Adventures

Phew…I know I have only been here for a week and a half, but I feel like I have already been here for months. That is why this blog is going to be difficult to start; I feel like so much has happened that I can’t possibly explain everything. I will try to hit the main points, but some of it I will just have to tell everyone later when I get back.

So I did survive the flight- I am so glad that it was the nicest airline I have ever flown on and that the food was actually decent. I mean, we’re talking salmon in a white wine butter sauce for dinner and cup ramen for a snack. Also, you can choose from over 100 movies and tons of TV shows (Kitchen Nightmares!) to watch and start them whenever you want, so that was great too. One girl in my group actually got thrown up on by a kid within the first hour of the 13.5 hour flight from LA to Hong Kong. I was feeling pretty sorry for her. But I’m going to move on, because the flight was not very exciting, especially compared to everything else I’ve been up to.

For a week, I stayed in a palace (Purih Saren Kangin) in Kerambitan. Our academic directors/people involved in the program picked us up from the airport in Denpasar and drove us to our orientation location. It was an interesting experience getting there because I didn’t know that you drive on the left side of the road in Bali, so being half asleep I naturally thought that we were going to crash into something every time I looked up. Also, I am still getting used to the insane amount of motorbikes that are on the roads, and the lack of stop lights. We did get to the palace safely and settled in our rooms. I kept joking that when I get home I will probably have to buy one of those “nature sounds” cd’s just to fall asleep, because at the palace I got used to hearing animals and birds all the time, and literally woke up at 5 AM every day to the sound of roosters crowing. Also the geckos (which are good because they eat mosquitos) make quite an interesting sound.

Lucky for us, there was a royal wedding going on while we were staying at the palace, and we were invited as special guests to nearly all of the wedding activities, which can go on for a span of 4-5 days. The second night I was in Bali, I put on a sarong and attended the wedding celebration, which involved the performance of some semi-sacred Balinese dances (including people in trance) accompanied by the local gamelan (traditional music group- Nathan, if you haven’t heard gamelan music, you MUST check it out). I wish I had been more awake, but it was such a great introduction to Balinese culture. Not much happened in terms of wedding activities for the few days after that, because the couple went into confinement in the family temple for 3 days, but after that they had the actual ceremony that we were invited to as well. I will post some pictures of this- and you all should note the pig head on the family shrine, which was not all that comforting when meal time came around and every dish had pork in it. I wish I would have understood more or what was going on, because there was a lot of symbolism that I missed out on, but the people in the palace were all so welcoming and it was overall a great experience.

During the orientation period, we had bahasa Indonesia language class for 5 hours each day. The language structure seems simple, but I tend to get a lot of sounds mixed up within words and end up saying something totally different from what I mean. To practice our language, we were sent to do various things by ourselves- like go ask random people questions about themselves/their family. Each person was literally dropped off in a random neighborhood and left there for an hour. Our academic directors were trying to prove their point about the ridiculous level of hospitality shared by all Balinese. Everyone on the street smiles at you and usually greets you, and walking up to people and asking fairly personal questions is okay and even polite. Most of them believe that “being alone is pathetic” so if they see you, many of them will come up to talk to you to keep you company or just to find out about you. For another practical language practicing activity, we were sent to a market to buy the traditional Balinese dress, pakain adat. This was to practice numbers and bargaining, and also getting used to the public transportation system, bemos. You wave a bemo down by giving a certain hand motion, and as they stop you have to tell them what town you want to go to and bargain for the price (which usually is way too high because they know you are a foreigner). If you agree to the price, then you get in the van, which usually looks like the mystery machine from Scooby doo. When we get back, I should have a bemo story night just to tell all of my weird experiences riding in these old, broken down vans, because I think I could accumulate a lot over this 3 ½ month period.

So before I left, Lisa was telling me that she read that the Balinese don’t eat with their left hand, and that it is impolite to give/accept things with your left hand. We were both trying to figure out why that is, and the best thing that I could come up was something similar to the roman belief that the left hand is evil. It actually turns out there is a much more practical reason for this. Balinese people do not use toilet paper. The toilet or squatting hole is in the same room that is used for bathing, so there is a basin with water that you can wash yourself with, and they always use the left hand for that. So now I understand why using your left hand is so rude! Oh, and in case you are wondering, toilet paper is available here and I have been purchasing it.

A few days ago, I moved into my homestay in a fairly small town called Bedulu, about 15 minutes away from the Ubud, an important (although sometimes disgustingly touristy) cultural center. I have a host mom that is an elementary school teacher, a dad that is a cook at a hotel, an older brother that I think works at the hotel too, an 18 year old sister that goes to college in Denpasar, and another younger sister that nobody has really introduced me to yet, and a dog named Pu! Their house is absolutely beautiful! My room is so big, and right outside it there is a fountain/fish pond thingy that runs all the time (think “nature sounds” babbling brook). Sometimes it is hard to communicate, but everyone has been really nice to me so far, and I am very happy to be staying with a family. One of the girls in my study abroad group is actually staying in a house compound that is linked to mine, because the two families are related by marriage (my other host sister lives there with her husband and family).

So I guess that is a pretty good summary of what I’ve been doing, but I can’t end without dedicating a little paragraph to the amazing food that I have already come to love. I have been really lucky with food, and have only had one mild case of what we call “bali belly.” Basically, I eat a lot of rice, sprouts, green beans, fried onions, fried eggs, spicy chicken, tofu, tempeh (my new favorite food!!), peanuts, and coconut. Every meal is usually some sort of combination of these elements, and is always spicy. There really isn’t any difference between what is served as breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which is fine by me because it is all amazing. My favorite sweets so far have been pisang goreng (fried banana!) and a ball made from sweet rice paste with coconut and brown sugar on the inside. The fruits here are also heavenly- rambutan (hairy fruit), mangosteen, and snakeskin fruit are in season, ridiculously cheap, and delicious. Durian is also in season, and although the Balinese say that it “smells like hell but tastes like heaven,” I believe that it tastes exactly like it smells- absolutely rancid. When you open up the spiky fruit, it emanates a rotten smell that I don’t think can be separated from the taste. Of course, the smell is so strong that all of the markets take on its odor, and one cannot escape its wrath.

One last thing- about the dogs here. There are mangy, stray dogs EVERYWHERE (as in, you will see at least 5 if you take a 10 minute walk) that bark all the time, and there is no wonder to me that there was a fairly recent rabies outbreak. Most of them will leave you alone, but there is one that sits outside my family’s house and scares the living daylights out of me because I can tell it is not afraid of me at all and growls when I get near the gate, sometimes charging at me. It’s just going to have to learn who’s boss because so far it has been a daily struggle. And to give parents peace of mind, the hospital in Denpasar (less than an hour away) has post-exposure rabies shots available if necessary.

I will write more soon!