I couldn't think of anything super-witty, so just read it like Mmmmmmmmunduk PAKEL, which is how some enthusiastic Balinese people would pronounce it. Anyhow, you guys might not ever get to hear about the art projects or the host family or any of that, because I realized that I can't keep trying to tell you everything that goes on all the time. Ever. What cool stories would I have to come out later? What secrecy would be left? And practically, it's hard to write those massive posts, and it must be hard for you to read too, poor things.
So in the interest of simplicity, let's stick to this latest adventure, five days in Ary's home village of Munduk Pakel, a little farming town way up in the ricefields in the west of Bali. And when I say little, I mean little: it's literally a one-street town with no post office (but it still has over three warungs and a little ice cream motorbike that rides through every afternoon). There's definitely a laid-back village vibe, as everyone knows everyone else's business and things get really sleepy in the afternoons, but it was incredible. Probably my favorite part of SIT so far. We drove and hiked through the best, greenest and most picturesque fields of rice, terraced all up and down these hills, into the village, where most people turned out to say hi and invite us into their homes so we'd have a place to sleep and food to eat. Munduk was interesting because, instead of the usual one large extended family per compound, there were around four different families living in a single compound, just building more buildings further and further back down or up the hillside, due to marrying-in and other complicated family dynamics that I don't have time to explain here in full.
And then we had lots of adventures. The laundry list: we practiced gamelan. Twice (although the second one kind of sucked because we're not very good and that practice was less structured, and as you can probably figure out a percussion orchestra without structure is just a lot of painful, painful noise. And intro gamelan is kind of repetitive and boring to begin with, but we had to start somewhere). We bathed in a tropical river every day, although mine was a solitary activity as I couldn't exactly bathe with the other male students (BECAUSE THERE ARE NONE). I worked in a rice field, which was good wholesome fun and games hoeing in the middle of verdant greenery, with the mud between your toes and the morning rain in your face, until my co-workers started a mudfight, involved me, and led me to step on my own hoe, splitting the ball of my foot. But it's okay now, as I think it just opened the really big callus I've got there and freaked me out about "cow manure fertilizer" and "tetanus" entering my body.
Let's see, we also... had a flirtation dance! This was much more fun than the terror that the words flirtation and dance inspire when associated so closely. The way it works: a bamboo gamelan orchestra (much cooler than the other one because it's not so brassy sounding) plays the most jaunty and upbeat tune I've heard since coming here, and repeats it twice so you, the lonely westerner missing music that sounds upbeat and familiar, can groove for a bit. Then the dancer comes out, does a prelude thing, and then picks visiting guests from the crowd to dance with her. You're supposed to kind of follow her moves, or at least dance something, until she sends you back or shame and embarrassment lead you to shake her hand in defeat. In case you haven't guessed, this is something the villagers do for their entertainment when guests come (although it used to be a way for guys to meet girls). Props go to the little old teacher from Tabanan district, apparently formerly a professional dancer, who looked like he was doing a choreographed part, and actually made the dancer herself laugh. Good fun.
We also (this never really ends) made coconut bowls, traditional medicine, visited a healer, saw a shadow puppet play (something I couldn't really understand because it was in Balinese, which in itself was for the benefit of the local audience as the main characters usually speak in Kawi, high Javanese. But it was fun nonetheless in a slapstick way), and went squirrel hunting with Putu. Putu deserves an introduction here: Ary's son by her first marriage, a nice and shy guy born and raised in Munduk. I'm convinced that if he went to high school in the late 50's, Putu would be the quarterback who shows up on his motorcycle, and everyone would cheer "PUTU! Yeah, you go man! Yay Putu!" Then he'd smile that quiet smile, light a cigarette, and ride off on his bike to more cheers and screams. Anyhow, he goes to school in Denpassar now but doesn't really like the city, which is easy to see after spending a few days in the village, so he returns whenever he can. Squirrels are also a pest to the farmers, so they pay a small bounty for tails. Anyhow, I finally managed to bond with this mysterious man, and he showed up as I started to pack to head back and asked me if I'd like to go hunting. This entailed him hiking a short trail with a gigantic air rifle, spending a lot of time looking up, and shooting a squirrel from some distance on the way home. He let me shoot a coconut.
And then we went back. Even though Bedulu is kind of a sleepy place, the traffic and proximity to the evils of Ubud made it seem so much less pleasant after that five day stint in what's about as real as the real Bali can get. Even though we got the candy-coated version of rural life, it seemed pretty content and idyllic, once you get over back-breaking rice farming and food shortages and poverty. Just sitting in the compound on a lazy afternoon after a mandi in the river, watching the world go by, was about as great as life can get.
Which is of course why I decided to spend the next few days volunteering at the Ubud Writers and Readers festival (or, Expat Appreciation Week), an event that I'll report back on in detail later, once I can form a clear opinion. Chances are it'll be pretty unfavorable.
I'm not entirely sure where adventures are taking me in the next weeks, but I think I'll be out of internet contact probably until next Monday. So in the mean time... well, I've used all my "keep doing your thing" endings up already, so I'll just say until next time. Also, keep me posted on the news, not current affairs. I find it really hard to believe that it's been a month at school and I haven't heard one wild and crazy story or piece of gossip. Come on guys.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Playing Tourist
Although I had a good number of spectacular Pak Wayan quotes to choose a title from ("Whether you have other dogs beyond the funny one, people don't care" and "Boys, all 2,000 of you" spring to mind), I had to go with the descriptive title here. I suppose that, no matter how superior a student abroad may feel to the swarms of ignorant tourists clogging his island, a man's got to travel and enjoy the oceans of the South Pacific while he's in country. And so I did. Our weather cleared up from monsoon-y and a few of us headed to the southern peninsula of Bali, the Bukit, to visit a place called Ulu Watu, known for its important temple and spectacular surfing.
For starters, the Bukit is wildly different from the rest of Bali. The area I'm staying in, Bedulu, is in a very green and wet part of Bali just below the central mountains. When I ride the bemo into Ubud (have I mentioned bemos? They're the public transportation here, big rickety vans that follow the market routes. There's no real set passenger limit, as we've fit probably 16 in a van, and price is negotiable depending on your bargaining skill. Successfully flagging down a bemo and paying the local fare makes me feel almost as cool and local as when I can banter in Bahasa Indonesia with the other passengers) to visit with the Internet and see what lovely things everyone has had to say to me in my absence, I'm surrounded by palm trees and random rice fields and other tropical vegetation. Apologies from deviating so far from my subject; the Bukit, by contrast, is really dry and arid, much more like the chaparral hills of Southern California or what I imagine the Outback would be like. The climate and vegetation, combined with all the surfers and beaches, actually made me feel a bit homesick. Apparently the Bukit was historically poor, too dry to grow rice and originally separated from the rest of Bali (Tommy Suharto connected the two and messed up some ecology in the process), so the people subsisted largely on selling salt. That was, of course, before tourism. Now there's a big resort on the eastern side of the peninsula and lots of expert-level surfing on the west, where I was headed.
We checked into a hotel (at $40 a night for one room, it was damn cheap by American standards, considering the splendid pool and ocean view. but the $400,000 rupiah tag made my Balinses price sense cringe, especially because we couldn't barter) and headed off to the beach, which wasn't really what we expected at all. The road (no sidewalks, which proved challenging to us non-motorbike-with-surfboard-holder-riding folk)lead us to a series of concrete steps, very steep and sandy, that went down the face of a cliff. Along the cliff some entrepreneurial souls had built a large collection of tin-roofed huts housing warungs (cheap restaurants), surf shops, and the like, all with amazing views of the ocean. At the bottom of the cliffs was the little strip of sand, hidden among giant rocky columns, which opened into a kind of cave that the surfers could walk out of to get to the waves. There was a viewing platform on a large seaward outcropping, which we climbed a series of rickety stairs to get to. From there the Indian Ocean unfolded, a perfect South Pacific blue, with the white cliffs of the Bukit stretching out to either side before bending back and out of sight behind us. The waves were the largest I'd ever seen, and the most picturesque, easily 6-10 feet tall on average with a big barreling break, way far out to sea because of a shallow reef that the surfers would walk out on. And the surfers were spectacular and probably more than a little insane, tackling waves that looked like the drowning and pulverizing variety. Absolutely five stars amazing natural beauty.
So enough about that, let's talk about me. We spent one sunset and one late afternoon there, chilling on a little strip of beach beyond the rocky cliffs and watching life go by (not to mention a few hermit crabs). We also spent a good deal of time in the pool, eating in a warung we found that served good pizza and Bali's own tasty beer, Storm (the only stout I've ever had that tasted like kalamata olives. In a good way), and walking along the hot roads to get everywhere. The Ulu Watu scene is, as a t-shirt has it, bloody bagus, but a little weird. The Balinese themselves were naturally a little more reserved and unfriendly, doubtless from years of dealing with the tourists, of which there were few (as one friend characterized it, surfers and the sorts of girls who want to pick up surfers). But the prevalent vibe wasn't that of an over-touristed beach world, but much more of a surfer hangout that happened to be in Bali. In fact, the whole weekend felt like a pseudo-Balinese experience, rubbing shoulders with westerners and enjoying the sun and surf in an area of arid natural beauty. It was weird, but very relaxing and nice, minus a slight sunburn (in fact, I'm probably the darkest I've been in my life right now, which isn't saying much). One day I hope to be a good enough surfer to return and do Ulu Watu as it was meant to be done, but in the mean time I'm satisfied with our little break from constant cultural immersion.
Oh, and I finally ran into some temple monkeys. Although the area was traditionally poor and slightly forgotten, Ulu Watu is home to a very important temple, the Pura Ulu Watu. It's a shame that the Balinese don't really like the beach (it's associated with danger in Balinese Hinduism), because ocean temples are spectacular. This one, for instance, sits on the very edge of the cliff almost at the bottom of the peninsula, looking back up at the cliffs. The ocean was just as blue, and the drop down was even more sheer and spectacular. The grounds (I guess that's what they would be called) were also incredible in that arid Bukit way, and I would have loved to go explore through the scrub along the cliffs. And, most importantly, the area had a large resident group of temple monkeys. Technically macaques, they seemed to just sit around and feed off trash and food that tourists brought for them to eat. Some were fat, some were old, some were cute, and some were small, but they were all, for the most part, indifferent to us and good-natured. There were a few instances where some wanted to grab a camera or something, as I gathered by the fact that they ran towards us with beady little monkey eyes on our electronics, but by showing no fear and leaping back cursing they got the message that we were not to be trifled with. They also had a little monkey playground set up, with a rope swing and water basin to play in. It's a shame they were all doubtless rabid and ready to kill at a moment's notice.
Tomorrow, I'll have been in country for one month already. That's kind of amazing, but also feels pretty right considering all the stuff that's gone down while here. My writing juices are mostly spent after another overly long post, so I'll promise yet again to talk about the homestay family and my art project and all that other stuff later. But before I go, credit to Jake for the inspiration to change blog titles once I speak the language (and I also didn't want to offend the locals with Hunter S. references). The current title is, fittingly enough, Bahasa Indonesia for "Friendship Adventure." Good fun.
For starters, the Bukit is wildly different from the rest of Bali. The area I'm staying in, Bedulu, is in a very green and wet part of Bali just below the central mountains. When I ride the bemo into Ubud (have I mentioned bemos? They're the public transportation here, big rickety vans that follow the market routes. There's no real set passenger limit, as we've fit probably 16 in a van, and price is negotiable depending on your bargaining skill. Successfully flagging down a bemo and paying the local fare makes me feel almost as cool and local as when I can banter in Bahasa Indonesia with the other passengers) to visit with the Internet and see what lovely things everyone has had to say to me in my absence, I'm surrounded by palm trees and random rice fields and other tropical vegetation. Apologies from deviating so far from my subject; the Bukit, by contrast, is really dry and arid, much more like the chaparral hills of Southern California or what I imagine the Outback would be like. The climate and vegetation, combined with all the surfers and beaches, actually made me feel a bit homesick. Apparently the Bukit was historically poor, too dry to grow rice and originally separated from the rest of Bali (Tommy Suharto connected the two and messed up some ecology in the process), so the people subsisted largely on selling salt. That was, of course, before tourism. Now there's a big resort on the eastern side of the peninsula and lots of expert-level surfing on the west, where I was headed.
We checked into a hotel (at $40 a night for one room, it was damn cheap by American standards, considering the splendid pool and ocean view. but the $400,000 rupiah tag made my Balinses price sense cringe, especially because we couldn't barter) and headed off to the beach, which wasn't really what we expected at all. The road (no sidewalks, which proved challenging to us non-motorbike-with-surfboard-holder-riding folk)lead us to a series of concrete steps, very steep and sandy, that went down the face of a cliff. Along the cliff some entrepreneurial souls had built a large collection of tin-roofed huts housing warungs (cheap restaurants), surf shops, and the like, all with amazing views of the ocean. At the bottom of the cliffs was the little strip of sand, hidden among giant rocky columns, which opened into a kind of cave that the surfers could walk out of to get to the waves. There was a viewing platform on a large seaward outcropping, which we climbed a series of rickety stairs to get to. From there the Indian Ocean unfolded, a perfect South Pacific blue, with the white cliffs of the Bukit stretching out to either side before bending back and out of sight behind us. The waves were the largest I'd ever seen, and the most picturesque, easily 6-10 feet tall on average with a big barreling break, way far out to sea because of a shallow reef that the surfers would walk out on. And the surfers were spectacular and probably more than a little insane, tackling waves that looked like the drowning and pulverizing variety. Absolutely five stars amazing natural beauty.
So enough about that, let's talk about me. We spent one sunset and one late afternoon there, chilling on a little strip of beach beyond the rocky cliffs and watching life go by (not to mention a few hermit crabs). We also spent a good deal of time in the pool, eating in a warung we found that served good pizza and Bali's own tasty beer, Storm (the only stout I've ever had that tasted like kalamata olives. In a good way), and walking along the hot roads to get everywhere. The Ulu Watu scene is, as a t-shirt has it, bloody bagus, but a little weird. The Balinese themselves were naturally a little more reserved and unfriendly, doubtless from years of dealing with the tourists, of which there were few (as one friend characterized it, surfers and the sorts of girls who want to pick up surfers). But the prevalent vibe wasn't that of an over-touristed beach world, but much more of a surfer hangout that happened to be in Bali. In fact, the whole weekend felt like a pseudo-Balinese experience, rubbing shoulders with westerners and enjoying the sun and surf in an area of arid natural beauty. It was weird, but very relaxing and nice, minus a slight sunburn (in fact, I'm probably the darkest I've been in my life right now, which isn't saying much). One day I hope to be a good enough surfer to return and do Ulu Watu as it was meant to be done, but in the mean time I'm satisfied with our little break from constant cultural immersion.
Oh, and I finally ran into some temple monkeys. Although the area was traditionally poor and slightly forgotten, Ulu Watu is home to a very important temple, the Pura Ulu Watu. It's a shame that the Balinese don't really like the beach (it's associated with danger in Balinese Hinduism), because ocean temples are spectacular. This one, for instance, sits on the very edge of the cliff almost at the bottom of the peninsula, looking back up at the cliffs. The ocean was just as blue, and the drop down was even more sheer and spectacular. The grounds (I guess that's what they would be called) were also incredible in that arid Bukit way, and I would have loved to go explore through the scrub along the cliffs. And, most importantly, the area had a large resident group of temple monkeys. Technically macaques, they seemed to just sit around and feed off trash and food that tourists brought for them to eat. Some were fat, some were old, some were cute, and some were small, but they were all, for the most part, indifferent to us and good-natured. There were a few instances where some wanted to grab a camera or something, as I gathered by the fact that they ran towards us with beady little monkey eyes on our electronics, but by showing no fear and leaping back cursing they got the message that we were not to be trifled with. They also had a little monkey playground set up, with a rope swing and water basin to play in. It's a shame they were all doubtless rabid and ready to kill at a moment's notice.
Tomorrow, I'll have been in country for one month already. That's kind of amazing, but also feels pretty right considering all the stuff that's gone down while here. My writing juices are mostly spent after another overly long post, so I'll promise yet again to talk about the homestay family and my art project and all that other stuff later. But before I go, credit to Jake for the inspiration to change blog titles once I speak the language (and I also didn't want to offend the locals with Hunter S. references). The current title is, fittingly enough, Bahasa Indonesia for "Friendship Adventure." Good fun.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Anjing is Not an Occupation
This is a direct quote from my Bahasa Indonesia teacher, the illustrious Pak Wayan (a man who eats pissan goreng, fried banana, with ketchup, and also named his dogs "Matt Lloyd" and "Lapinki." My apologies if I already mentioned that fact). Whether it's the super-rainy weather or my bizarre sense of humor, I thought that was hilarious this morning and decided to make it the title of this post. Oh, and anjing means dog. Glad we got that covered.
So I realized that I forgot to mention in that last post why the Balinese are so friendly. Or, more accurately, how, because this innate friendliness is cultural. Everywhere you go, people smile and say hi and ask where you're going, not to be creepy or anything, but just to know. They love that we're college students trying to figure out their language and smile and laugh when we can't speak it. The laughter isn't mean, it's just their way of releasing tension from a slightly tense/awkward situation. Also, it is really funny to see a bunch of whiteys stumbling around your market trying to buy cultural items for school. The sense of humor here is also wonderful- lots of sass and making fun, but entirely in a "no hard feelings way." Example: last night, my family and I were sitting around chatting, and they started making fun of my sister for not speaking English, saying that she gets zeros on all her tests and doesn't like speaking it with me for that reason. She kind of made the "I know you're making fun of me and I don't like it" face, and probably sassed back in Balinese (the language I'm not learning) and then shrugged it off completely. Of course, they make fun of me too, like when I wear the dress sarong and stuff, but it's just because I'm a tall lanky white boy.
Side note: all you single tall lanky white boys best head down to Bali. They love pasty flesh and I've had more grandmothers proposition me to marry their daughters than... well, like five grandmas, but still. Balinese girls and white guys. The hidden connection. Also, all your babies would be living examples of hybrid vigor, and the exchange rate is in our favor. Evolution and economics. Get on it.
The big reason for that digression was to explain how nice my old homestay family was about me moving out, but that's really all I need to say now. They thanked me for staying, held no grudges, and told me to come back and visit. And when I did, they gave me a big bag of rambutans (oh I will miss rambutan. It's a sweet tropical fruit, white and grape-like on the inside and red and hairy/spiky on the outside. Not found in the states).
Okay cool back to topic (or lack thereof): I saw another temple ceremony this weekend. It was the temple in Batuan's yearly ceremony (Odalan), except that apparently every five years there is a super big ceremony, and this is a really important ceremony. So that's like ceremony times three, call it four because I'm a westerner and don't know any better. So we got all decked out and headed over around four in the afternoon to check out the later part of the festivities. They had blocked off the street in front of the temple for the crowds and crowds of fancily attired worshipers, all sitting in the streets in their white and yellow (apparently it's the new fashion trend) dress outfits waiting to go in. We waited, and they finished up something inside the temple requiring gamelan in the temple, and then a bunch of priest-type dudes hurried out carrying big offerings and loaded them into cars before speeding away somewhere. Now might be a good time to mention the fact that the entire temple was lavishly decorated: big banners with dragons and other beasties on them, cloth wrapped around all the statues, huge bamboo decorative streamer-type pillars all over, and lots and lots of offerings strewn all over the ground. And this was only outside. Inside comes... now: next on the agenda was a short wait and then a parade: a bunch of women under a cloth came out of the temple, followed by people carrying offerings/shrines/artifacts (I think) and masks and things that had been blessed. This ended with the temple's two barongs, giant dragon-lion masks that danced around. After these guys, everyone else got up and sped off around the corner of the temple, following the procession. We followed, and as we were marching around I think they called us out over the loudspeaker, prompting friendly Balinese inquiry as to where we were from. We went in, were told that it wasn't time for whiteys yet (probably not, but that's what it seemed like), and then went out to watch the super-efficient team of street sweepers clean up the mess.
When it was time to go in, we had to pray first to purify ourselves. This was very complicated: we had been given a dish of offerings, and we had to do certain things in a correct order. First we were given incense, then we prayed with only the smoke. Than we took flowers of one color, prayed with them, flicked them away, then prayed with another color, and then repeated for two more big offering things with leaves, flowers and a little coin. Then we smoke-prayed again and had to do the holy water thing with the priest: get splashed on the head, drink three times (or pretend if you don't want bowel complaints), wash your head three times, then get some rice and put it on. And I probably forgot some steps there. Anyways, I don't think I messed up too badly, but concentration superseded any form of spiritual feeling I might have felt. Then we got to wander the temple. The offerings were spectacular: big shrine-like things made of fruits and sugar, all super colorful and unfortunately starting to spoil. This was especially true for the offerings that worshipers brought, including a few whole roast suckling pigs. Between day-old food and the smell from the kitchens, which I have a hard time handling sometimes, I skipped out pretty quickly. But it was really fun, like Christmas and the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and a little bit of Halloween rolled into one. Only even more fun, and traditional for a long time (I want to say thousands of years, but it might only be one. We haven't learned history yet). And they do stuff like this multiple times a month. If western religion was this fun, maybe we'd be a bit more spiritual.
Then we waited a very long time to watch some gamelan and topeng mask dancing, which was fun, but by that point I was too tired to register the fact that there were transvestites doing standup comedy after the topeng. True story. I don't think that's common, but I could be wrong. And then we went home. Moral of the story: festivals are really ornate but at the same time not very stressful, like a block party with way more setup. Balinese people apparently don't sleep either. And transvestites are really funny? I might be missing something there, but whatever.
And the post officially reaches "too long" status. I'll save my introduction to host family characters for a later date. Teaser: my brother's toddler son spends two thirds of his time pantsless. And he dances. Thanks for bearing with me this long, if you skimmed to this point you're a bad person. And I'll work on having more adventures to keep y'all entertained.
So I realized that I forgot to mention in that last post why the Balinese are so friendly. Or, more accurately, how, because this innate friendliness is cultural. Everywhere you go, people smile and say hi and ask where you're going, not to be creepy or anything, but just to know. They love that we're college students trying to figure out their language and smile and laugh when we can't speak it. The laughter isn't mean, it's just their way of releasing tension from a slightly tense/awkward situation. Also, it is really funny to see a bunch of whiteys stumbling around your market trying to buy cultural items for school. The sense of humor here is also wonderful- lots of sass and making fun, but entirely in a "no hard feelings way." Example: last night, my family and I were sitting around chatting, and they started making fun of my sister for not speaking English, saying that she gets zeros on all her tests and doesn't like speaking it with me for that reason. She kind of made the "I know you're making fun of me and I don't like it" face, and probably sassed back in Balinese (the language I'm not learning) and then shrugged it off completely. Of course, they make fun of me too, like when I wear the dress sarong and stuff, but it's just because I'm a tall lanky white boy.
Side note: all you single tall lanky white boys best head down to Bali. They love pasty flesh and I've had more grandmothers proposition me to marry their daughters than... well, like five grandmas, but still. Balinese girls and white guys. The hidden connection. Also, all your babies would be living examples of hybrid vigor, and the exchange rate is in our favor. Evolution and economics. Get on it.
The big reason for that digression was to explain how nice my old homestay family was about me moving out, but that's really all I need to say now. They thanked me for staying, held no grudges, and told me to come back and visit. And when I did, they gave me a big bag of rambutans (oh I will miss rambutan. It's a sweet tropical fruit, white and grape-like on the inside and red and hairy/spiky on the outside. Not found in the states).
Okay cool back to topic (or lack thereof): I saw another temple ceremony this weekend. It was the temple in Batuan's yearly ceremony (Odalan), except that apparently every five years there is a super big ceremony, and this is a really important ceremony. So that's like ceremony times three, call it four because I'm a westerner and don't know any better. So we got all decked out and headed over around four in the afternoon to check out the later part of the festivities. They had blocked off the street in front of the temple for the crowds and crowds of fancily attired worshipers, all sitting in the streets in their white and yellow (apparently it's the new fashion trend) dress outfits waiting to go in. We waited, and they finished up something inside the temple requiring gamelan in the temple, and then a bunch of priest-type dudes hurried out carrying big offerings and loaded them into cars before speeding away somewhere. Now might be a good time to mention the fact that the entire temple was lavishly decorated: big banners with dragons and other beasties on them, cloth wrapped around all the statues, huge bamboo decorative streamer-type pillars all over, and lots and lots of offerings strewn all over the ground. And this was only outside. Inside comes... now: next on the agenda was a short wait and then a parade: a bunch of women under a cloth came out of the temple, followed by people carrying offerings/shrines/artifacts (I think) and masks and things that had been blessed. This ended with the temple's two barongs, giant dragon-lion masks that danced around. After these guys, everyone else got up and sped off around the corner of the temple, following the procession. We followed, and as we were marching around I think they called us out over the loudspeaker, prompting friendly Balinese inquiry as to where we were from. We went in, were told that it wasn't time for whiteys yet (probably not, but that's what it seemed like), and then went out to watch the super-efficient team of street sweepers clean up the mess.
When it was time to go in, we had to pray first to purify ourselves. This was very complicated: we had been given a dish of offerings, and we had to do certain things in a correct order. First we were given incense, then we prayed with only the smoke. Than we took flowers of one color, prayed with them, flicked them away, then prayed with another color, and then repeated for two more big offering things with leaves, flowers and a little coin. Then we smoke-prayed again and had to do the holy water thing with the priest: get splashed on the head, drink three times (or pretend if you don't want bowel complaints), wash your head three times, then get some rice and put it on. And I probably forgot some steps there. Anyways, I don't think I messed up too badly, but concentration superseded any form of spiritual feeling I might have felt. Then we got to wander the temple. The offerings were spectacular: big shrine-like things made of fruits and sugar, all super colorful and unfortunately starting to spoil. This was especially true for the offerings that worshipers brought, including a few whole roast suckling pigs. Between day-old food and the smell from the kitchens, which I have a hard time handling sometimes, I skipped out pretty quickly. But it was really fun, like Christmas and the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and a little bit of Halloween rolled into one. Only even more fun, and traditional for a long time (I want to say thousands of years, but it might only be one. We haven't learned history yet). And they do stuff like this multiple times a month. If western religion was this fun, maybe we'd be a bit more spiritual.
Then we waited a very long time to watch some gamelan and topeng mask dancing, which was fun, but by that point I was too tired to register the fact that there were transvestites doing standup comedy after the topeng. True story. I don't think that's common, but I could be wrong. And then we went home. Moral of the story: festivals are really ornate but at the same time not very stressful, like a block party with way more setup. Balinese people apparently don't sleep either. And transvestites are really funny? I might be missing something there, but whatever.
And the post officially reaches "too long" status. I'll save my introduction to host family characters for a later date. Teaser: my brother's toddler son spends two thirds of his time pantsless. And he dances. Thanks for bearing with me this long, if you skimmed to this point you're a bad person. And I'll work on having more adventures to keep y'all entertained.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Bali is Rice
I was eavesdropping (eavesreading) Marissa's facebook correspondence and thought that she said "rice" instead of "nice" and it was too good to pass up. Also forgive if there are and stray colons or semicolons: I'm writing this at the Pondok Pekak lending library, a place I love, but the keyboard is a little fussy about wanting to include all types of punctuation when I just need one.
So yes, Bali really is rice. Every meal and every where, rice rice rice. But I actually came here today to talk about how 1.) everyone is really nice in Bali and 2.) bad that last post was in terms of details. I mean, come on, I forgot to mention the wonders of bucket baths twice a day, squat toilets, the fact that the beaches I've been to are black sand, with gigantic waves that break basically vertically and actually make swimming legit dangerous, and the super-cool toke, gigantic lizard that actually says what the Balinese hear as "to-kay!", but we westerners hear as "gecko". Cool stuff. So yeah, bad Juje on that one. But I have a great excuse, and one that involves lots of squat toilets: traveler's diarrhea, which was making me behave irrationally, feel tired, and... well, you saw the name. But thanks to the power of wide-spectrum antibiotics and rest, I'm back on top of everything, here to tell you about life south of the equator.
This bout of ill health unfortunately coincided with move-in and adjustment period at the new homestay, the house (well, Balinese compound, so a really big collection of single rooms and pavilions and assorted temples/shrines housing the entire extended family) of a wonderfully sweet family, an elementary school teacher and woodcarver son and sisters and everyone. They were great people and I feel very guilty about what happened next, but you can blame/thank Ary and geography. That compound was located way too close to the main road through Bedulu, so every night at four in the morning (actually all the time, although there was once a break at three in the morning) big trucks would come speeding down the street and, in my sleep-deprived and sick state, sounded like freight trains going by right next to the bed. Combined with being sick, I wasn't doing so hot (actually the day I wrote last), and Ary asked what was up. I said I was sick and not sleeping, so she went and visited the house, decided that it was too loud, and told me to move over my protests about "staying one more night" and "feeling bad." Because, you see, this was a first time homestay family, and they were really excited, and it wasn't their fault. But I did move, and now I am healthy and sleeping and in a really nice huge compound (really nice, all green and jungly and Bali architecture-y) with a fun new family that likes to make fun of me. Just like home and college! More on them as the days go on, because I have to go get a muffin.
That's right, muffin. I found the muffin place in Ubud, a blatant expat hangout called Bali Buddha that hits just the right balance of expat comfort (jazz, western food, International Herald Tribune), Balinese vibe (laid back, open air, thatch roof) and not-too-hippie sensibility (organics and recycling). All in all, bagus as we say here to pretty much anything when we don't know the English. It loosely means good. And they were playing David Fathead Newman's "Hard Times" when I last went there, which ensures them a repeat visit.
In the mean time, we're learning and things. I'm about to start an arts project, probably gamelan or woodcarving or both, and we've got another temple festivity on Saturday. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted. In the mean time, keep doing your things all over the world, and I'll be doing my thing right here. Also, if you want something from Bali, it'll be really cheap, so send me an email and I'll work on it.
So yes, Bali really is rice. Every meal and every where, rice rice rice. But I actually came here today to talk about how 1.) everyone is really nice in Bali and 2.) bad that last post was in terms of details. I mean, come on, I forgot to mention the wonders of bucket baths twice a day, squat toilets, the fact that the beaches I've been to are black sand, with gigantic waves that break basically vertically and actually make swimming legit dangerous, and the super-cool toke, gigantic lizard that actually says what the Balinese hear as "to-kay!", but we westerners hear as "gecko". Cool stuff. So yeah, bad Juje on that one. But I have a great excuse, and one that involves lots of squat toilets: traveler's diarrhea, which was making me behave irrationally, feel tired, and... well, you saw the name. But thanks to the power of wide-spectrum antibiotics and rest, I'm back on top of everything, here to tell you about life south of the equator.
This bout of ill health unfortunately coincided with move-in and adjustment period at the new homestay, the house (well, Balinese compound, so a really big collection of single rooms and pavilions and assorted temples/shrines housing the entire extended family) of a wonderfully sweet family, an elementary school teacher and woodcarver son and sisters and everyone. They were great people and I feel very guilty about what happened next, but you can blame/thank Ary and geography. That compound was located way too close to the main road through Bedulu, so every night at four in the morning (actually all the time, although there was once a break at three in the morning) big trucks would come speeding down the street and, in my sleep-deprived and sick state, sounded like freight trains going by right next to the bed. Combined with being sick, I wasn't doing so hot (actually the day I wrote last), and Ary asked what was up. I said I was sick and not sleeping, so she went and visited the house, decided that it was too loud, and told me to move over my protests about "staying one more night" and "feeling bad." Because, you see, this was a first time homestay family, and they were really excited, and it wasn't their fault. But I did move, and now I am healthy and sleeping and in a really nice huge compound (really nice, all green and jungly and Bali architecture-y) with a fun new family that likes to make fun of me. Just like home and college! More on them as the days go on, because I have to go get a muffin.
That's right, muffin. I found the muffin place in Ubud, a blatant expat hangout called Bali Buddha that hits just the right balance of expat comfort (jazz, western food, International Herald Tribune), Balinese vibe (laid back, open air, thatch roof) and not-too-hippie sensibility (organics and recycling). All in all, bagus as we say here to pretty much anything when we don't know the English. It loosely means good. And they were playing David Fathead Newman's "Hard Times" when I last went there, which ensures them a repeat visit.
In the mean time, we're learning and things. I'm about to start an arts project, probably gamelan or woodcarving or both, and we've got another temple festivity on Saturday. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted. In the mean time, keep doing your things all over the world, and I'll be doing my thing right here. Also, if you want something from Bali, it'll be really cheap, so send me an email and I'll work on it.
Friday, September 11, 2009
More Like "Fear and Loathing in Ubud"
Also known as "Where da white women at?" (answer: Ubud, destination for spiritual neo-hippies of every stripe and upscale cultural travelers), here we go posting live from Bali. I'm in a much nicer internet cafe in aforementioned Ubud right now, a short van ride from the village where I'll be spending most of my time here, and really at a loss for what to tell everyone. Bali is a lot of things, most of them very exciting, some unpleasant. For example, right now I'm suffering from exhaustion and bowel complaints due to a combination of my house being right next to a big road and something I ate; at the same time, I'm on an island populated by some of the most friendly people ever, pretty good food (except for that which makes me ill), rituals and temples everywhere, and stunning tropical ricefields.
You know what would make the most sense? Taking it from the top. The super-long flight was uneventful save for the usual excitement in Hong Kong, a glorious airport with sleeping chairs and good food but lots of scary Asian-ness going on. We got in to Bali having missed the first of September completely and were whisked off to a palace by our academic director, Ary, self described as a "real killer." She's a little Balinese woman who will be leading us on our merry journey through the tropic, and she takes no sass from no body (who does this sound like?). Apparently one of the girls dropped out right before we all left, so now it's me and twelve other girls, something that I recently realized was karma for making fun of Peter's mostly female entry. I remain unrepentant though. The girls are cool enough for girls, and I've come to accept the fact that I must befriend these strange creatures in order to remain connected to life in America.
So back to that palace: apparently it's one of many used by a king who doesn't have much power any more, so they rent it to people like us who want to stay in a palace. Then began orientation: lots and lots of Indonesian, an odd language without tenses and many prepositions, and cultural immersion. SIT is so kind to us that they will actually drive us a distance away from everything we've become accustomed to and kick us out of a van so that we can practice our Indonesian with total strangers in rural areas. But the drop-offs were fun, as were excursions to the crowded/scary markets to get traditional clothing. We've also already been to a tooth-filing ceremony (think cooler Bar Mitsvah, where everyone shows up and kind of schmoozes while the file-ees have a priest do minor dental work, then everyone eats) and a cremation. The cremation was sadder though, as it was for the wife of one of our instructors who died the third day we were there. Also I think that's where I ate whatever it is that's been messing with my health.
After our stay in the palace, we were left to our own devices to bargain for public transportation to Bedulu, village where I'm staying, near Ubud, which I have mixed feelings about after seeing the "real" Bali. We've also moved into our homestay families, but I'll get back to you on that once I settle in more. They're really sweet, so I feel bad that I can't really communicate with them.
Well, I'm taking it just a day at a time, I suppose (as my boy Omar would say), so I'll hopefully do some more specific/higher quality postage in the new future. In the mean time, all of you out there need to stop sippin' that haterade with my word choice. Real friends/family, hello! I am alive and well for now, and I can't wait to regale you all with my soon-to-be adventures in this strange, strange land.
You know what would make the most sense? Taking it from the top. The super-long flight was uneventful save for the usual excitement in Hong Kong, a glorious airport with sleeping chairs and good food but lots of scary Asian-ness going on. We got in to Bali having missed the first of September completely and were whisked off to a palace by our academic director, Ary, self described as a "real killer." She's a little Balinese woman who will be leading us on our merry journey through the tropic, and she takes no sass from no body (who does this sound like?). Apparently one of the girls dropped out right before we all left, so now it's me and twelve other girls, something that I recently realized was karma for making fun of Peter's mostly female entry. I remain unrepentant though. The girls are cool enough for girls, and I've come to accept the fact that I must befriend these strange creatures in order to remain connected to life in America.
So back to that palace: apparently it's one of many used by a king who doesn't have much power any more, so they rent it to people like us who want to stay in a palace. Then began orientation: lots and lots of Indonesian, an odd language without tenses and many prepositions, and cultural immersion. SIT is so kind to us that they will actually drive us a distance away from everything we've become accustomed to and kick us out of a van so that we can practice our Indonesian with total strangers in rural areas. But the drop-offs were fun, as were excursions to the crowded/scary markets to get traditional clothing. We've also already been to a tooth-filing ceremony (think cooler Bar Mitsvah, where everyone shows up and kind of schmoozes while the file-ees have a priest do minor dental work, then everyone eats) and a cremation. The cremation was sadder though, as it was for the wife of one of our instructors who died the third day we were there. Also I think that's where I ate whatever it is that's been messing with my health.
After our stay in the palace, we were left to our own devices to bargain for public transportation to Bedulu, village where I'm staying, near Ubud, which I have mixed feelings about after seeing the "real" Bali. We've also moved into our homestay families, but I'll get back to you on that once I settle in more. They're really sweet, so I feel bad that I can't really communicate with them.
Well, I'm taking it just a day at a time, I suppose (as my boy Omar would say), so I'll hopefully do some more specific/higher quality postage in the new future. In the mean time, all of you out there need to stop sippin' that haterade with my word choice. Real friends/family, hello! I am alive and well for now, and I can't wait to regale you all with my soon-to-be adventures in this strange, strange land.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Here We Go
As I sit in my backyard, burned out from stressing too much about the packing and the check-in and all that, I've kind of got to wonder why on earth I want to leave all this for something new/wild/potentially dangerous/scary. And the answer is adventure, this crazy idea that I've got in my head that I need to go off and do something new/wild/potentially dangerous in order not to feel like everything has become too tame. It's much easier to get into that mindset when you're sitting around a dorm room feeling stircrazy, but harder when you're about to step on that 747 for the next fourteen and a half hours. This is a much bigger adventure than any of my other wilderness excursions or going to college or even heading out to a party you don't want to go to. This seems pretty damn real to me, but at the same time unfamiliar, thus the fear. In the end, though, I know all this worry is pointless. I'll go to Bali. I'll get really into it after a few weeks of adjustment. I'll deal and adapt. And in the end, I'll be pretty happy. So maybe all the daydreams about my triumphant returns to LA/Williamstown are silly, but they're keeping me going right now. We'll see what the daydream is in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I'm off. This is it. Let's take that hill. I'll be seeing y'all later, hopefully posting at you with something resembling regularity and substance. Shoot me an email if you've got stuff to say (if you're a person to be emailing me, you know the address. If not, then I probably don't like you anyways). Future Balinese friends: hello! I'm very nervous about meeting you. The title here is a reference to a book I enjoyed, not a comment on your island or an indication of my behavior while I stay there. And one last word to future me: this better be worth it, punk, otherwise I'll be waiting in your subconscious with a big "I told you so" and a few other choice words not fit to publish on this family blog. Otherwise godspeed, we're all excited for what happens next.
In the meantime, I'm off. This is it. Let's take that hill. I'll be seeing y'all later, hopefully posting at you with something resembling regularity and substance. Shoot me an email if you've got stuff to say (if you're a person to be emailing me, you know the address. If not, then I probably don't like you anyways). Future Balinese friends: hello! I'm very nervous about meeting you. The title here is a reference to a book I enjoyed, not a comment on your island or an indication of my behavior while I stay there. And one last word to future me: this better be worth it, punk, otherwise I'll be waiting in your subconscious with a big "I told you so" and a few other choice words not fit to publish on this family blog. Otherwise godspeed, we're all excited for what happens next.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Token Dude
Not to have the pre-departure posts eclipse the actual news from Bali or get out of hand or anything, but I thought I'd share that I got the list of everyone else who'll be going to Bali. It's me and thirteen girls. I will be the only western guy around (discounting instructors/tourists) for three and a half months. The expedition has taken on an air of farce, and it's a sign of how bewildered/burned out I am that I can't even place what I think is a reference there. T minus one week to departure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)