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”)

:)