by
Asha Robles


Guam - The first of 19 village entrance signs was unveiled today. Today, Governor Eddie Calvo along with the Guam Economic Development Agency unveiled the Hagatna village entrance sign.


GEDA deputy administrator Mana Silva Taijeron said, "Our community drives around and they see these signs and you know we want to give them something back to the community we want to make our island beautiful for everyone who lives here but also for our visitors who are going in and out of the village to see a beautiful picture and the story of each of the villages, so when you see one of the village signs you'll see the story of every village and what unique feature they have in each parts of our island."


The sign, which features the statues of Chief Kapuha and Santa Maria Camalin also shows symbolic locations like the Spanish Bridge and the Jose Lujan House was done by Maria Cristobal. "I'm really excited, one of my dreams has always been to come back home after going to school in the States to come back home and do graphic designs, not only meaningful but also communicative throughout our island and the importance of our island," she told KUAM News.


Though Cristobal is excited about her artwork being shown, getting the project properly done in Chamorro was most important to her. "I went through efforts with language experts and research on the book which was put together by the Chamorro language committee years back I used their research to get those names properly spelled and I thought is was very important to include the place names for each village not only the village names but also the subparts of each village," she continued.


The replacing of the island's capitol entrance sign is just the first step in rebuilding Guam. The project is made possible through funds provided by the Hotel Occupancy Tax bond. "Through that we have other projects that are funded we got the Guam Museum, which will be going up; we have the Farmers Co-Op, which will be unveiled next week; and then we also did the community center in Inajaran. And so all those projects, we've also got the parks and beach areas and public areas that we're going o be renovating and rejuvenating for our public to use," she said.


This is the first of 19 village entrance sign that will be unveiled, all of which are scheduled to be installed by August 30.