Monday, January 15, 2007

Mother and child

I was taking pictures at Palmerah market, near work, and this woman wanted me to get one of her baby. Behind them is a cart selling pempek, or fishcakes, and on the other side are the inevitable motorbikes.


Lots of women use these cloth slings to carry small children. It doesn't look that secure - the fabric isn't even tied, just tucked in, and the older kids really squirm around in them - but I've never seen a child fall.

It's funny how often people ask you to take their picture. I'm not sure what benefit they see in it. It certainly makes life easier for me! - I don't like photographing people who don't want to be photographed. You have to do some scheming to catch people when they're not posing, though.

3 comments:

Emily said...

I carried both of my children in slings, as did many of my friends (we're a hippy-granola bunch ;) While I had a lot of questions about the babies being safe, mine were sewn or used a metal loop system...I can't imagine my big babies staying safe if the fabric were just tucked in!

Anonymous said...

When my parents came here to see my first born, I asked them to bring 'kain gendongan" for me. The American style sling was to bulky for me. I used the same Indonesian sling for my 3 babies and happy to say that I never drop them while using the sling.

Trish said...

Actually, I was just watching a movie that had a crowd of moms with small kids in it, and some of them clearly did tie the sling. So there you go. I'm glad it worked for both of you guys!