Who would have thought that a city-guy who lived in the streets of Manila City Philippines from 1985 to 2001 will survive living in the wilderness of Chama canyon from 2002 to 2010?

This is where I lived for eight years as monk of the monastery of Christ in the desert, New Mexico.
The photo shows the church of my community as the only living visible existing dwelling place up this canyon. This community of monk priests and monk brothers thrive to live a monastic life with the harshness of weather and environment.

Since there is no neighborhood, and the nearest one is down the highway 13 and a half miles away from our community, living a secluded life from the world was a bit challenging.

We were an autonomous type of community living with what we have and what we can do to survive monastic culture in the midst of today's modern ways and hows of life.

We had solar panels as source of our electricity. Our satellite phone source nearest to our community was from Utah.

Our food supplies come from our benefactors and some of them were acquired from doing our Wednesdays grocery shopping in Espanyola and Sta Fe.

And as kitchen manager of the community, I was tasked to do grocery shopping for the community. The food supplies and food consumptions for the week were sufficed by the bulk of items that I had to buy from Walmart, Sam's Club, Trader Joe's and Wallgreens. All were located at the cities of Sta Fe and Espanyola.