Slow Guam

Raising money to renovate a gym... this is just sad!

In my first post, I explained one of the common phrases heard here on Guam, "Hafa Adai." This friendly greeting can be heard at the beginning of church services, on the other end of the phone, at the checkout counter, etc. And my favorite is at the airport going through customs and immigration because it means you're back home from some much more foreign place. The running joke, though, is that it sounds like people are saying "half a day," as in, everyone here only works half a day... and it takes half a day to get anything accomplished. True story.

Just this morning I helped out a friend and found myself in the thick of her frustration with Guam's red tape. She is in the process of trying to move off Guam, her husband is deployed, and they are trying to get their three firearms properly registered so customs won't confiscate them when they move back to the States. To get this accomplished, my poor friend has had to jump through so many hoops. In order to even make an appointment on base to even START the process of shipping any of their household goods, she was told she needs to have the "blue cards" for each of the guns they own. But no one could tell her where these cards come from or what you need to do to get them.

Having worked at a police department, I offered to help her wade through the system since she didn't even know where to start. We made a few phone calls and a very helpful guy at the armory on base told us that blue cards are issued by the police department, the same place she and her husband have already made about 11 trips to get a firearms ID card made (and were told you don't get blue cards there, but somewhere else they got lost trying to find). We looked up online what documents were needed... a customs form from when they moved here and a bill of lading that states ownership of the gun, as provided by the movers. Thankfully my organized friend still has this piece of paper in her files (she even called the moving company to verify it was the right document).

So the next step was taking this document, plus the weapons, plus her power of attorney document to the Guam Police Department Armory to get them inspected. Easy, right? Except no one, not even the women in Records who work at the police department, could tell us how to get to the armory. And the building doesn't exist on Google. No, not just on Google maps, but even in Google general search or on the Gov Guam or Guam PD websites. But somehow you have to get there to get this inspection to get the blue cards so you can make an appointment to start your PCS off Guam. THANKFULLY a very helpful guy in a military uniform was at the police department this morning and offered to lead us to the armory since, he told us, it took him 30 minutes of getting lost to find it himself. So we followed him back to the other side of the airport runway and found this completely official looking building where we were supposed to take the guns to get the magic document:

I mean, how could anyone miss this? Oh, and that's a 3" deep puddle under the chain-link fence door that you have no option but to wade through (my friend actually had to roll up her jeans).

For those of you who have stumbled upon this page by googling Guam Police Department Armory, I am going to make it easy for you and tell you that this building is directly across from the office for Skydive Guam, which doesn't post a map on their website, but they will email you a very good one if you call them and ask for it. Print out the map and head to Skydive Guam. Once you get to Skydive Guam (which also is no small feat) and are facing it, turn around and face the dump on the other side of the barely paved road, and voila, you have found the Guam PD Armory in Tiyan (which we more commonly refer to as Barrigada because Tiyan is nowhere to be found on Google maps either). By the way, they are only open for inspections from 7:30a.m. to noon (yes, the sign says 7 to 1, but it's actually not). The guy inside was extremely nice and helpful. And that's the thing. The locals as individuals here are really friendly and generally want to help you out. But somehow as a group of government workers, they all collectively seem to exist to make your life hell. The locals themselves make fun of how inefficient and frustrating Gov Guam is (93.9 FM, for example), so it's not just us haoles!

The super nice guy at the armory used my organized friend's paperwork to complete the safety inspection. He instructed us that the next step in the Guam firearms registration scavenger hunt is to take these documents to the Records department back at the main police station. On this 5-minute ride back around the air strip, my friend and I started getting excited. Wouldn't be long and she'd have the infamous blue cards in hand and could go on about her merry way making arrangements to move off this high-functioning, impressively efficient island (no sarcasm here, folks). So she stands in the long line full of smokers (the line is outside under a walkway awning, even though it's raining and the rain is blowing under the awning getting everyone wet, even though there's an entire waiting room inside that they aren't letting people wait in, forcing everyone to stand outside... with the smokers... in the rain). I used the time to call my mom and catch up.

I could not believe it when she got back in the car some 45 minutes later to announce that she was not able to get the blue cards because she only had a sales receipt for one of the guns, and even though the other two were gifts and no one had receipts, and even though their website said nothing about needing ownership documentation other than what came from the moving company, they were requiring her to go to the legal office on base to get a notarized letter stating her husband, in fact, owns these guns.  Surprise!!!! You're not done yet!!!

So now my friend is at the legal office asking for this letter so she can take the letter along with all the documents actually listed on the PD's website to drive all the way back there (a 30-minute trip each way) by 1:00p when they close (HALF-A-DAY!) for the weekend. It's all nothing short of absurd.

This is one story of MANY that I have both heard and experienced. One of the reasons I chose to spell this one out is because the information does not currently exist on the internet, so my hope is that someone some day will save themselves one extra maddening trip to Guam PD by reading this... or better yet... people moving to Guam, just don't bring any guns! Trust me, it is NOT worth the hassle or expense (it's $45 per gun for the registration fee alone and their outdated websites that say a security clearance letter will waive the fee is bogus... you have to pay it... cash... which is an improvement from money order only which was one more trip my friend had to make to a post office to stand in THAT line for a money order back when they did not take cash or check... unbelievable. To clarify, they do now take cash, but don't expect them to have change).

An example of one of my own battles was trying to do the proper thing and get a Guam driver's license when I moved here. As a military dependent, I am still required to get a Guam driver's license despite the Sailors and Servicemembers Relief Act (yes, even though it just got updated... we checked with legal and because Guam is a territory they can still require us to follow certain local regulations). So three times now I have shown up at their equivalent of the DMV (it's actually called "Tax and Revenue"... which the very name itself has nothing to do with motor vehicles and everything to do with collecting fees... weird) and attempted to get this driver's license. The first time I did not have my original social security card. The second time the line was so long (I was there for something else) I bailed.

The third time I drove the 30 minutes across town to the office, filled out the form, waited in line, and sat down with the lady who instructed me that since my Social Security card listed my maiden name as a middle name but my CA driver's license did not list any middle name, that these documents did not match (even though I had my passport, original birth certificate, AND marriage license, all of which clearly indicate I am who I say I am and that the SS card with my unique, hyphenated maiden name could only possibly be me). She directed me to go to the Social Security office across town to get a new card, wait for it to arrive in the mail, and then return to get a driver's license. With that, I was done. The rule says you have 30 days after coming on island to get a Guam driver's license, and I figure as much as I travel off island, it's never much of a stretch for me to reply, "Actually, Officer, I just got on island a few weeks ago."

Hey, improve your processes and I am happy to oblige. I mean, I worked at a police station! I understand the rationale behind a lot of annoying local registration procedures and hoops people have to jump through in the name of safety or following the law or whatever. But this place collectively flushes common sense down the toilet.

I haven't even mentioned the slow (and terrible) drivers (usually when people here die in car crashes it is in SINGLE-CAR ACCIDENTS, if you can believe that... like hitting power poles or having a heart attack while driving), the slow shipping it sometimes takes things to get out here in the mail (Priority Mail usually takes 5-7 days and is typically great, but I have had some regular mail items take two months!!!). The flip side, of course, is how nice it is to be on "island time" and have a slower pace, which I for one totally appreciate. A slower pace is great for enjoying more time with friends and family or for relishing the view on, say, a lovely hike or dive.

A slower pace when you're trying to get something accomplished is just maddening!