Knock yer SOX off
In the year or so that I've been living in Davao City, I still have mixed feelings about the city itself (It's safe! But the traffic is terrible!). However, I've ended up absolutely falling in love with Mindanao. Yes, I'm living on that mystical farthest-south island of the Philippines, the one where all the embassies in the developed world warn their citizens not to visit for fear of kidnapping and terrorism. The real story, of course, is far more nuanced than that; yes, there is currently a bloody conflict going on right now in Marawi City, the latest installment in struggles that have been going on in Mindanao since the days of Spanish colonialism. (Though it should be noted that the Maute group, the main aggressors in the situation in Marawi, have no lofty anti-colonialist goals but are instead a bunch of opportunistic thugs claiming allegiance to ISIS) But despite how tragic the ongoing conflict is, it's on the other side of an island bigger than Ireland,