Animal Crackers

My dear little one doesn’t want to go to sleep. Perhaps it is because we ate a whole box of animal crackers an hour ago. You’d understand why we ate our way to the bottom if you saw this ingenious little box. The English word for each animal was tattooed on the cracker itself and then a legend on the box had pictures of the animals and the corresponding Indonesian word and Chinese character. A sort of blobbish cracker stamped peafowl had me flummoxed until Wiki explained that was common English for Peacock. Oh, not so obscure I guess. There was another animal, whose name we couldn’t pronounce even in English, which now I cannot remember and can’t Wiki. It too was blob like but reminded me of a plump rodent. I am happy I chose the butter flavor and passed on the sea weed. Some cows are indeed sacred.

Zoey is learning Indonesian already. Tonight, she stood at the edge of our verandah, called across the rice paddy to the nearby pondok (a resting hut for a rice farmer and shade for the cows) and said “Hallo Sapi! Hallo Sapi!”  (Hello Cow!) She greets Made, the gardener every morning with “Selamat Pageeeee.” She makes treks up to Wayan’s house every day to see the baby ducks and play with the kids. I’m pretty sure she’s picking up the lingo there and along the way in the village. I’m ready for a tutor to help me along at her speed!

Since the theme of the night is animals, here is a video I took of a local farmer plowing the rice field next door. They planted it today. The sound in the back is Gamelan music coming from across the ravine during the Pagerwesi celebration a few days ago. More on that ceremony tomorrow...

A Bali Blog Beginning

I decided to open my Bali Blog with a picture of my daughter Zoey with her hands clasped together praying at her first Balinese ceremony. She had looked around, studied what everyone was doing with their hands and eyes, sat down on her father's lap and began, in earnest, to do the same.

I am reminded by this moment and photo, that the desire to "join in" is universal. To become a part of something new freshens my spirit and softens my way of being in the world with a humility that is born of uncertainty.  It is in the new adventures that I learn how to be led through the world by something other, something greater than myself.

My family is setting out on a new path, seeking more of life's meaning and less of life's chatter. The Balinese see their island as the center of the universe and what better place to find our family's center and intentionally explore from there. I will journal our experiences here and share with you the sights, sounds and laughter along the way.