NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Ever since I first began learning Chamoru my interest in Chamoru music has continually grown.  I grew up sometimes hearing Chamoru music, but couldn't understand it and didn't really connect with it.  But from the first time that I sat down with my grandmother at the dining room table and had her help me translate the CD "Chamorro Yu'" from Johnny Sablan, kinenne' yu'. I have been hooked.  To this end I have been collecting Chamoru music, whether in CD, cassette or vinyl form.  I've collected whatever I can from newspapers, magazines and scholarly sources related to Chamoru music.   I have also been fortunate enough to sit down with many musicians and talk to them about their experiences and why in a world where English dominates, they chose to record and release music in Chamoru. Last month I was very very luck, gof suettettette, to be able to pick up the album "Ai Saun Diroga" by Chamolinian II while searching for Chamoru music online.   Fr...

  The grandmother of my partner Desiree, Tan Agnes Duenas Perez (familian Pepero) passed away last month at the age of 92. Her youngest great-grandchild is our daughter Lulai, born just last year. I am so thankful that they got to meet before her passing. I am also glad that I have was able to spend some time with her and listen to her stories. She was just 11 years old when the Japanese invaded Guam. She was the eldest of her siblings and helped care for them during this traumatic time. From her auntie Tan Amanda Guzman Shelton, a pioneering Chamoru nurse she learned some basic skills for helping the sick and the elderly. Soon after the war she married musician Josephat Mauro Perez and began to raise a large family. She spent time in those immediate postwar years helping to start the network of community centers and programs for manåmko’. Her family would become prominent in the village of To’to’ and well known for their musical talents. Tan Agnes had 12 chi...

People have been asking us at the Guam Bus for years to make audio books or audio recordings of our bilingual Chamoru-English children’s books. We sadly have never gotten around to it. But with the new series “Beneath the Mango Tree” from Nihi Kids, you can listen and follow along to a reading of our first kid’s book “Sumåhi and the Karabao!” You can find both an English and Chamoru version on the Nihi Kids YouTube page. Biba Nihi! Konsigi mo’na yan todu este gefpagon bidadå-mu put i kotturan yan lengguahen Chamoru!   Here is the link to the Chamoru language version: