If you travel just 40 minutes north of me, the dialect of Kinaray-a is different from in my own community!
With fishing and agriculture being the main sources of livelihood for Antiqueños, the local environment is an incredibly valuable feature of life. There are extensive shorelines for fishing, nutrient-rich lowland fields for farming and shaded mountain sides for special crops like coffee.
Farmers grow and sell rice, corn and cash crops such as bananas, sugar, coffee and tea. Some farmers focused on livestock raise pigs and chickens for their meat or eggs, with a minority of them rearing cows for beef. Fisherfolk catch fish and shellfish like shrimp or small crabs, either with hook-and-line methods or large nets cast from boats or offshore. I eat lots of tilapia, milkfish and sardines caught locally!
Although fishing and farming are the main sources of income here, there are other alternative forms of livelihood. In the community next to mine, many people make “solar salt” by drying seawater on the land. Once the water evaporates, they are left with white salt that they can sell at the market! Local craftspeople also make clothing and tapestries from piña cloth (made from pineapple fibers), weave baskets made of thin bamboo strips and make bricks and pottery out of nearby clay. Homes and furniture are often constructed from thick bamboo posts cut down locally. My host family likes to make chocolate from the cocoa nibs of their cacao trees!
