Zoey's 2nd Birthday

Zoey's 2nd Birthday, a set on Flickr.

What a magical day. I promise to write the details soon. For now... a few pics.

Perhaps the Best Reason to live within a few degrees of the Equator

It isn't as if I needed one more reason to love Bali. The "what's to love about Bali" column is chock-a-block (to use the New Zealand term), filled to the brim and overflowing. The funny thing about Tropical Fruit is that as a kid in suburban America, I associated these words with a chemically induced, too bright,  fuschia-colored Kool-Aid drink. And rattling around in the back of my head is the picture of a smiling cartoon character pitcher with legs that now makes me think they were going for the beer association in our parents. The flavor of Tropical Fruit is a familiar one for say bubblegum or name-your-corn-syrup-candy but I don't think I ever associated the flavor with actual fruit. Until now.

When I try to describe how different fruits here taste, it goes something like "an apricot crossed with a peach" etc... but of course failing miserably in capturing the essence of the actual flavor. I do pretty good getting the texture across. The snake skin fruit, Salak, reminds me of biting into a clove of elephant garlic, or so I would guess. Well, enough rambling and onto the actual reason for this post... Mangosteen.   Or manggis in Indonesian. Take out the two gg's and you have manis,  their word for sweet.

I'll skip the failed analogies here and just say that I read Queen Victoria offered up 100 pounds sterling to anyone who could could bring her a fresh one. They are quite simply my new favorite fruit. Easy to open. Easy to navigate the stones. None of the rind gets messed up in the fruit. I would venture to say you could easily eat this fruit in the dark at a movie. Lastly, the rich purple of the ripened mangosteen in contrast to the kermit green leaves is a Cezanne come to life.  I'm off right now to put a few in the fridge for a change. If this makes them taste any better, I'll have my first healthy addiction.

Land Ceremony

 

Gordon and Lorraine during prayers

We’ve made our first set of expat friends from this trip. Lorraine and Gordon from New Zealand. They are very early in the process of building a home just up the road from where we are staying in Kayaputih. The building of their road started a few days after we arrived. They had been waiting for the holy man to choose the auspicious day for their beginning. He chose the day dedicated to the celebration of all things metal. However, that was several weeks off in the future, so they learned that they could move dirt for the road as long as they didn’t place any stones or remove anything from the land.

Arrival of the Priest

On the chosen day, the priest came and completed the required ceremonial offering to the spirits for the use of the land and hence the safety of the workers during the project.  When we met them, they didn’t know much about what would take place at the ceremony except that a chicken would be sacrificed. I’m not sure what it says about me, but I  immediately asked if we could come.

There’s nothing like the mention of something being sacrificed to get one’s imagination stirring. I remember traveling with some art students in Paris when I was in my twenties. We waited in line to be admitted to a performance art show in Montmartre. We were turned away after they exceeded their limit of patrons dictated by the fire department. Later I found out that the show had included the sacrifice of several chickens by an artist that painted in blood. I’ve never been so grateful to a fire marshall in all my life.

Call it acclimating, but somehow here in Bali, the notion of offering a chicken to the spirits in exchange for the prosperous and safe use of land seems  quite practical.  From the ceremonies I have witnessed thus far, I knew that it would look nothing like the sacrifices of Hollywood movies. I knew even the dead chicken would look right at home, artistically woven into a fabric of offerings that appealed to the “lower” demons.

A Sacrificed Chicken

As it turned out I think there were five very small chickens, this here being the largest, gracing the offering basket that was set in front of the priest. As he chanted, a woman responsible for creating the various banten (offerings) waved a metal container to disperse the incense and presumably the prayers. The specific hand gestures of Balinese prayers are intricate and the priest dispersed several different types of flowers and leaves with an artful one-handed flick of his thumb and forefinger while ringing a bell. 

Workers assembling a M*A*S*H -like mess hall during the ceremony

Our friends were invited to join the ceremony and were guided in making offerings and prayers.  Afterwards, they joined us for coffee, introducing us to Wayan and Kitty, the name holders for the title of their land. As foreigners are not allowed to own land outright in Bali, you must enter into a contract with a local whom you trust if you want to build a home. You can also navigate the maze of company structures, some that allow foreign ownership of assets and land in various proportions.

As you might guess, it takes time to find the right arrangement. Hati-Hati, Pelan-Pelan.  “Caution Caution, Slowly Slowly” is the mantra we have heard again and again from both Balinese and Expats alike.  The more I listen, and gather experiences from the people I meet, one thing is pretty clear. We will never avoid every pitfall in the process of trying to live here and make a living.

Someone once told me though that “Just living is risky business”. So, I suppose, whatever business we may find here, it may well be risky living and I suppose that would be the point. A special thanks to Lorraine and Gordon for sharing their adventure with us.

Maybe Too Much of a Good Thing...

This framed sign (and T-shirt!) was the brainstorm of a curmudgeony group of beer drinking expats at Nuri's, our favorite warung (small restaurant) in Ubud. Run by an guy named Brian from New York, it is our "Hamburger Away from Home".

 

Pagerwesi

Pagerwesi - celebrating Sang Hyang Pramesti Guru, god of teachers and creator of the universe. Offerings are made to stave off evil forces.

I chose this picture to represent Pagerwesi because it signified so many aspects of this beautiful experience. First, Zoey’s outfit was purchased for us by Wayan at the market. In true serendipity, it was in Zoey’s signature purple.  She brought sarongs and sashes for Bryan and I from her family and Bryan wore his hat from our previous trip. If I remember correctly, the hole in the top lets the good spirits in. Given the difficulty of finding ceremonial shirts in our size, we wore something from our own closet. Tomorrow, however, I will be visiting a tailor with a new friend from New Zealand so that we may have our ceremony attire made for our “western size” bodies. I look forward to choosing from the striking batik fabrics that are the staple of every fabric store in Singaraja.

Zoey is seen here kneeling with the small banana leaf packet offerings that were prepared for us. We held these between our hands during a specific prayer. The flowers were to be tucked behind our right ear just before we were sprinkled with holy water and pressed rice to our foreheads and nape of our necks.

You see these offerings in many different forms throughout Bali, on the doorsteps of retail stores, at temples big and small, and thankfully on the dashboards of taxis (spelt taksi here) as they squeeze between huge trucks and families of 5 traveling on single motorbikes . (that last part is not an exaggeration) There is an endless array of artistic expressions in these offerings, as well as in the larger multi-layered displays made from fruits and cakes.

My trip to market on the day before Pagerwesi was an eye-opener.  The usually calm produce section was mayhem, the floor covered in plastic wrappers that once surrounded ceremonial oranges. Young women descended like flies when a stock boy set down and opened a new box of fruit.  They were quick in their selections, but  that is not to say hasty, in that they clearly inspected each piece that went into their plastic bags. Then, as is procedure in a Balinese supermarket, they waited in line to weigh their goods on the machine that produced the proper sticker. I was shocked and steered clear of both the fruit section and the crowd around that intimidating sticker machine.

Pictured here is the beautiful offering made by Wayan and the young boys who kept a close watch on our family throughout the ceremony. As it drew to a close, we were offered a seat of honor on a bench and served tea and colorful coconut cakes, nuts and fruit. The family members gathered their basket of special foods to take home which included, cakes, these delightful (and now my favorite Bali food) delicate cookies called matahari, fried chicken pieces, boiled eggs and little bags of a liquid green rice substance that was somewhere in the process of fermentation. We were given a small square box full of such treats to take home and several women stopped by our bench to offer us something from their family’s basket. I could not have expected a warmer welcome and will never forget their genuine smiles.

Full American Breakfast

Wayan announced yesterday that she would be preparing a Full American Breakfast this morning. She had been watching TV and took notes on how to prepare it. As she said it, she had that "I'm up to something" laugh and smile that I've come to adore. She also said something about potatoes and tomatoes which we've not seen at breakfast. We've been waking at dawn and going to sleep with the sun, so her breakfast is usually our second. However, in anticipation of her expedition into American cooking, I kept my stomach empty and ready. 

As you can see here, for starters, she definitely got the American portions memo.  Between the cheese omelet, potatoes, sausage, toast and pineapple, there was little room left on the plate. There was also a, albeit atypically spicy, nod to the Brits in the form of a grilled tomato. Yum.

Wayan has gone out of her way to introduce us to Balinese cooking, include us in her family temple celebration and make sure that Zoey pays a visit to every local farm animal on their afternoon walks. We are so blessed to share life with her.