rent a few scuba-diving suits and hold a town hall meeting under water?
Scientists say a huge part of the Chesapeake region could be below water in a few decades due to rapid global warming. So why not practice up? Just grab a few wetsuits and goggles and rehearse for the aquatic life to come.
A similar rehearsal took place last week in another island area: the archipelago nation of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Sitting at underwater tables, atop underwater chairs with fish darting about, the country's president and Cabinet ministers held a "global warming summit" to ask the world to stop the rising seas that could eventually submerge their entire country.
But as TV networks broadcast this bizarre meeting back to the U.S., you could almost hear the "tsk, tsk." We comfortable Americans tend to view really big catastrophes - things like famines and tsunamis - as far-away matters involving people usually too poor or under-educated to plan better.
This mindset helped blind us to the pre-Hurricane Katrina dangers of New Orleans. And it's blinding us today to the shared threat of climate change in places like Smith Island, not to mention Manhattan Island and most of south Florida.
Smith Island - just 80 miles east of the White House in the main stem of the Chesapeake - is home to 300 fishermen, artists, boat-builders, shopkeepers and retirees. The island covers four square miles and is, on average, less than 2 feet above sea level.
If, thanks to global warming pollution, the Greenland ice sheet continues its satellite-verified meltdown, then Smith Island will almost certainly disappear even faster than the Maldives and faster than several much-publicized South Pacific island nations. The whole eastern third of Maryland, in fact, is in big trouble, from Ocean City to Solomons Island to Annapolis. James Hansen, the top climate scientist at NASA, says we'll be measuring sea-level rise in meters by 2100 if current trends continue.
That's a lot to take in, for sure, and skepticism might be the natural response to such climate predictions. So don't take it from Greenpeace or Al Gore or even James Hansen. Listen instead to Allstate Insurance Co.
In 2006, Allstate announced it was no longer issuing new homeowners' policies in states up and down the East Coast. In Maryland, the company shut its doors to new customers across 11 eastern counties, including parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. Why? First, the company said, sea levels are definitely rising worldwide based on irrefutable science. Second, Atlantic hurricanes are getting bigger and more intense as the planet warms. Hence, Smith Island and much of the rest of eastern Maryland just aren't good insurance risks anymore, Allstate acknowledged. The potential for catastrophe is too great.
Allstate is not a Republican corporation. It's not a Democratic corporation. This is rational private capital talking. The idea of an underwater town hall meeting near Smith Island seems less alarmist when a major insurance company is abandoning customers just a stone's throw from our nation's capital.
Thankfully, the Maryland General Assembly has done its part on global warming. It passed a statute last spring mandating a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions statewide by 2020. But like the tiny nation of the Maldives, Maryland can't solve global warming by itself. The U.S. Senate must pass an even stronger federal carbon cap by mid-December, ahead of international climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark. With a congressional bill in hand, President Barack Obama must then go to Copenhagen and push China and the rest of the world for a strong global treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.
The good news is that this Saturday, for the first time ever, activists from Maryland and the Maldives - as well as Greenland, Australia and myriad places in between - will be speaking with one voice on global warming. The much-heralded "International Day of Climate Action" involves more than 4,000 events in more than 170 countries, including a "human circle of hope" outside the White House. (Learn more at www.350.org/dc).
And while there's no word yet about an aquatic town hall meeting at Smith Island, there are rumors of wetsuits and goggles available for loan from the president of the Maldives. It's time to follow in his wake.
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun
Mike Tidwell is executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network based in Takoma Park. His e-mail is mtidwell@chesapeakeclimate.org.
Rising Seas, Rising Awareness
Climate change threatens to drown Maryland's coasts and islands, but it's not too late to act
by Mike Tidwell
Here's an idea: Why don't the residents of Smith Island - at the fragile center of the Chesapeake Bay - rent a few scuba-diving suits and hold a town hall meeting under water?
Scientists say a huge part of the Chesapeake region could be below water in a few decades due to rapid global warming. So why not practice up? Just grab a few wetsuits and goggles and rehearse for the aquatic life to come.
A similar rehearsal took place last week in another island area: the archipelago nation of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Sitting at underwater tables, atop underwater chairs with fish darting about, the country's president and Cabinet ministers held a "global warming summit" to ask the world to stop the rising seas that could eventually submerge their entire country.
But as TV networks broadcast this bizarre meeting back to the U.S., you could almost hear the "tsk, tsk." We comfortable Americans tend to view really big catastrophes - things like famines and tsunamis - as far-away matters involving people usually too poor or under-educated to plan better.
This mindset helped blind us to the pre-Hurricane Katrina dangers of New Orleans. And it's blinding us today to the shared threat of climate change in places like Smith Island, not to mention Manhattan Island and most of south Florida.
Smith Island - just 80 miles east of the White House in the main stem of the Chesapeake - is home to 300 fishermen, artists, boat-builders, shopkeepers and retirees. The island covers four square miles and is, on average, less than 2 feet above sea level.
If, thanks to global warming pollution, the Greenland ice sheet continues its satellite-verified meltdown, then Smith Island will almost certainly disappear even faster than the Maldives and faster than several much-publicized South Pacific island nations. The whole eastern third of Maryland, in fact, is in big trouble, from Ocean City to Solomons Island to Annapolis. James Hansen, the top climate scientist at NASA, says we'll be measuring sea-level rise in meters by 2100 if current trends continue.
That's a lot to take in, for sure, and skepticism might be the natural response to such climate predictions. So don't take it from Greenpeace or Al Gore or even James Hansen. Listen instead to Allstate Insurance Co.
In 2006, Allstate announced it was no longer issuing new homeowners' policies in states up and down the East Coast. In Maryland, the company shut its doors to new customers across 11 eastern counties, including parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. Why? First, the company said, sea levels are definitely rising worldwide based on irrefutable science. Second, Atlantic hurricanes are getting bigger and more intense as the planet warms. Hence, Smith Island and much of the rest of eastern Maryland just aren't good insurance risks anymore, Allstate acknowledged. The potential for catastrophe is too great.
Allstate is not a Republican corporation. It's not a Democratic corporation. This is rational private capital talking. The idea of an underwater town hall meeting near Smith Island seems less alarmist when a major insurance company is abandoning customers just a stone's throw from our nation's capital.
Thankfully, the Maryland General Assembly has done its part on global warming. It passed a statute last spring mandating a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions statewide by 2020. But like the tiny nation of the Maldives, Maryland can't solve global warming by itself. The U.S. Senate must pass an even stronger federal carbon cap by mid-December, ahead of international climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark. With a congressional bill in hand, President Barack Obama must then go to Copenhagen and push China and the rest of the world for a strong global treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.
The good news is that this Saturday, for the first time ever, activists from Maryland and the Maldives - as well as Greenland, Australia and myriad places in between - will be speaking with one voice on global warming. The much-heralded "International Day of Climate Action" involves more than 4,000 events in more than 170 countries, including a "human circle of hope" outside the White House. (Learn more at www.350.org/dc).
And while there's no word yet about an aquatic town hall meeting at Smith Island, there are rumors of wetsuits and goggles available for loan from the president of the Maldives. It's time to follow in his wake.
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun
Mike Tidwell is executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network based in Takoma Park. His e-mail is mtidwell@chesapeakeclimate.org.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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