Supertyphoon Pongsona in Quam Dec 8, 2002

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The Guam trip with the Small Business Administration was one of the highlights of my disaster service.   

It was a long ways away and we had about 400 of us on a huge military plane and stopped at Hawaii and Midway. 

 The trees had all been sliced off and it was a very bare and wrecked island.  I loved the people as they were so humble.  Most of them lived in Cement houses but the ones who did not lost everything.  We stayed in the damaged hotels and worked in one end of this huge mall.  

 We had beautiful views of the Philippine sunsets and my favorite thing to do when not working was walking along the beach.

The unusual thing about this job was we were doing all the interviewing and processing of the loans in Guam, and nothing was done stateside.  This was the first experience I had working out in the field (disaster area) and so I had a lot to learn.  I think the hardest thing was trying to interview them in the noisy mall and they spoke so softly.  

They were very appreciative and as we walked anywhere in our blue jackets they would call out their thanks for coming to help them.  

We worked very long hours when we first arrived but had more free time toward the end.  Our hotel was right across from the Outback so toward the end we were having wonderful fresh mahi maki.  

We spent Christmas in Guam.

This was collected not too long before I went home.  I first went on a very rainy Sunday, but it was so easy to recognize when I did find it.  They were very friendly and inclusive.