If Only I Were an Apple..

I’ve been here for a month Saturday!  That’s hard to believe.  Well, I guess in some ways it feels like I’ve been here forever.  There are things that used to seem so strange that now seem normal (like cucumbers at breakfast…a surprisingly fitting morning food!).  Then there are things that have seemed strange from the start and still don’t and probably never will seem normal (like the fact that women can carry anything, even dozens of eggs, on top of their head).

There’s not so much variety in a traditional Balinese’s daily life.  As students, we’re always going to new lessons, hearing new speakers, etc., but I’m realizing more and more that, for my family and so many other locals, life can easily just turn into an endless span of days.    In a sense, the days can’t get away from them because of the calendar system, which contains continually circulating 1 to 9 day week cycles that the older locals simply wake up and know.  But, activity-wise, these crafty, spiritually oriented people live kind of like a hill of ants (and I mean that in the best possible way). 

Everyone knows their place and everyone, whether moving or stationary, seems to do what they’re doing with purpose.  No day passes without repetition.  Things are predictable, but only if you’re familiar with the beliefs, and it’s a different sort of predictability that bridges Monday to Tuesday, August to September, and morning to night.  I imagine that watching the villages from afar would be much like my view now, as I sit on my bed and look down at my floor that's laden with ants.  (they are like taking over the whole town..)

They’re always coming out of the cracks, but only on little missions, and they soon after return home somewhere inside the dirt mound beneath the hinge of my bathroom door.  The dirt mound is kinda like the Balinese village…although I guess it would be more so if the ants had separate family homes inside of that.  Maybe they do?  Hmm..

The ants have that same orderly busy-ness that’s everywhere here.  Every individual has to answer to the larger needs of the group (the family, the neighborhood, the village..) And the ants grow up knowing what's expected of them, their lives laid out in a path that's preconceived--but not in a dreadful sense, just in the sense that it's the way things have always gone.

If a Balinese man is some sort of artist (which many are), he usually teaches his craft to his children.  The wife may help with the husband’s skill, or simply cook, clean, and take care of the children and the family’s responsibilities to the community.  She gets a temporary break if she’s on her period and has to spend a day bed-ridden.  I came home from school the other day to find my Ibu in this condition.  My Bapak was “massaging her bones” to get the sickness out, and she was unable to fix our dinner.  They’re incredibly open about menstruation here because women on their period are considered impure and aren’t allowed into the temples.

Anyway, my Ibu can’t drive the family’s motorbike, so other than the times she walks to the market or to a nearby ceremony, she very rarely leaves the compound.  My Bapak used to write articles for the paper, but he’s put work on hold until he can save up to buy a computer.  Until then, the family’s income comes from the little paint/construction supplies store that’s attached to compound’s foremost building.  Bapak and Ibu spend the majority of their days in there.

One day last week, my Bapak said to me, “Why you not apple?”  It took me a minute to understand him, but it seemed such a fitting statement once I got it.  Somewhere in the assumptions drawn through translation, my Bapak concluded that my songwriting dad must also be a good singer, and is, therefore, probably famous.  The way Balinese things go, I should have spent my adolescence watching and learning from him, and now, after years of study, I should likewise be a famous singer.  And somehow the saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” managed to reach more than just the English-speaking culture..   I think I’ve clarified my dad’s occupation a little better now, but it’s still funny how much that one statement says about the Balinese. 

If you say something about the akhir minggu (weekend) to a local, they usually look at you in confusion.  It’s not that they don’t know what the weekend is, but, to them, it’s not really anything special.  Saturday and Sunday are just two more days—days that they’ll pass in the compound or working, the kids still going to lessons, the family eating dinner and chatting together, often with random friends stopping by off the street, until everyone gets tired.  

In the past I’ve found that a length of routine days leaves me feeling restless and unproductive, but here it’s a little different.  Balinese believe in a constantly flowing karma—that every action has a consequence that manifests in either the good or the bad forces, which must always be kept in balance.  So while an outsider might see monotony in the daily rituals or hour upon hour spent crafting…and while an outsider might wonder how one could build up these intricate sculptures, just knowing they will soon be burned down…the Balinese simply appreciate it all as some form of sacrifice.  It perpetuates good karma, which they hope will guide them to the supreme happiness. 

It’s such a change, drawing that happiness from where I would likely draw discontentment.  That little difference makes the unproductive productive though, and I think I might like it.  I know I’m at least growing to like it more and more. 

In my time here, any sense that I’m lacking productivity will probably be justifiable with a reminder that I’m learning new things everyday, but I think I want to learn from all of this a little bit beyond that.  There’s a certain peace I envy in their acceptance of things passing so routinely yet contently—karma and sacrifice guiding them up, down, and onward, day after day after day..

One of the strangest things to grasp here is the attitude towards death.  I can see how a belief in karma might really affect one’s daily attitude, but with something like death, it’s hard to believe that simply thinking differently about it could actually change how one reacts and copes.  It is death after all…someone’s there and then they aren’t there, and no way of thinking says otherwise.  But, the Balinese believe in reincarnation, which hones in on a certain happiness in death because a sooner departure from this life means there are less sins to weigh you down.  No one passes away without some reason known by the unseen world.  With a healer’s explanation of what happened, everything is somehow justifiable.

The cremation ceremony we went to during our first week here was sort of the pinnacle of culture shock.  It was difficult to process at the time, and it’s still difficult to understand.  One of our teacher’s wives was killed in a wreck on her motorbike while riding with their 3-year-old daughter, who somehow made it out without a scratch.  The cremation took place a few days later (they consult the healer to select the first auspicious day). 

We all stood around the exposed body, which had been lying in the family compound since the death.  After the priests were done blessing it, two men began pumping gas underneath the bed it laid on so that it would burn.  The crowd moved back once the burning was well underway, the wind picked up, and ash began to rain down. 

The cremation is supposed to be a time for celebration—a muted sort of celebration, but celebration nonetheless.  The soul is on its way to the next life, and cremation grants it permission to leave the body, as well as assurance that the family is well.  No one is allowed to cry when standing near the body…in fact, crying in any form is discouraged after the death.  If the soul senses tears, it gets confused, and then its journey forward becomes complicated instead of happy, which obviously doesn’t bode well. 

It was hard watching our teacher try to hold his tears in.  He eventually had to be pulled away from the crowd because he just couldn’t do it any longer.  I guess believing that death never happens without reason provides a comfort that might quicken the healing process, but I can’t see how it could be expected to be enough to actually lessen someone’s sadness.  I’m so curious as to the extent to which belief affects emotion, but I don’t really know how/if I can find out..

The teacher who was talking to us about all of this the other day lost his oldest son about 5 years ago.  He is literally one of the happiest men I’ve ever interacted with, and he explained the beliefs behind death and the details of his own son’s car wreck with his usual, contagious smile.  Our teacher who lost his wife is also back to work now, and he’s usually smiling just as widely. 

Most of the people here are so, SO happy.  More than once, my Bapak has followed a “we don’t have so and so” statement with, “But still, we happy happy!”  And it’s so hard to figure out what it is that makes them so happy!  Because I feel like I could pick apart any of the options and find things about it that would make me, and many with a western mindset, somehow discontent, somehow feeling that something’s lacking.  I guess I have a lot more learning to do..

Last weekend, 6 of us took a little break from the village and headed to Uluwatu—a surfing town that’s just as incredibly serene as the name makes it sound.  It was refreshing…but not so refreshing that it made us feel guilty, which is a good thing I’ve discovered about being here.  Bali is considered the Cancun for Australians, but, as long as you avoid Kuta, Seminyak, and a couple other big cities, your Balinese experience isn’t going to be like spring break.  Despite the fact that we paid only 10 bucks a night to stay in an ocean-view “bungalow”, I still came out of the weekend with no hot shower, no shaven legs, and no sense of ever escaping this ever-permeating Balinese feel.  And the only difference between the hotel’s fried noodles and the ones my Ibu sometimes serves for breakfast is that we think the ones at the hotel contain MSG.  yuck..but tasty!

To get to Uluwatu’s beach, we had to wind our way past surf shops and warungs tucked into a cliffside between rickety wooden staircases that eventually reached the sand.  It was more like climbing down to a beach that’s not really supposed to be there, ducking under rock overhangs to make it to the small sand strip where you can actually lay down.  As soon as we did lay down, local old women came over and started groping us (literally!) saying “massage? massage?”.  It’s so hard to make them believe you really don’t want one.  I felt bad, but there’s no telling where those hands have been.  It’s not traditional to use toilet paper here.  Or to wash your hands with soap.. 

Dirty hands aside, Uluwatu was like a livable postcard.  We watched the sunset from one of the cliffside warungs one night, and I’ve never felt so intently intrigued by the majesty of that big orange ball.  It looked like you could just hop off the cliff and run right into it, all the way until the place where the water turns to sun.  So clearly and so quickly it slipped out of sight, pinched momentarily between the ocean’s surface and this finger-like cloud that seemed to push it farther and farther down.  I could just see it popping up elsewhere, almost as if it weren’t setting, only bouncing out of my direct sight.  Even after it set it stayed light for a while, so we just kept watching the surfers and the bands of waves crashing, the non-sun illuminating the rolling white stripes. 

SUCH a nice weekend :)

I have so much more to say. AH! We had a lecture today about the pressures that come with being a Balinese woman…marrying into the same caste, cutting ceremonial ties with your parents, producing a male heir for your family’s temple, etc…in a time when so many of these should-be traditional women only want to make a name for themselves in the working world.  I don’t think I’m gonna ramble on about that right now, but it was fascinating! (and really sad!)

This Saturday we’re off on a 4-day “rural village” excursion.  We’re bathing in the river, and apparently eating dirt?  Not as our meal…just to try it because our teacher said there’s someway they prepare it so it tastes good.  I have no idea.  Oh, and local Indonesian students are coming with us!

We spent a day last week visiting college-aged English classes.  It was so funny…kind of like playing a cross-cultural speed dating game.  They had us rotate to a new person every 10 minutes, so we got a broad spectrum of characters, and there were a whole lot of interesting questions asked.  One guy wanted me to tell him about the sex education in America.  “Is it like American Pie??”  Baha.  I think he was just trying to get a reaction.

Another guy told me all about the girl he’s in love with who doesn’t seem to care for him.  When he found out I was a psychology major, he wanted to know if I had the power to change someone’s mind.  Usually when I tell someone here I’m studying psych, they ask either if I can read them by looking at their face, or if I’m good at hypnosis.  No and no.  Psychology isn't a huge field here yet because so many of them still prefer treatment from a traditional balian.  One of those came to talk to us too!  I just can’t write about it all :(

This is so bizarre.  I'm in an internet cafe now, surrounded by cleanliness and expats, and outside the window a big procession of men in traditional white sarongs, playing gamelan and carrying colorful banners and things, has stopped all the cars and is processing down the street.  It's part of a cremation ceremony.  They're carrying the ashes off to somewhere.  That's what I mean by this "ever-permeating" Balinese feel..

Okay, all done for now.  I’ll update again sometime after our little excursion!

:)

Sometimes I wonder where I am..

There are so many things that seem so out of place and/or contradictory here that I keep feeling like I need to pinch myself, take a step back, and attempt to process what the heck is going on.

Some of them are little—like the fact that the McDonald’s in Denpasar serves rice and spaghetti, and the hand-washing sink and the bathroom are on opposite sides of the first floor. 

Then there’s all the clothing with English writing.  For four days last week, my brother was wearing a shirt that read “Beatles Forever”, my sister was wearing a shirt with Angelica from the Rugrats on it, and my Ibu was (and almost always is) sporting her pajama pants that say “All About Me” all over. 

On Saturday, my Bapak turned on the radio that sits on the bed where deceased family members are supposed to lie, and we ate breakfast (rice) while that old “…took her for a drink on Tuesday, we were making love by Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday and Saturday..” song played throughout the compound. He said he couldn’t understand the song’s words, he only listens, but I swear I have no idea why/how he knows some of the English that he does. 

He can’t make a good English sentence, but this morning he said (in Indonesian) that it was cold, and when I responded with the Indonesian for “it’s not cold!”, he told me (in English) that I had built up antibodies.  Of all the words to know, why “antibodies”??  I was equally as surprised the other night when they were trying to explain that my little brother was nanak (which we eventually translated to mean naughty).  In the middle of my Bapak’s charades-like explanation, he said Errlanga was “like gangster”.  That failed in helping get the idea across…it just made me so confused as to how he would know that word and what he imagines a gangster to be like in his mind.

For the past two nights, I’ve woken up around 5 am because there are cats mating in the family temple, which is conveniently located right outside my window.  I hear what sounds like a mix of meowing and a dying old woman, and before long I see my Bapak running outside with a handful of rocks.  I realize the stray animals enjoy mating, but couldn’t they go somewhere a little less sacred?

At the big festival we went to Saturday night, there were hundreds and hundreds of people in their white blouses and colorful sarongs who had been praying, celebrating and giving offerings in honor of the temple’s birthday for hours and hours.  We all partook in the traditional prayer (which involved flicking flowers, burning incense, sticking rice on our heads, and “bathing” in holy water), so that we would be considered pure enough to explore the temple.  It seemed so serious, and important, and we were all afraid to do the prayer because we thought we would mess it up.  At the same time, though, it’s hard to try to appreciate the religious significance of something when you can look around and see women reaching into their corset things (SO itchy) to answer their cell phones, and men lifting up their silky sarongs to expose the pockets of their Billabong shorts, which they then pull some Rupiah out of so that their children can go buy packaged French fries.  

We watched a Balinese dance that I’m fairly certain was performed by their version of a drag queen.  As interesting as it was, half of me just felt like I was at a bad circus.  And then there were these massive, beautiful, rainbow-colored sculptures near where animals had been sacrificed that could have been the products of a Food Network Sugar Sculpting Challenge.  When we asked our teacher what they were made of, she said, “Oh you guys know, it’s obviously rice flour!" 

I think our teacher lied to us about sexy, hairy legs.  My Bapak managed to ask me in broken English what we call leg hair, and then kindly offered me his razor and asked if I wanted to shave mine off.  I think it’s true that a lot of the women here actually don’t shave, but they also seem to grow only small amounts of leg hair.  Oh well, I figure I’ll shave them if I ever get to a real shower. Until then they can just deal…

Saturday morning, I was woken up for good because my bed was shaking.  This time it wasn’t the cats mating though…it was an earthquake!!  I heard my Bapak and Ibu outside yelling “Soapyy! Soapyy! Come!”  Despite being half-asleep, the ground was moving and little things were rattling enough for me to figure out what was going on.  It didn’t seem that strong, or that long, but apparently it was a 6.3 on the Richter scale, which is fairly high!  I think I was only awake for about 10 seconds of it, but it may have lasted a little longer.

The most interesting part of that morning though was one man’s explanation of what had happened.   A few of us went to a compound in Ubud for our first batik lessons (we get to practice using wax and pretty paints to dye fabrics!) Our teacher is this friendly, semi-English-speaking man named Wayan (which is what all the firstborns are named) whose daily existence is another contradiction entirely.  He’s lived in Ubud since the 60’s in the same compound.  It used to be part of just another little village, but now his old compound that’s as simple and traditional as ever has hotels and restaurants and foreigners all around. 

Anyway, once we managed to ask if he felt the earthquake by making shaking motions with our hands, he told us about two giant snakes that reside under Mt. Agung and can make the earth move by shedding last year’s skins.  He said he would be making a special offering later in the day to ensure that the snakes aren’t troubled.

I’ve never really thought before that someone could hear “earthquake” and not think first about tectonic plates being the driving force behind them.  Wayan’s story was a quick reminder about how much I need to keep reassessing my way of thinking, and how much I want to keep finding out about this culture.

The whole mindset here is based on Sekala and Niskala: the interplay of the seen and unseen worlds.  Everything that happens here on Earth, from trees growing to people dying, can be attributed to something we can’t see.  It’s hard to tell with many locals though where the line between knowing the inner-workings of the unseen and truly believing all that they imply can be drawn.

When I asked my Bapak about the big snakes, he said everyone knows the story, but he emphasized that it was just that—a story.   So that would make me think that the Balinese might just enjoy the tradition of, rather than value the validity of, all this myth and hidden reasoning.  Then, this afternoon, we got to talking about black magic, and of course that’s real, he said.  But when my mind associates that with the same level of credibility as the massive snakes, it becomes really hard to tell what, for them, distinguishes the stuff that actually applies to daily life from the stuff you’re just expected to learn about.

Bapak then whipped his cell phone out of his little fanny pack and made me watch a video he has downloaded on there of a balian (a traditional healer) dying in the woods after losing a fight against black magic.  He didn’t know if it was real or a reenactment…but he said it was for sure true, and that it happened “long ago”.  It was three old robed men sitting around a campfire in the woods, and lots of howling and growling and chanting I couldn’t understand.  Then a creepy masked thing with long hair appeared behind flames in the trees.  It concluded with a fairly disturbing few minutes of a man who appeared to be choking on the ground.   

What in the heck. 

I’m getting used to occurrences like this just being the norm of daily life.  And don’t worry, I’m for sure not convinced by that video, but I’m so curious to hear other people’s stories because even our teacher, who’s rebellious and skeptical as far as Balinese traditions go (she got divorced, married a westerner, and wore a bright red blouse to the temple festival when 90% of the women there were in white), has her reasons for being a firm believer in black magic.

Bapak and I had an interesting convo, too, about how there aren’t atheists here.  I tried to ask if there were people who said they were Hindu but didn’t actually believe it, and he said “No, no, you have to believe in Bali.” 

“Soapy cannot see a song, but you believe it’s there.” 

“But can you hear god?” was my response. 

He said no, but he has to believe because god’s everywhere.  I guess that would be better described as the start of an interesting convo.  I didn’t have the Bahasa Indonesia to make it go any farther..

Despite all these need-to-take-a-step-back moments, I’m still loving being here.  My little fam is feeling more and more like a fam, and their community-oriented ways and their endless friendliness are so darn cute.  If I’m sitting on my porch doing homework, they always come sit with me because Balinese feel sad when they see someone alone.  Even if we aren’t talking, they feel a responsibility just to be close by.  There’s this idea here called suka duka that binds every little neighborhood.  It literally translates to “happy sad”, but they understand it to mean that if one person has troubles, everyone has troubles, and if one person is rejoicing, everyone rejoices.  I wonder what happens if one person is really happy and one is really sad?  I guess they don’t take it that literally…it just provides this resounding comfort of togetherness and support.

Alright…that’s all I think.  But I could keep going…we’ve been doing so, so much.  In just one day last week we had language class, visited a mask-maker, went to a temple ruins site, learned to make offerings, and went to the house of a traditional puppeteer.  It’s kind of exhausting, but we’re getting such a variety of opportunities.  But I’ll save the other stories for later. 

This weekend, weather permitting, we’re going to attempt to climb Mt. Agung!

:)

Finally!

So much has happened, and as much as I love blogging, I just don’t have the time, energy and internet access here to tell you people all that I would like.  I’m going to try, though, to find a little time each week for an entry.  I gave myself a blogging homework assignment two nights ago and wrote this.  I didn’t get to the internet until today though…so it’s not entirely up to date!  We’re starting to get into the normal swing of things now, so I’m hoping I can write on this once a week?  That’s a hopeful thought, so don’t hold your breath..

Where to begin?  There’s too much to ever say in one little post, so I’m not even going to try.  I’m in my roughly 6x7, white-walled room ready to go to bed right now, and most of you reading this have probably just woken up.  But you’re only in this morning, and I’m almost to tomorrow, so I’ve gotten a little headstart :) 

We finished with the orientation period last Wednesday, which consisted of a week in a town called Kerambitan.  Our home was the east wing of an old palace, and we sat barefoot and cross-legged on these big tile pavilions while our teachers spent hours trying to make us speak Indonesian a whole freaking lot.  We saw a cremation ceremony and a tooth-filing.  We were abandoned in little villages all alone and told to chat with the locals. (That was a difficult afternoon, given that we could hardly say anything but our names and “where am I?” and “where are you from?”)  We adjusted our stomachs to rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice for dinner, and even rice and rice flour used in any sweet snack.  We grew to feel refreshed rather than moldy after our cold bucket-baths.  Our towels were useless, absorbing no water and making us smell even worse, but, I must say, my bathing technique and appreciation both improved immensely over the week.  Leg shaving has gone out the window…apparently Balinese love “sexy, hairy legs”.  I’m just trying to keep mine in the sun so maybe the hair will turn blonde-ish.  Hasn’t happened yet.  We’ll see how that goes.. 

So now we’re in Bedulu, our little village home.  I’ve been living with my host family for a week, class has started its regular schedule, and we’re learning the ins and outs of how often and for what reason we should come into Ubud (which equals internet + expats + non-rice food). 

Where we are isn’t at all primitive, in case I’ve been giving that impression…it’s just so, so different—developed, but around local and Hindu traditions that make EVERYTHING—time, space, family, etc. a reminder of what makes this culture so unique.  The people are bound incredibly close— to their neighbors, their customs, and their heritage, and it takes quite a bit of thought-shifting for the mind of someone like me to even begin to relate.  We’re all adjusting though!  Not everything is gonna seem normal quickly, maybe even ever, and we all know that that’s okay. 

I’ll start with some simple things, like the layout of the houses, to try to give you an idea of what it’s like.  I’m now part of a traditional Balinese compound, which is entered by a single door through a wall along the roadside, and consists of multiple structures, some with and some without walls.  I have my own little building that’s a nice space, but very poor quality, with cement floors, lots and lots of ants, and a little sink area that had to have been made for a midget or a 3-year-old.  I have a flushing toilet…that’s really exciting! and not too common…and instead of showering with a bucket I use a stream of water from a pipe that sticks out of the wall in front of the toilet.  The whole floor kinda gets wet when I shower, so if I had it my way I probably just wouldn’t shower that often.  But, funny thing about the Balinese, they are this strange mix of simple and laid-back and OCD all the while.  They insist on bathing 2 times a day (and making sure that everyone has eaten at all times…I think we all feel like we are being force fed..).  When I get up for breakfast I hear, “Sudah mandi?” (have you showered), and then I hear the same thing again before dinner…and yes I bathed that morning but no I don’t want to bathe again right now…soo sometimes I just get my hair wet so they’ll believe me when I say yes.

The compound is very open.  Mine has two main living structures: my building and the one that the rest of the family sleeps in.  I actually have yet to go inside there because showing you around (and introducing you to family members) just isn’t high on the list of hospitable actions in the Balinese way.  There’s a small yard area with a little table and a tree with a swing on it between the buildings.  To the northwest (they’re oriented like that instead of left and right) there’s a pavilion with only one wall and a wooden bed frame.  That’s where the body of a deceased family member is laid in the days before cremation takes place.  To the north is the family temple, which consists of steps up to a pretty, patterned stone floor area with numerous statues and shrines.  North is the direction of Bali’s biggest mountain—an area considered sacred, and you can always tell the way to the mountain because the family’s temple will point you there.  If it weren’t placed correctly…even if it were just a little bit misconstructed or a little too far this way or that, bad things might happen.  Then you’d have to get a healer to tell you how to fix it, and no family wants to deal with the hassle of all that.

The temple is also why the families can’t ever really move.  My Bapak (dad) grew up in this compound, and his great-grandmother (I think that’s what he said although I don’t know if it makes sense age-wise) still lives here now.  Whoever it is, it’s definitely an old, old woman.  She only speaks Balinese so I can’t talk to her, and she just sort of appears occasionally with a broom and slowly sweeps the compound, stopping now and then to give someone/the sky a big, toothless grin.  I also have an Ibu (mom) and three adik (little siblings), which is a big change from back home!  There are two boys: Rama (12) and Errlangu (9) and one girl: Prabah (10).

I love being here, even with my still largely inadequate knowledge of Indonesian and my trouble digesting rice and shrimp and spinach and fried tofu right after I get out of bed.  It’s a custom to take meals alone, but I guess my family is a little bit non-traditional because we usually get to sit together at the outside table…or, better yet, they just bring me food and sit on my porch area with me and have fun watching me eat.  When they do that I say “sudah makan?” (have you already eaten) because it’s supposed to be polite.  Then they always say yes, and I swear I’m beginning to think that half the time my mom is lying.  Maybe she did already eat in the kitchen?  I guess it would be easier to know if I could figure out where the kitchen is…

I’m learning how to eat with only my hands by kind of balling the food up. It’s fun! And it makes me feel like a little animal, especially when I’m trying to pick apart meat.  They get a kick out of making me try things—like tonight with some sort of spicy egg sausage, and the other day with a darien (nasty, smelly, SMELLY, meaty, gooey, shit fruit), and the other morning when they tried to feed me an almost as unappetizing breakfast of roasted suckling pig.

Everything is very family-oriented, and it’s nice how welcoming they’ve been to a new family member, despite my having a completely different mindset than the one they hold so dear.  Somehow (I really don’t know how), we manage to chat for hours.  My intensive Indonesian and my dad’s little bits of English add up enough to get the ideas across.  It’s funny, though, the things we sometimes manage to talk about. 

The other night my little brother ate too much rice and farted.  Then they taught me the word for fart and said that Rama was the king.  I said that my dad and brother in America fart a lot too, and they said, “Ohh! Indonesia and America the same!”.  We talked today in class about the universality of emotions and wanting to belong and all that good stuff…I guess I learned that farting is just a simple one of those ties that bind us…and that it provides a good connection point when your vocabulary allows for little else. 

We usually have the English-Indonesian dictionary between us, so that’s been a big help.  And my Bapak has already told me I can bring my real family back here to stay whenever, and that this building will be open when I go on my honeymoon (as much as I love them, maybe I won’t come here for that..).

Life here happens outside—that’s one of the things I’ve really liked.  Every structure is either wall-less or with a porch with couches on it (except maybe my grandmothers?  I have yet to figure out where she sleeps).  When it rains it doesn’t change things because the porches all have roofs.  Even at school, our desks are on an L-shaped pavilion with a wall on only one side, so we study while half-sitting in this beautiful garden with stone sidewalks and bright flowers.  It’s at the family compound of a man whose ancestors used to run the village, so it’s one of the nicest compounds you can find.  Even the simple buildings have this wonderfully ornate architecture though, and, regardless of where you are, there are tall trees and pretty greens and tropical flowers (and probably a temple) within close sight.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a place that seems to appreciate and implement simple, natural beauty quite this much.  It’s like someone took all the little specks of color in nature and blended them into a big pot.  Then they must have dumped the pot onto this island called Bali and grown people here who know how to make the best of all the little specks around.  So many woodcarvers and weavers and painters and potters…even the food, though sometimes unappetizing, is always well-arranged and colorful, like a thought-out work of art.  It’s amazing that it’s all been concentrated into these simple little villages.  The people seem so happy with just family and the ability to craft pretty things, and then I guess the underlying spiritual component throws a whole other level of contentment in the mix.

Tonight I learned who each of my siblings is apparently a reincarnation of—my Bapak’s dad in one, his great grandfather in another, and I don’t remember who was the other one..  They believe it though, every bit of it.  Rama and Bapak’s dad have the same face, and they both love fishing, and it’s what the healer said when Rama was born, so what else is there to prove?  I don’t know how I feel about all of this yet.  I’m working on moving the skepticism over to see if I can get a better understanding of how they’re oriented, although I’ll admit that it’s pretty hard.  I do know that I like watching the way they go about things—the women giving offerings on the family shrines multiple times a day, these little flower filled woven tray things that are also all over the sidewalks, and inside the markets, and even on the front of all the motorbikes that move like a determined ant army up and down the street.  Modernization and tourism are definitely taking their toll on the traditions though.  It’s sad to see the Balinese set up with their stands in the tourist areas, trying to sell the various crafts used during rituals just to get by.

The tooth-filing we went to was another blog-post or 2 entirely (same with the cremation)…the strangest but most fascinating mix of tradition, religion, costume and modern entertainment that I’ve ever seen.  It was almost like walking into a carnival.  We dressed in the traditional ceremonial clothing and entered the compound between two rainbow dragons.  Then we were shown to rows of gold fabric-covered chairs where, upon sitting, women served us cakes and peanuts and coke in glass bottles, and later the more traditional rice and meat.  The whole ceremony was projected on a screen that sat beside the parents’ part of the compound, and two Balinese men responsible for the chanting sat beneath it with microphones, like two little Hindu DJs or something, just trying to keep the crowd attentive as a young woman laid there in a gold head-dress and heavy-duty makeup and had a priest file down 6 of her teeth.

Sometimes I don’t even know what’s going on.  But I like it!  I really, really do.  I’m seeing things and talking to people in a way that’s continually surprising.  It’s a lot to process right now, but there’s something about being in an environment that’s so sure of itself while still so welcoming that makes me want to do all I can to try to assimilate.  I can already tell that I’m going to miss hanging out with my new little family here when this is over, and I’m so excited to see my Indonesian improve with every passing day.   There’s so much I want to ask people, but still so much I can’t figure out how to say. 

And every day is bringing new things I want to remember…like tonight—my first motorbike ride!  I went to the market with my Bapak and my youngest brother, and all 3 of us sat on the little seat.  It’s crazy here what people can do with their motorbikes.  I think I’ve seen one with 3 people, a filing cabinet, and some long pole things on top. 

This morning (I’m on a different day now), we had our 2^nd round of Balinese dance lessons.  Talk about complicated.  They said the key is to relax, but it’s really difficult to do that when you have to coordinate your fingers, your eyeballs, your toes, your legs, and your arms.  It’s a lot of squatting and isolations.  We look ridiculous when we try it, but when the professionals perform, it’s mesmerizing.  They don’t blink for minutes!  And it’s like they tell the main part of the story through the looks in their eyes.

Alright I’m concluding this thing now…but I’m keeping a journal fairly regularly so I’ll remember what I want to blog about next time I get a chance.  Right now some of us are off to the monkey forest!  It’s at the end of Monkey Forest Road (where the author stayed in Eat, Pray, Love!)

Sampai nanti,

Sophie (which my family pronounces like a drawn out version of “soapy”)

:)