Sikka Village, Flores Island, Indonesia

In Flores we hired a care and driver to take us to Sikka, where the women still weave hand-dyed ikat cloths. We drove along the main lane and the driver stopped near a stone wall. We got out, a bit confused because there was nothing there. Within two minutes we were in the midst of 50 swarming weaver women, all thrusting their cloths in front of us, imploring us to buy from them. This was our first attempt at bargaining, and we failed miserably. We finally just peeled off 50,000 rupiah notes ($5 US) and bought many more than we needed, just to get a breath of fresh air.

We met a young women, Francine, who spoke excellent English, having recently left the sisterhood after studying in the Philippines and also Rome. She calmed the crowd and arranged a demonstration of the weaving process for us. In this village everything is done 'the old-fashioned way'. The thread is spun from kapok fiber on a small hand-turned wheel that requires the spinners hands and feet to feed the thread onto the spool. The warp threads are then wrapped around a frame. Bits of dried grass are twisted around bundles of threads, creating the pattern. Next these threads are dipped into a natural dye bath. This process may be repeated several times. Once the warp threads are mounted on the loom the weft threads are woven in by hand, as the weaver sits on the ground with the loom strapped around her. It takes weeks to finish one ikat sarong, and we were able to buy the one we saw on the loom, which was finished later and delivered to us later.