SUKU MENTAWAI UPDATE
I’m really enjoying being back in Mentawai. In particular, trekking about the forest with my good friend Aman Masit Dere. He hasn’t been this energetic in years. The medicines are working and his health slowly recovering. It’s so pleasing. Sadly this outcome is not common here for people suffering from tuberculosis. Most others that I've met while passing through the remote →
EXCITING YEAR AHEAD
It has been a rather eventful few months in Mentawai, as is typically the case. Seemingly, there are no fewer surprises now than there were when this journey began nearly seven years ago... perhaps just more meaningful ones. I've posted a few recent photographs and included brief descriptions. You may be particularly interested in the 'chance' encounter we had with the →
HOW EFFECTIVE IS TRADITIONAL MEDICINE?
Continuing on from recent articles discussing how the indigenous Mentawai community deals with illness and loss of life, I’d like to delve a little deeper into the practices of traditional Mentawai medicine; those who are trained to administer it; and the impacts caused by an increased lack of community access to it. Firstly, it‘s worth mentioning that traditional medicine has been →
LIFE AND DEATH IN MENTAWAI
Each time I return to Mentawai I discover something new about the people and about the way they deal with the often-confronting circumstances that arise during their lives. This recent experience presented all that and more. Arriving in the port town of Siberut, Arla and I were greeted by news that my friend Aman Masit Dere was ill. His condition though →
WHAT IS REALLY BEST FOR THE COMMUNITY?
Infant mortality is indeed a sensitive subject and, for all things related, difficult to know how best to approach when discussing on a public platform. My dilemma, after having observed an unexpected sense of functionality in a people coping with losing what I’d consider to be an abnormally high number of infants, is that as a result of this I →
