From the Village to the Expats...

I feel like I’ve become the ball in a game of culture shock ping-pong.  In the past couple of days we’ve gone from a rural village to work at the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival, and I don’t feel like I have the time or mindset to figure out how best to adjust.  Somehow the humility and simple joys that made us all love the village so much (probably my favorite part of the semester so far!) don’t align with the “mind-opening and intellectual” experience I’m supposed to be having at this well-intentioned, yet undeniably self-praising and culturally obtrusive, expat-run literary fest. 

We were already a little down after having to leave the village at all.  It’s not that I don’t love my family in Bedulu, but somehow the “town”, with its multiple banjars and real marketplace, no longer seems as communal and small.  It’s so hard trying to keep things in perspective. 

 

Of course family and tradition, simplicity and continuity, are just as pervasive in Bedulu as they were in Munduk Pakel, but there was something so heartwarming about that rice-field framed, single village street.  Almost so heartwarming that it made me forget what I like about Bedulu.  Not quite though!  I just have to readjust. 

Munduk Pakel just felt so right to everyone…even the Indonesian students from Denpasar who came with us.  One day and we had already discovered how many English songs we all know and can sing along to together with a guitar.  Two days and I felt like all the Ibus and Bapaks in town recognized us.  Three days and we’d figured out how to use rocks as a sort of exfoliating “sponge” for our river baths.  Four days and my Ibu was serving every meal in the coconut bowl I carved myself! And then we had to say bye :(

It’s not quite the same in Bedulu because we don’t all live in the same banjar.  Everything’s close, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t just yell over the wall to Becca eating breakfast next door, or watch my Ibu step outside the compound and likely be within several feet of some sort of relative and/or best friend.  I guess you don’t realize how “big” Bedulu seems to the Balinese until you spend some time in a real village. 

I guess I should talk more about what we did there…

We each had a new homestay family.  Some students were in the same compound as each other because several of the compounds house more than one family.  I was on my own with an adorable, adorable Ibu who’s 35 and giggles a lot and has hair that goes down to her waist.  She’s actually our teacher who’s wife’s died wife’s sister (meaning her sister died), which made it all the more adorable to see how nice she is.  My Bapak was on the quieter side.  He, like most of the village men, is a farmer in the rice field.  Then I had two little siblings, Putu and Kadek…not surprising given that those are the names for kids #1 and #2 here.  Ooh also we had a 2-week-old puppy. SO cute.  And probably the closest thing I’ve seen to an American puppy since I’ve been here.  They let us pick it up and play with it, although they warned us to be careful because it couldn’t bathe.  It mostly just slept in a little ball beside the wood-burning stove in the kitchen.  And, of course, it ate a little puppy serving of rice three times a day.

Things were much more traditional at my compound in the village.  There was the single mandi room with a squatting toilet and a murky green water filled bucket bath tub.  Somehow it felt really clean though…it hadn’t adopted the same damp smell that my bathroom in Bedulu is starting to have.  And I’d never used a squatter before, but it’s an incredibly convenient invention if you ask me.  That’s the position people got in to use the bathroom before there ever was a bathroom…so doesn’t it kinda make sense?  There’s no touching anything involved, no nothing…you just kinda hang out on the two treaded footpads beside a perfectly positioned plastic hole.  We did all act like Westerners and bring a roll of toilet paper, but, other than that, I was surprisingly pleased with the squatter.

Every day we bathed in the river.  That’s not really what the locals usually do—it was just more fun for us, and a pleasant reminder of the joys of water pressure.  I kind of felt like a little animal all weekend, between the squatting and the river bathing and the carving coconut bowls and eating with my hands.  One morning I actually bathed 3 times.  I took a bucket bath at home, then we walked across the river to visit a balian’s house and another girl and I both fell in, and then I took a real bath in the river after that.  It’s the most clean I’ve felt the whole trip!

On our first morning in the village, we hoe’d the rice fields.  Stack upon stack of endless, curving green, framing reflective pools of rice sprouts, with mountains and palm trees in the distance on every side.  We worked (very ineffectively..) then had races and mud fights.  But we got in trouble for our attempted army attack on the level above us cause we were apparently mixing up the seedbeds…oops!  After the races, our teacher’s dad (who lives in the village) carried baskets of fresh young coconuts up on his back for us to eat and drink while the mud dried.  It all washed off wonderfully with our dip in the river!  I’m having to readjust now to my wall-pipe, quasi shower thing..

We spent the days doing a variety of “traditional village” things.  We ate cooked dirt that tasted (surprisingly..) like smokey clay, we spent hours carving those dang bowls, we went on an herb walk and chopped veggies to make sambal, we hung out in front of the warung (food stall), and we interviewed locals.  In our down time, the Indonesian students got out the guitar and we just sat and sang together…from Blink 182 to Backstreet Boys to some covered version of Allison Krauss’ “When You Say Nothing At All”, it’s amazing how many English songs they know.  Most of them fall into the “emo-pop” category, which is fitting because they way the students carry themselves, you might thing they were an Asian sensation pop band.  Some of them actually are in a band called “Dysentery Gary”.  And they throw up the double peace signs in almost every posed picture.  They were such goofballs. 

It was refreshing being with students our age.  They go to school in the capital city, so they weren’t accustomed to this traditional medicine using, family camp style, farming life either.  Some of it was just as much of an adjustment for them, so it was nice for us to all get used to it together. 

I sure got my dosage of traditional medicine while I was there.  That added to my feeling like a little animal.  I interviewed one of the old women in the village about some of the different local medicines, like creams used for cold feet and juices used for fevers and heartburn.  Then we got to help make them and test them out.  It was tough work…lots of grinding and pounding…and I don’t actually know if it worked cause I didn’t have heartburn to begin with, but it was fun to try!  The locals said that no one there gets serious illnesses, like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.  “We’re happy and active and eat well.  Why would we get sick?” is what they said.  I think maybe they just don’t identify those serious illnesses for what they are.  Everything happens for a reason…so someone dying is just someone dying and it’s not what they died of but why they died that seems to take precedence.

At night we would walk up to the rice fields and sit and look at the moon.  One night it was after the village-wide flirtation dance, where we all had to dance in front of everyone to try and “woo” this traditionally dressed girl (NOT my idea of fun..).  Two nights it was after some ear-drum-bruising rounds of gamelan.  They wanted us to try to play it, and it was a really nice gesture…but when you have 20+ people trying to bang 8 repetitive notes on drums and symbols and xylophones over and over for a span of 2 hours, everyone starts to get a little cranky and headache-y.  Good thing we had the full moon and eastern constellations to help distract us from the ringing sound afterwards..

Another theme of the animal (more specifically monkey) like weekend was weird shit on my skin.  I guess my scalp got burned in Uluwatu, but due to my lack of mirror in the village, I had no idea until someone told me that there were large flakes in my hair.  Sick.  After our baths in the river, one of my friends picked them out for me baha.  Then I put some of the traditional medicine stuff on my feet and it created a nice orange crust that fell off gradually throughout the day.  And apparently when I fell in the river I hit a rock cause I had a nice big knot/bruise on my calf.  When I showed it to my Ibu, she brought out a red onion and crushed it and stuck it on there!  She said I wasn’t allowed to peel it off myself, it had to fall on it’s own time, so I’m sure I smelled really nice by the time I got to the wayang (traditional shadow puppet) show the last night. 

Our last morning, we got up at 5 to watch the sunrise from the rice fields.  It was so beautiful—Mt. Agung and Mt. Batur off in the distance, the moon still way up in the sky, opposite the rising pink and orange.  I wonder if there’s a point where the natural beauty of the view atop a rice field ever becomes too commonplace?  I really hope not.  I think I could have stayed there forever!

I actually might go back to a small village for my ISP period, assuming I can find something to research.  I don’t know that it would be the same though without other students there though.  Maybe if I just keep practicing my Indonesian! 

So now we’re back in Bedulu.  I hope I don’t sound too upset about it!  It’s just this dang festival that I was so excited about before I came here but is proving to be a really strange adjustment now. It’s a real effort not to abuse the proximity of Ubud when we’re in Bedulu…because even though checking my email here has a tendency to stress me out, it’s so easy just to whip out 30 cents for a bemo ride and come into town when we have free time.  After returning from the village though, I don’t have that much desire to be here.  It’s not even an option for the next few days though because I have to work as an MC at this festival.  I feel so bizarre—dressed in traditional garb, telling the audience to silence their cell phones, shuffling around with the microphone in Q&A sessions.  What on earth qualified me to do this??? I have absolutely no idea.

There really are some fascinating writers here, so I’m trying to focus my attention on appreciating them rather than pondering the strangeness of the expat culture.  Like yesterday…I was at a session with Fatima Bhutto (who I think is one of the most naturally beautiful people I’ve ever seen).  And I know the people running the show are just some international, down-to-earth, literature lovers, but I don’t know how to come home from a day interacting with them in their “serene” and “exotic” venues to my fam’s feast of finger-food veggies and rice.  And what’s worse is I don’t even know if I’m justified to feel like this…cause it’s not like I’m a local either…and I have only been here for 5 weeks..

Alright, I have to go because I’ve been sitting here for way too long.  No MC-ing today, but I’m going to listen to some of the sessions.  Hopefully they’ll be enjoyable.  Next week we’re going to Lovina…I don’t really know what’s there, but I guess I’ll find out!  And then after that is the big big festival in Bedulu.  That will be my Balinese replacement for Halloween.

:)