This photograph is taken from a short series taken throughout my time with a a family from the Mentawai Tribe on the island of Siberut, Indonesia. I lived with them for just over a week and managed to gain a small insight into their ways of life. Even though we couldn't converse through English, my aim was to relate, observe and befriend these lovely people who isolate themselves within the surrounding jungle, and live peacefully away from the noise and distraction of today's first world technological reliance.

Here, Teteu, the Matriarch of the family, is getting ready to put to work her crop of bamboo leaves that she spent the morning cutting and collecting. Sago is famously wrapped in these leaves with coconut and sugar to make a baked snack that is nutritious. The women in these households perform nearly all of the daily food preparations and other household tasks, as the men spend their time building, fixing, relaxing and warding off evil sprits from the tribe, as well as hunt pig and other animals when needed.