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Guam 2020: Post 14 Camping at Tarague Beach, Part 1 - Friday Night

I could hardly get up out of bed this morning.  I was so tired, even after sleeping.  I didn't head out and go walking.  I didn't feel like eating.  So i just sat on the couch to try to get myself awake enough for tutoring.  Then I had diarrhea.  That's the problem.  I thought I didn't have long until I had to start work.  So I immediately swallowed some charcoal capsules and prayed for recovery.  Then to my relief, I realized I still had one more hour until my first student, not just 10 minutes.  That was a blessing.  The charcoal helped.  I was feeling much better at 8:30 AM.

When Rob got home at noon, we ate lunch and packed things to take camping with us.  We were going with the pathfinders to the northern point of the island, up on the Air Force Base.  Even before we landed on Guam, we told them we wanted to join them again this year.  So far we have been able to go every time we have come to Guam.  Our names had to be cleared with the Military and put on a list so we could get in the gate and drive to our special destination for the weekend.  If that was taken care of, all we had to do is show our ID at the gate and they let us in, but we only had permission to drive straight to the beaches, and not drive on any other road.



We we arrived,  a tent was already set up for us, and supper was almost ready.  On the way up we had stopped at KMart and bought two camping chairs and a pair of slip-on beach shoes for Rob, so we were ready.



Supper was a soup made with corn and potatoes and I think coconut milk.  But wow, it was full of oil! I have never eaten soup that is so slick and leaves such a coated feeling in my mouth.  I don't know what kind of oil the cook used, but it was almost inedible. There was some nice honeydew and cantaloupe for dessert, and that helped.



It was dark, but Rob and I took out on a walk through the campground parking area for some exercise.  We didn't have enough steps for the day yet.

Next was worship, and the kids sang and sang.  Lee played the stringed bass.  Dennis and several kids played the guitar, and Alissa played the ukulele.  There wasn't a microphone, so we couldn't hear much of the worship talk presentation by quiet-spoken kids, but they promised there would be one tomorrow.



We were glad to get to bed.  They had given us an inflatable queen sized mattress to sleep on, and we brought our bedding from the house.  I was feeling pretty humid and sticky by then.  There was some salt spray blowing in from the ocean, and our tent was right by the ocean.  But with all three windows in the tent wide open, I could feel some breeze.  We had the tent farthest from the Pathfinders so we had some privacy.  No one would be walking by our tent on the way to the bathroom.

Speaking of bathrooms, the girls bathroom was flooded with sewage.  I went to use it right when I got there and saw a puddle with human waste and toilet paper included.  I carefully walked around it not positive what it was yet.  When finished, I flushed the toilet and sewage bubbled up from the drain in the floor.  Now I knew for certain what it was.  I didn't know how we were going to get through the weekend because that bathroom was very unsanitary.  I talked to a girl's counselor.  She too was concerned.  A phone number had been called but with no response from the people in charge of the campground.  They decided that the girls would be sent into the boys bathroom one group at a time, alternating with the boys.  I decided a visit to the jungle would be more pleasant.

Sometime in the night, I heard it start to rain.  Rain starts all of a sudden in Guam, and it usually rains hard.  We quickly zipped all three windows, but rain drops were still blowing in, under the edge of the handkerchief-sized rain fly above the tent.  Oh well, that helped keep us cooler with our ventilation all shut off.  When it had stopped, we opened windows again, and let in the cool breeze.



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