On my travels around Lombok we visited some villages that specialized in weaving and pottery. We also had a delicious meal full of my indonesian favourites, including fried chicken, sambal, fried rice, baby jackfruit curry, lots of greens, and fried noodles...oh so much yummy food!
All the artisans were women, it was women's work for generations and generations and they learn from a young age. The men know about the basics though as they help their mom's out when they are young.
This woman is weaving bamboo into various things, mostly various shaped baskets. One of the girls there made me a cute bamboo weaved ring.
The food!!
Our guide was describing how some women dye their own thread, that is what this woman is doing here. More natural colours, are natural, and bright crazy colours are not. Pretty straight forward! But the process is lengthy and impressive.
We were told it can take anywhere from a week to a couple months to finish a length of cloth, depending on the complexity of the pattern and the thread count. They either choose the pattern themselves or people can request one. Sometimes the younger ones make mistakes (no surprise there, it would be impossible not to with thousands of different little strings) and there is a 'cloth doctor' who is an older more experienced weaver who could be called upon to help correct errors.
We also wandered around a town where their main trade was pottery, and it was impressive to watch this woman at work. She can make about 20-30 of these pots in an 8 hour work day. Check out the video below to get a glimpse of her finishing this one off.
These communities were quite poor in comparison with many I saw in Bali. Despite these great skills that these women possess, it doesn't generate a huge amount of money, especially because tourism hasnt really taken off the same way it has in Bali. They are expecting it will increase in the next couple of years with the development of an international airport, which will come as a mixed blessing.
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