The Kids Who Called Me Kaka — Kadek Aris Photography

Gorong-Gorong, Timika, Papua · 14 September 2023

I wasn’t there to photograph anything. I was just walking, the way you do in a place you don’t know yet, when a group of kids by the river decided my afternoon belonged to them.

Kaka, they called me. Big brother. Come look.

Two boys by the river greet a passing stranger

What they wanted me to see was the jump. One after another they climbed the bank and threw themselves into the water, surfacing with a grin, checking to make sure I had been watching. So I watched. And I photographed them jumping, swimming, shouting to each other and to me.

A group of children raise their arms, laughing, by the river

Children splash and wave from the water

They were relentless in the best way. Endlessly energetic, endlessly curious, crowding the lens to see themselves, asking where I was from and why I was there and whether I could do the flip too.

A close portrait of a boy grinning among his friends

Children crowd together, smiling, in the water

For a while I wasn’t a stranger passing through. I was kaka, and the only thing anyone needed from me was to keep paying attention.

Children play beneath a bridge at dusk, in black and white

Children wave from the river, arms raised

I’ve kept these frames for no reason other than the warmth of that afternoon, which still hasn’t left me. I didn’t plan a single one of them. Sometimes those are the ones you hold onto.

A small child sits alone on the riverbank, watching the water