You can see the gang of young Yali here, all but one are looking at my friends packing their stuff (it was early morning an we were leaving this village of 7 huts and 20 pigs). And the one saluted me for some reason...


A note about Yali kids. They seemed to me really happy and relaxed. Even though more than half of them had seriously running noses and large, worms infested bellies, they looked healthy. There is no hunger in the valleys of Irian Jaya - you can always find and bake some tubers; patats, taro or other.

For us children were invaluable - we would never find all those insects if not them. We felt jungle blind compared to those kids. Yes, we were doing large bug-hunting in every major village we stationed in. Using a sketch book, some Indonesian (and later Yali) expressions, and lots of waving of hands we were explaining which particular insects we want, and that we pay for bringing them with candy. After 2 days we were able to train them to bring us a particular species of mantises - and reject the ore common species.

Those children shared every piece of food between them; even half eaten candy. When five of them brought us bugs we wanted, it was enough to give 5 lollipops to one of them - you could be sure they would distribute them fair and square. At the same time they had lots of respect for private property - they never tried to nick anything, even candy from an opened bag.

Forgotten the name of this village - it's just 2 hours from Pilliam.