Skip to content

March 31, 1959

The great rice fields of Antipolo and Morong are burned out and brown, and the whole island world is waiting for the rains. A checkers contest is playing in the middle of the street in one town, and billiard tables stand by the roadside. We watch a water carrier trotting along the road in a swinging caracole. He holds his shoulder balance with the right hand, and balances himself with the other, like a football player running interference. Planting has begun in irrigated paddies near Morong, and we come upon a circle of women pounding the rice with flails. The church at Morong, a cross-breed of baroque and pagoda, is inhabited solely by pigs, and the town is draped from end to end with fishing nets.