MAMA ESTHER has fought hard to keep her ancestor’s stories alive by Perfecting the art of Jungga,

an all-encompassing term for the sparse, haunting form of lyrical storytelling practiced throughout the isolated island.

Improvisational and spoken in a poetic form of the Sumbanese language only taught to jungga singers, it provides an opportunity for its artists to greet newcomers and old friends alike, while singing pretty laments about current affairs at the island. Unlike the jungga bards of old, Mama Esther has felt the full force of modernity. She lives in Waingapu, Sumba’s biggest city and commercial capital, and has to balance her life as a mother, freelance masseuse, and small shop owner. As the pandemic hit, opportunities became scarcer, life became harder, and survival was the order of the day. Picking up the jungga and telling her story, rich as it is with the bitterness of clashing modernity and tradition, is an act of freeing herself. On a beautiful afternoon aboard Arka Kinari, Mama Esther dons her Sunday Best and bares her heart – forcing time to stand still as the rush of a commercial port and the city where she struggles to survive roars behind her.