Honoring The First Flying Proa Voyage since the 1600's

We have wandered lost, disconnected from our being as master
voyagers and navigators of our oceans, disconnected not only
from the peoples of our neighboring islands, but from ourselves,
our heritage and skills. For centuries, our sakmas’ sailed the
seas, unafraid, letting the stars, moon, waves, wind and birds
of the air guide our voyages, taking us to adventure and
returning us home. And then the voyages stopped. We no longer
dared the blue ocean waters and stayed anchored to the shore,
spirit confined, unimaginative souls worshiping a new god.

We bow our heads and fall to our knees, as we were instructed,
as being the proper way to show our respect to the new god,
introduced and forced upon us by strangers to our land and
our way of life. As we grew accustomed to worshiping in
this manner, we gradually lost the ability to hold our
head high, to see beyond the horizon and when we lift our
head looking to the moon and stars, we no longer could see
the maps of the voyages of our ancestors written in the
light of the stars and moon of the sky or the sound of
the waves of the ocean bouncing off the sakman as it
cuts across the ocean waters. We no longer knew how
to set our sail to the wind to get beyond the shallows
inside the reef.

But the knowledge was never completely erased, the fire
never completely extinguished. The embers remained in
some souls, the heat continued to keep the spirit restless,
searching for the souls where the embers glowed. And then
we found the wind. The wind than fanned the embers beyond
a glow, to a raging passion in the souls of the descendants
of ancestors who can see the future in the knowledge of
the past. And they set about building the vessel to take
us there and it is called the Saina.

The first of countless voyages in which a Chamorro sakman
ventures to the open ocean, and the first one
built in over 300 years. It will be the first in which
a sakman was built without the guidance and hands
schooled by those who came before us, our tao tao mona,
our siana. But we are not alone, they have not abandoned
us. They continue to inspire us and the restless spirit
has found a vessel to channel the energy now harnessed
in a sail still unfolded. Tomorrow, the spirit will be
released as the sail is raised and the bow of the
sakman breaks the waves, carrying with it the renewal
of our heritage, the our rediscovery of skills
pressed to the back of our memories and the rebirth
of the a tradition rooted in a proud and ancient
people, in a place and homeland called Guahan.

And we sing the praises of the brave and restless
spirits whose raging passions have made brought us
to the dawn of this new day. Para todas y taotao
TASI, para y nena en miyu pagu y futuran y Chamorro.
SAINA ma’ase.
Senator Ben Pangelinan 30th Guam Legislature