The Fabric of Family

What are the Odds?

Let’s look at the odds. The odds of a mother having identical twins is just 1 in 250 pregnancies. That’s a lot more identical twin pregnancies than I imagined. What are the odds of identical triplets? Just 1 in 8,000 pregnancies.  Again, more often than I would have imagined, but quite infrequent. Let’s ratchet it up even further. What would be the odds of identical triplets, all males.  They are very low at 1 in 200,000 pregnancies. Where am I going with this? We had the opportunity to photograph three young boys in Bali, very much identical.

Three of a kind. And not a smile among them.

I spent an hour with them and not once did they smile. Not a smirk, not even an upturned lip. They were composed in front of a camera. Unflappable and immune to my humor. Of course, they didn’t understand English, so my limericks flopped. They remained imperturbable to the chaos of seven photographers hovering around them. Their overall demeanor turned out to be perfect for the portraits I took. When the shoot was over, I asked our Balinese guide if they ever smile. “Oh yes, the laugh all the time, but not for you”. Very funny. They are probably chuckling right now.

Wisps of Smoke.

In Indonesia it seemed like everyone smokes. Not surprising as it has one of the highest smoker rates in the world. Each setting was filled with tobacco smoke, in a restaurant, out of a restaurant, in the home, out of the home, everywhere. I am usually quite sensitive to cigarette smoke. But surprisingly not here. Perhaps it was their use of clove cigarettes, called kretek, made with tobacco and cloves. At times the smoke almost smelled good. We visited Tenggerese people in the Mt. Bromo area of  Java, the next island from Bali. Here, we were able to photograph a family in their home, men smoking, women cooking, men smoking, and men smoking. When in Rome….

The kitchen is where everyone seems to gather, whether they’re cooking or not. This is the only photo I took where there was no-one smoking!

A conversation, a cigarette, and apparently not much urgency to be anywhere else.

Some people enjoy their coffee. Others prefer a good cigarette. As a note, the coffee in Bali, specifically Bali Coffee, was horrible and undrinkable.

Cock-a-doodle-doo.

This old man held his rooster with the kind of affection and pride usually reserved for a family pet. He seemed perfectly comfortable posing with it, as though introducing an old friend. In Bali, roosters are more than just farmyard animals. They have a place in family life and local tradition, whether raised for their appearance, breeding, or traditional competitions. I don’t know whether this particular rooster was a prized possession or simply a companion, but the look on the man’s face suggested it was something special.

Clearly, this is no ordinary chicken.

Daily Life.

Much of what we saw in Cambodia and Laos wasn’t found in temples or other familiar tourist destinations. It was in the everyday routines of the people we encountered. Preparing a meal over an open fire, tending to the animals, selling goods at a local market, or gathering the children for school. Nothing particularly extraordinary, just the ordinary rhythms of life. But sometimes those are the moments that tell us the most about a place and its people.

Wife preparing the meal – the daily responsibility of feeding the family.

The man or husband coming home from a day in the rice fields.

Making a Living – the aunt and her nuts.

The Next Generation – the children at school.

Floating Down Stream.

In Siem Reap, Cambodia, we had opportunities to see floating villages. The village actually floats, the structures built on pontoons. The basic mode of transportation is canoe. Our only access to the village was a slow moving boat down a river that is mostly present during and just after the rainy season. We took the ride and photographed life in the village from our boat.

You are looking at the outskirts of the village. As we arrived down the main waterway, there is a general store, a restaurant, and many homes, all on pontoons! [photo by Kathryn]

A hammock, a fishing net, and nowhere in particular to be.

No front yard, no problem. Just a wave to the passing visitors.

In the end, it wasn’t the places we visited or the sights we came to see that stayed with me most. It was the people, their routines, their traditions, and the little glimpses into lives so different from our own, yet familiar in so many ways. Sometimes the most interesting stories aren’t found in the guidebooks. They’re found in the everyday moments.