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!

:)