Our closest neighbors, like these kids, were the indigenous Tagbanua, but people from many different ethnic groups, especially Cuyuon and Visayan, had also migrated into this frontier area beginning in the 1950s.

Talking with kids was a good way to begin learning Tagalog -- children have a simple vocabulary and grammar and they didn't laugh at our mistakes like the adults.
Tagalog is the Philippine national language that was used by almost all the people in the community, who spoke several different dialects, as a common language.
It took us a long and often frustrating 6 months to gain a basic proficiency in Tagalog so that we could communicate well enough to begin our research.