Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

My first day at Park Side Elementary School, my teacher, Ms Midler has given us our homework assignment for the weekend, an essay or short story, truth or fiction, on what we did this summer.

I don’t think she will believe this one but she did say it could be truth or fiction.

Elizabeth Consuelo Delgado Gutierrez
Fifth Grade English 8 September 2008
How I Spent my Summer

My summer really started in January of this year with the announcement of the limited extension of the Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus tour. In honor of the troops and their families, Miley and her father Billy Ray would be appearing at military installations world wide, well not in the war zones. Yet before this there is some background needed.

My son joined the U.S. Navy in 1989 and after two years of schooling at the nuclear power school in South Carolina and at the training facility at West Milton New York he received orders to the USS Texas (CGN39). On his first tour at sea, WESTPAC-91, he met his future wife, Miranda Hernandez Delgado. She was sixteen and staying with her auntie in Olongapo City. She had completed school and now she could attend a vocational school, perhaps getting a job on the base. They met on a USO sponsored beach party on Grande Island in Subic Bay, and by sunset they pledged their love to each other.

June 15, 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted. In the days that followed Wayne helped evacuate thousands of residents of Olongapo and Subic City. The Base at Subic Bay closed, never to open again as a US facility, so started a courtship by correspondence that lead to his sponsoring Miranda on a fiancée visa. Five years later Wayne and Miranda married in the chapel in her home barrio in the mountains of Southern Leyte, a province of the Philippines located in the Eastern Visayas.

May 15th, 1997 my granddaughter Consuelo Elizabeth Delgado Gutierrez was born.

January 7th, 2008 - Washington, DC — The Verizon Center, Miley Cyrus announces the limited extension of her tour honoring the troops and their families. Naval Station Guam was low on the list, the tour would be there for four hours on Saturday July 12th.

March 17th, 2008 KUAM News 8 announced their contest sponsoring three families and their twin daughters with front row seats at the Cyrus tour on Guam. There were several stipulations, the family must be active, reserve or retired military. The twins must be female and between the ages of six and twelve. The family must sign releases allowing KUAM all rights and control of publicity. KUAM decided to hold a beauty/talent contest held in conjunction with the Miss Guam Tourism Pageant on Saturday, April 25, 2008 and hosted by the outgoing Miss Guam Tourism 2007, Tiffany DeGracia and Miss Guam Tourism 2006, Risha Aguon.

March 18th, 2008, a suit is filed, by the LT Governor, in Guam Superior Court challenging the right of KUAM's limiting of the contestants to military and retired military dependents. He also challenged the stipulation that the contestants must be twins. In a quick hearing on March 20th, KUAM won.

March 21st, 2008, Good Friday, my son, his family and I arrive on Guam for the start of of his first overseas shore duty. Wayne had me declared as a dependent after my wife passed so that I could stay in their home and receive medical care that I needed as I was now in my 68th year.

The day we arrived Wayne, Miranda, and I crashed in the hotel. It had been a thirteen hour flight, and with the time zone changes, the 85 degree temp and the high humidity we were out of it for much of the next day. Connie, however, was up and heard about the tour promotion and the contest. She was pissed! Tickets were sold out and the contest was the only way anyone, well six any ones and their parents, would be getting seats. Twelve hours latter I’m still asleep but Connie has wakened Miranda and she is telling her how unfair all of this is. I wish I had been awake, I would not be writing this now.

My daughter in law, is Visayan and a strong believer in witchcraft. Myself, I don’t, well didn’t believe in it. As for the relationship between me and my daughter in law, well, it was a bit strained. Since moving in with her and Wayne, I no longer had my workshop nor my old friends and I kind of laid around a lot just watching the History Channel and football when I could. We all loved each other but the light of our hearts was Connie. What Connie wants, Connie gets. She wants to go to the concert.

Still none the wiser, I awake the next day. Good news, we will be moving into a house on Dyer Drive on NAVCAMS in ten days. Wayne is ecstatic but Connie is quite. She explains to me that to get quarters so fast they had been a little misleading on the sponsorship information, neglecting to reveal the ages of their dependents. When we are questioned about my presence she has been saying that I traveled along with them to help them move in and that I’m on my way to Pattaya City in Thailand to attend the Miss Tiffany's Universe 2008, followed by a tour of Vietnam to see sights from the war from both sides and points of view. As for our other dependent, she and Wayne have started saying that their other daughter will be joining us soon, what...?

April 1st, 2008, We move in to the house, it is a side by side duplex built of concrete and designed to withstand winds up to 250 miles per hour. Four bedrooms and two baths, it has central air-conditioning and a carport. As we meet our neighbor, I again hear the explanation about my presence but now I will be leaving soon?? What is this about a twin daughter arriving this week??

As the mail arrives there are several packages from LA LUNA ISIS in Quezon City, Philippines, I’m ready to take a nap so I put on some music from Anak, yes it is in the Visayan language and I don’t understand the words but it’s very relaxing.
My body still has not adjusted to the time changes and I wake up before midnight. It is still April first and back on the mainland it is not even the first yet. The music on the CD has changed and has a chanting lit to it, almost Celtic but for the language. I’m not feeling well and fade into a restless sleep.

April 2nd, 2008 I awake to the morning sun. Wayne is holding my hand and Miranda is asleep next to me but the view does not look right, first off, I don’t have my glasses on but I’m seeing things clearly, yet the perspective seems off. As I start to move Miranda wakes up and Wayne tells me not get up, that we need to talk first. As Wayne and Miranda start to talk I grow confused then alarmed I start to get up. It’s all wrong, I pass out from shock.

April 4th, 2008 it seems that I’m my own second granddaughter now. The good points? I gained years in my life. Yet all that I’ve accomplished is now just pictures in some photo albums. I still have my knowledge but I’ll have to go back to school and that has
much changed also. As for family relationships, well my opinion is respected, about the same that Connie’s is. But in my case I’m reminded that much of this is going to be new to me. And as for freedom, well there is no way I can just get on a plane and go somewhere now, after all who would sell me a ticket?? By the way no one pays attention to little Asian girls that are only 4'5", and how do you manage hair down to the middle of your back?

April 18th, 2008 the last two weeks could be called my second childhood/girl 101. Connie helps me. We go everywhere together. I’ve relearned how to swim and hopscotch is now a game I can play. We toured the island on a USO tour for new arrivals, seen the blow hole and played by the SECGROUP Antennas, Connie calls it the dinosaur cage, I agree, it looks like one. Dad is teaching us golf and mom is teaching us Sayaw Pilipinas (Philippine folk dances) starting with Tinnikling, the national folkdance which is performed with a pair of dancers (Connie and I) hopping between two bamboo poles held by Mom and Dad just above the ground and struck together in time to music. This dance originates from Leyte Province, mom’s home land and she tells me that the dance mimics the movement of “tikling birds” hopping over trees, grass stems or over bamboo traps set by farmers. As we dance we have to move with grace and speed jumping between bamboo poles.

Another Visayan dance is the Kuratsa. Mom told us that it is commonly performed during festivals in Bohol and other Visayan towns, and is meant to portray a young playful couple’s attempt to get each other’s attention. The stories mom tells us about life and pre-courting in the barrio kind of explain this dance to us.

The third and last dance mom teaches us is the Malakas at maganda. Again from Leyte, it is a tribal dance which depicts the birth of the first man and woman who came out of a bamboo tree. It has been said that the woman named “maganda” (beautiful) and the first man “malakas” (strong) are the parents of the whole community in the island. The dance demonstrates how a bird discovered the noise coming from the inside of the bamboo and perched until it opened. A man and a woman came out of the big bamboo tree and, the birth of this legendary couple is amusingly interpreted in this dance. In these last two dances one of us portrays the boy or man, I’d expected it to be me because of my experience but mommy tells me that I need all the practice I can get being a girl, so Connie plays the part. We will be performing the dances for the talent portion of the contest.

April 25th, 2008 Contest time. We are just a small part to the Miss Guam Tourism event and that is a good thing, it turns out that only three pairs of twins counting ourselves fit within the rules of age and military affiliation set down by KUAM. Still the show went on and our dances were well received. There is a tight relationship between Guam and the Philippines with their shared Spanish and American backgrounds.

July 12th, 2008
With both Miley and her dad Billy Ray we got the best of both worlds, at today's concert. There were more than 1,500 attending the 4 p.m. concert at the theater at Big Navy on Guam. Mom, Dad, Connie and I had tickets in section three row one, we were in front but a bit off to the side. We sure did not need to bring binoculars, Connie couldn’t be more excited as she screamed "I’m absolutely happy. I don’t know what better to say than I’m happy."
Mom started crying when country singer Billy Ray Cyrus appeared on stage and sang "Ready, Set, Don’t Go" with Miley. She told us that the song reminds her that Connie, and I are growing up. Could have fooled me.
Both Dad and I are happy for Connie but we don’t share her enthusiasm. Dad came prepared with aspirin and earplugs because there were a lot of screaming girls, As for me for some reason I screamed along with the rest of us. I heard mom tell dad that she was glad her daughters were looking up to a star who still seems fairly wholesome. I think she has forgotten me as I was and now just thinks of me as another side of Connie.

August 1st, 2008 well the shit hit the fan. Some PN1 raised hell about the DEERS listing after I tried to go to the clinic for my school physical. She started digging and after finding no history of me in the last eleven years of records she called dad's commander.
No one believes in witchcraft but I exist and I am the same down to the DNA as Connie so rather than raise a stink that would show up in the tabloids the navy gave dad and early out and a partial retirement. We moved to Illinois where dad hopes to get a job on the base. As for me, it was an interesting summer.