“We’ve had pythons try to eat our chickens, and water snakes trying to eat our fish. None of it scares us though, we’ve gotten used to them all.“
Abah Hary, Fisherman
We often have monkeys coming by here trying to find food. Crocodiles sometimes come too, like one time where one swam underneath the hut, hit one of the pillars and made the whole structure shake. We’ve had pythons try to eat our chickens, and water snakes trying to eat our fish. None of it scares us though, we’ve gotten used to them all.
We see orangutans almost every day. In our previous village, they were very shy and hid when they saw humans, whereas here they come quite close because we’ve gotten used to each other and they know we’re not gonna do anything bad to them. My family would always say we have to live together with all the creatures because our village is in the forest, and the forest is their home.
I’ve got three children and I tell them the same, that we have to protect their habitat - not least because living together with orangutans and all the other creatures is really a joy.
The increased numbers of tourist boats don't affect the fish population so much, we still have a lot of fish here, but it’s kind of seasonal, and we usually catch more when the water’s low. We also get some benefits from tourism, like sometimes they stop to buy fresh fish or rent motorboats from us when the water level is particularly low.
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