Batek portraits: Then and now (II)

Once were children.... Continuing my photo series of Batek friends as they were "then" (left), and as they are today (right). All the "now" photos were shot in Taman Negara national park, Pahang, Malaysia, between 31/12/11 and 5/1/12. I told a couple of amusing stories about their childhood antics to people; they seemed delighted to hear them and asked for repeated viewings of the old photos "when we were naughty children."

na'Jamol in 1999 at Tabung camp (left) and in 2012 with her son in Taman Negara (right). I never knew her as a child. Her family are from Atok and I almost never went there; neither did they leave Atok much.  That week in Tabung was my only previous encounter with her.

eyKameng making blowpipe darts in 1996 (left) and with his son in 2012 (right). It's the beard that does it for me. I had known him as a laid-back youth, the adored baby brother who was raised by his father and older sisters after their mother was killed in a tiger-attack. To see him now, as a devoted and responsible father and husband... it tickles me.

eyJamol (far left) as a muddy kid with his brothers and their late mother in Was Tener, Taman Negara, 30/1/96 (left), and with ey Kinwen at Tom Dari' on 2/1/12 (right). He is the husband of na'Jamol in the first photo couplet above.