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!

:)