People in Flores are extremely nice and open to different cultures. They will be very happy and proud to show you the best places from their stunning island and their ancestral culture that are still very important to them.
The citizens are almost entirely Roman Catholic Christians, whereas the other Indonesian island which is mostly Muslim. However, there are Muslim communities located in big cities like Maumere, Ende and Labuan Bajo where people live in peace together.
Traditional villages
Traditional villages are all over the island, most of them are still used to perform their traditional ceremonies and even in some of the houses the floriens still live in. The distribution of the villages, the shape of the houses, the landscape around... is very different from one village to another.
A long time ago people used to live in villages like this. Every house belonged to a different family and it was inherited by the first son (or women in Bajawa). However, people needed a lot of money to build a house at this village, the materials are expensive and the ceremonies to allow it also. For this reason the next generations started to make the new houses in the modern way (normally the roofs with ironwood) and in the new towns.
Although most of the people live in the town, some of the locals make a living in the villages. For example, at Wologay village people collect coffee and leave the grains under the sun to get it dry off. When it is dried up enough, they peel them as they did in the old times, a nice girl showed us the procedure.
A Ceremony in Nagekeo
After leaving the Tutubhada village, at the same Jalan Tengah road, we found a small town with some people wearing traditional costumes. Stef told us to get out of the car to take some pictures. We were talking to them and, in a moment, it was full of other people wearing the same outfit! Luckily they were gonna start a ceremony and invited us to join them.
Actually it was two ceremonies together. They were going to ask for blessings for the boxing ceremony that was going to be performed at Tutubhada the next week to decide the next heat of the village; and for a young couple that was going to get married.
Each family of the town arrived together and brought a trunk to light a fire, and then sat down on some carpets making a circle, waiting there for the main families. When everyone was ready the head of the village placed in the middle and the main families started walking around the circle doing 7 laps.
Finally, everyone sat together on the carpets except for the head of the village that remained standing in the middle of the circle and started to ask for the blessings. One by one, the families were going up and gave some gifts to the other people. For the men cigarettes and for the women colours to paint their faces.
After everyone gave and received their gifts, the men raised up to cook the rice and the vegetables at the fire they had lit before. While waiting to eat together the men shared a typical alcoholic drink called arrack. They led us try it and made us feel as if we were almost one of them.
As we had other places to go, we left them there waiting for the food with a joyful feeling. But not before we could try the tasty rice with papaya, that was already prepared for the children!
The schooling in Flores
Following Jalan Tengah road, you will cross to Ngada Regency and before Bajawa you will find the Mangeruda hotsprings. Before getting there, we stopped closed to a children's school to see the views of Ebulobo volcano.
Steff told us that the children had just started school after summer vacations, so their uniform was still clean. Apparently they have a month of holiday on summer from 15th June to 15th July, and the rest of them are distributed among Christmas and Easter.
They have 3 different uniforms in Flores, for the elementary school, secondary school and high school, and usually, all the people wear the same colours. In Flores the school is mostly public and Catholic, only a few ones are Muslim schools.
When the schools are closed, mostly for vacations. The families of the children's, who want to go to the university, make a special party. All the people of the town are invited bud if all who want to eat something must pay a big amount for each food. The hosts make a list of each of them who bought something and the amount of money they have spend, in order to spend a similar amount when they would make their party. By doing this they get enough to pay their sons the payment of the university.
If you want to go back and continue reading our trip click at Nagekeo Regency. To know a little bit more about Flores and the accommodations we stayed at click at Flores the exotic island.
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