Worlds apart?

On the western Indonesian island of Flores, life is much quieter and more primal compared to the better known islands of Java, Bali and Lombok. In the center of the island is the land of the Ngada, an ethnic group, some of whose members still live in perfectly preserved traditional villages and adhere to ancient rituals of ancestor worship and fertility cult. In the Ngada village of Bena, I spotted a blind woman sitting with her grandson on the terrace of her century-old hut. She seemed to be living in her own inner world while making wool with her spindle and chewing on betel nuts, which had stained her lips and teeth deep red, as the child curiously watched another world around them.

Bena, Flores (Indonesia), July 2013