The 'Rosariohanon' Community

Some friends at the local Catholic Church making 'hinagum', a local delicacy made of rice, coconut milk, and sugar, traditionally prepared just after harvest.

I am now moving in on my one-month mark in Rosario. When dealing with only a 5-month service, as opposed to two years, this milestone is all the more significant. Over 20% of my time has now passed by.

It should follow that my relationship with the community would suffer due to this brevity. But I am pleased to find that this is not the case. Compared to Mali and Kenya, both of which would nevertheless become second homes to me, the Philippines does not present the same caliber of cultural challenges when it comes to integration.

The main impediment to integration was and always is language, and that remains the case here. I have been trying to learn ‘waray-waray’, the local dialect, but am unlikely to get very far without any formal training and with only limited time on my hands. But unlike in Africa, most people here can speak English well. Whether they choose to use it is another story.

Concluding our municipal risk assessment...

Following is a selection of pictures from the last leg of our Disaster Risk Reduction and Management team's site assessment of the municipality's 11 barangays:

Homes surrounding the small port at Jamoog are susceptible to storm surge during a monsoon or typhoon.

A view of the coastline from Barangay Jamoog. We scaled the large hillside in search of a 1-meter wide, 150-meter long crack locals had found in the soil several years back. No evidence remains, but such a crack could be indicative of an unidentified fault line through the village which could cause an earthquake in the future.

Acquainting with Rosario

Talk about an upgrade! After almost 3 years in the Peace Corps, always living in a simple mud house, my new home is damn luxurious. I live in a fully furnished two-story duplex. My bedroom, complete with an air conditioner that I haven’t yet brought myself to use, is upstairs. Downstairs is a living room, bathroom, and kitchen, complete with (intermittent) running water and electricity. The municipality even has a weekly trash collection service.

Even better… the food. So far I’ve eaten mud crabs, a variety of fresh and salt-water fish, eel, shrimp, squid, pork, beef, chicken, and a wide assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables. Pictured above, the women of the local canteen outside our municipal office prepare a variety of lunch options each weekday.