Holy Week Rosario

I am not particularly religious, nor do I identify with any particular religion. But I have been interested in how the different cultures I have visited celebrate their faith. And the fact that here in Rosario most of my best friends are intimately involved in the church has led me to become active in the Easter proceedings.

All in all, during Holy Week, I spent over 25 hours at formal church masses or events, notwithstanding the many hours chatting with friends as they made preparations for the week at the church. I also sang hymns in waray-waray, the local language, in the choir during the Saturday Easter Vigil (only possible due to the lyrics being shown through PowerPoint).

It is not an exaggeration to say that this one-week represented more church than I have attended in my past 10 years of life. But the fact that I was raised Catholic gives me a point of comparison between Easter celebrations in America and in the Philippines. To say the least, Catholicism in the Philippines is much more devout, as you can see below:

Father Roni blesses palms brought by the parishioners during Palm Sunday mass.

Going Rogue...

This has been one trying week. A week that changed everything about my time in the Philippines, and threatened to remove me from my new community for good.

I felt great about my time in Rosario when, Friday morning, I was at a hospital in Catarman, the provincial capital, for a lab test to finally determine whether I have any lingering parasites from my visit to Mali. After just one month, I was already well-integrated into the community, and Bobi and I were in the midst of planning a disaster risk reduction and management workshop with local government officials.

But as I was waiting for the results from the lab, I got a text message from our country director notifying me that they had obtained 'compelling and overwhelming evidence' that I have been riding a motorcycle, which is in violation of Peace Corps policy, and that I would be immediately sent home.

My friends and I enjoy an octopus and fish feast Friday night at the church after learning that these might be my last moments in Rosario. Father Roni (right), the priest of our local Catholic Church and a great friend, has offered that I can join them for their meals everyday if I return.

Biri Island with the Baraks

This past Sunday, I joined a group of friends from Rosario on an outing to Biri Island. We had a group of 14 people, all of whom are active in the local Catholic Church. 10 of those people are young men from the Baraks Boys, a group that I often join to chat during my free time. The other 4 are young women whom I have also gotten to know over the past month. Jazel, one such woman, lives in Rosario, but is posted to Bagong Silang, in the municipality of Biri Island, as an elementary school teacher. She served as our host during the trip.

Our entire group pictured on Hinablan Rock.

The municipality of Biri Island, made up of several small islands, is the premier tourist attraction in Northern Samar province due to its astounding natural beauty. While it certainly did not disappoint, the bigger part of the trip was actually the food. Whereas we as Americans are used to food taking center stage on vacation, we generally see vacation as a reprieve from cooking and an opportunity to sample the local fare. In this case, the guys made use of most of our available time to cook every meal, each of which was completely fresh and delicious.

The following are select pictures from our outing, and thanks to the Filipino affinity for picture taking, there were a lot to go through:

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.

Hitha Manila

I've been through this whole training/orientation business before. Twice, in fact. Mercifully, on account of this being a Peace Corps Response position, the process has been significantly shorter. And on Thursday morning, scarcely a week after my arrival here in Manila, I will be flying out to my new home on the island of Samar.

If this city is anything to go by, my time here won't be anything like my service in Mali or Kenya. There is a Starbucks or a 7-Eleven on nary every other street corner. One of the biggest malls I remember ever stepping into, Robinsons Place, is not even the largest mall in Manila. That would be the Mall of Asia, the third largest in the world, and therefore a place I never want to go. McDonald's, always two-story megastructures here, is one of the local favorites, alongside similarly-modeled Filipino chains. Hell, there are Krispy Kremes, T.G.I. Friday's... even an In-N-Out Burger!

'The Jeepney', as seen on the streets of Manila. You jump on, ride for a small fee, and jump off at your destination. Best part... the owners get really creative in pimping their rides.

Aside from the many familiar American conveniences are peculiarities in culture and transport. They may not eat with their hands as in Mali or Kenya, but instead of a knife and fork, Filipinos eat with a fork and spoon. The spoon serves not as a 'shovel', but a cutting apparatus for tough meat. The primary mode of public transportation is the 'jeepney', a small 70's-themed minibus straight out of the mind of Jerry Garcia.