The wind blows across the quiet village of Bogorame. It’s four in the afternoon, yet little activity can be seen among residents of the hamlet located along the coast of Demak Bay, Central Java – about seven hours by road from Jakarta. Most choose to stay indoors with their families. This decision is not without reason: their homes must be guarded against seawater that begins flooding the road in the late afternoon and lingers until the following morning. In bad weather, the water can rise high enough to enter houses and remain there for days.

Latifah, aged 65, sits on the terrace of her house, staring intently at the river in front of her home as its current strengthens after mixing with seawater. Not long after, the mother of five goes back inside. “Recently the water has been rising quite fast, but fortunately it’s not as high as it was two weeks ago,” she says, pointing to flood stains on the wall that reached knee height during the last major inundation, when seawater submerged her home higher than usual and soaked her bed. She was forced to spend the night at her cousin’s house, which is directly across from hers.

Inside her home, Latifah must walk with her head bowed. Built by her parents 40 years ago, the house now stands at barely half its original four-metre height. “We lived comfortably until the first tidal flood came in the mid-2000s,” she says. Today, her belongings are crammed onto the top shelves of her wardrobe to escape the daily floods.

The encroaching water has not just eroded her home; it has drowned her livelihood. Latifah used to cycle ten kilometres to Sayung Market at midnight to buy fish, which she would sell in front of her house every morning. The fastest route connecting the hamlet to Sayung market has since been submerged and rendered impassable for the past three years. Unwilling to move away and become a burden to her children, she now relies on their unpredictable financial support while remaining in her slowly sinking home.