Community

Sunday May 1, 2011 (delayed for pix processing)

Community/ Tebola Part 2

            I hire a driver/guide/translator to take me to Tirta Gangga, the Water Palace, focused on my water mission. It is an hour from the small village of Tebola where I stay for five days amidst impossibly green mountains and terraced rice fields. Tirta Gangga is okay, not impressive to me, built as a recreational place for a former king in the 1800s.

Tirta Gangga view

            What is impressive is the small mountain road we take to get there. Here I see village life as we drive through endless green vistas. I stop to shoot video at many photo ops, terraced fields, the village dam, the water canals. But what interests me most are the towns devoted to a craft, like the metal smiths making utility knifes and ritual kris knives used for the Barong ceremony. They hone the metal in wood or gas fired furnaces, display their wares on strings.

          
           One family shop makes the cremation towers used by the upper class Brahman families, like Raka used for his wife. I video details of the incredibly beautiful work. A young son learns his craft with simple sticks.

             It is Sunday, they are working at a leisurely pace, singing along with the radio, laughing, talking.  It makes no difference to them if I wander about and take photos, speak my meager Indonesian.

           
             I realize it is this sense of community and connection that I yearn for, this easy relationship with each other, with their trade, with life. At one turn in the road, we come upon a whole village making decorations for a cremation, the more simple kind for people with less money who cannot afford the elaborate towers. The men make a simple white box, to be painted with beautiful decorations, weave palm leaves into shapes to decorate a simple tower, strip palm fronds into slivers for ornate bowers that will grace the road.

            They graciously let me take all the images I want, ask me questions in Indonesian that I answer with all the Indonesian that I know, about 6 -7 sentences that answer their questions about where I am from, how long I am in Bali, where I stay in Bali and my name. Since my name with an “h” at the end means angry, I have  learned to make a joke in Indonesian that says, “Saya Mara, tidak marah,” I am Mara, not marah (angry) and it always gets a laugh. Pretty good for a language I barely know!

           
             They direct me across the road where the women make small offering baskets and decorations and cook baskets of rice, prepare glasses for tea, fry splayed chickens as offerings and then to feast on. It is a wonder of busy communal work, with everyone talking, smiling, laughing.  The cremation is a in a day or two.

            This is how the village sends you on your way when you die,  making it beautiful for you all together, doing everything they can to free you from this life and send you swiftly to the next one. If you have very good karma, you reach nirvana. If you have the usual mix of good and bad, you return as a human again, and with bad karma you become an animal. I cannot explain my wish to return as a well-loved house cat like my cats Tango and Mango, because all cats are feral here, small, lean and alert.

            Everyone comes together to send you on your way, as a village, as a community, as a celebration.  I understand that this is what draws me to Bali, the sense of beauty and of community. I tell my driver I want to come back my next life as a Balinese person. He laughs and says it is better if you come back for your next trip to Bali and buy a house as a foreigner and hire me to work for you. He is young, but wise!

            On the short walk downhill after dinner, with rushing water channels for the rice fields on either side of the dark, narrow road from the restaurant to my bungalow, I see the first fireflies and am delighted, reminded that in a month it will be firefly season back home too. There is nothing more magical than dozens of fireflies lighting the woods’ edge in summer.

            My dinner, by the way, cost $7 for tuna and a big salad, with fried banana for dessert. The protein portions are smaller here than the hearty American style. Meat and fish are costly so are used sparingly but well. I head back to bustling Ubud tomorrow for the last ceremonies and water temple excursions. I will miss this serene hamlet and the warm, friendly people here. Even in five days I have developed affection for many of them. It is a place to come back to again.

            The water channel outside my room rushes so strong and loud that I had to wear earplugs last night, even though I loved the insect and frog orchestra. Ironic indeed, on this water journey.