open air bathrooms

Resolved: Open Air Bathrooms should be abolished.

Have you gone the bathroom in an open air restroom?

At first, the experience is enlivening, warm night air sitting on the skin, a light breeze touching the face. Frankly, it seems logical to eject the “unwanteds” from the body in an open space, fresh air taking away the evil smells and bacteria.

But the harms outweigh the benefits. 

1.     Privacy. A half wall separating a toilet user from a dinner party is not enough privacy, not for anyone involved. The outsiders do not want to listen to sqeaky or squishy noises while eating . . . or at all. The insider does a painful dance with his or her bowels, trying to slow the process down, control the noises, even the toilet flush. Merging back with the group is a process of avoiding eye contact and eschewing liquids or solids for the rest of the night in order to avoid a repeat showing.

 If the outdoor toilet is in a small villa backed up to a motorcycle lot and laundry, the “dinner party” on the other side of the half wall never goes away, they just roast pigs and drink beer while the toilet user tries to pretend it is normal to poop in public.

2.     Creatures. Mosquitoes love water; apparently, that is doubly true of shower water in outside showers. My ankles and shoulders get eaten alive whenever I take a shower. I stopped taking showers. Who needs to be clean? I can’t dry my hair anyway, thanks to my crappy hairdryer dying on day one.  Another creature fond of the outdoor bathrooms are the geckos, but I have to list them as a benefit. I love their sticky feet, their calls, their cute little eyes – and the fact that they eat mosquitoes.

3.     Showers. Showers next to the toilet in a small outdoor bathroom are practical. But disgusting. Very goddamm disgusting. The water runs over the toilet and all the germs then run onto the floor, over my feet. I don’t not want urine or feces on my feet, I don’t care how diluted it is.  I realize most of the germs are inside the toilet but I’m also a realist – I’ve seen my five year old go the bathroom. Further, the floor of the bathroom is then wet, creating squishy, icky toe syndrome for a couple of hours.  Maybe I would be a little more forgiving if the water was actually warm.

If I lived on acres of secluded land, all by myself, with no visitors, I may like an outdoor bathroom, complete with a bug zapper, hot water, and full walls. Until then, I’m happy with skylights, paintings of the ocean and a fan. Or just four walls and a ceiling.

I was famous

I was famous.

I just woke from a dream in which I was frantically trying to get ready for a stage appearance, 30 minutes to go, in a strange room with no clothes that fit and a very athletically-strong woman hovering, yelling at me to hurry up. At first some friends were there, trying to help me pull something together but then they all abandoned me. I was left with too-small clothes, finally trying to create an alternative, kooky look, or the sexy librarian look. It worked for me in my early 20’s, at speech and debate tournaments. It was not working now, in my late 30’s with an entirely different body. I was getting hysterical, pulling on gaping shirts and skirts meant for third graders, the “entirely different body” fighting for freedom in all the wrong places.  Is this how a famous author looks when she gets in front of an audience, a cross between Rosie O’Donnell and Courtney Love?

Well, thank god I don’t have to deal with this in real life. True, I can barely decide what to wear to the market without having a nervous breakdown, trying to avoid my two biggest wardrobe pitfalls, looking pudgy or looking old – but I’m pretty sure no one cares except me. I certainly don’t have thousands of adoring fans critiquing my wardrobe.  Sometimes one of my high school students might mock the dog hair, the hole, the out of date turtleneck, but who pays attention to a kid dressed like Kevin Bacon in Footloose, wearing lime green bands on his braces? And Andre can equally be ignored since he has on more than one occasion worn mismatched socks and a paisley patterned dress shirt (he has rescued it from the Good Will bag a number of times).

No need to worry about socks or uncouth clothing choices here on Lembongan. I have three tshirts, one pair of shorts, two skirts, a pair of linen pants, a long sleeved shirt, three bathing suits and a light cardigan (If you know me at all, you know I could not travel without a cardigan. And, yes, I’ve worn it.) The biggest problem is timing. The laundry next door (three ladies, two washing machines, one big system of drying ropes) usually takes 1-2 days to return clothes, so I have to carefully choose what I can live without for a 48 hour period.  For instance, how long am I willing to go without underwear? Only I know the answer to that question. And the laundry ladies.

Andre is still on another island, surfing and kiting his brains out. SusieJo, Auggie and I will meet him back in Ubud on the 31^st.  (Looking back over those two sentences, I just realized my name is pedestrian compared to my family: Holly vs SusieJo? Holly vs Auggie? I have a stripper’s name. Andre has the name of a lord. Actually, he is a lord. But that is a story for another time.)

A funny thing happened last night.

SusieJo called me into the kitchen, sure that the roof rat, Patrick, was in the cupboard. I checked it out. Nothing. Then SusieJo tentatively stuck her head in the cupboard, looking about. I couldn’t help it: I grabbed her arm and yelled “rat!” She screamed, springing away from the cabinet with the agility of a 16-year-old.  I whinnied like a horse, laughing, while she punched my arm two or three times. (It hurt. She’s a tough grandma.) Unfortunately for her, Auggie had emerged from the bedroom just in time to see her hitting me. Not realizing the context of the event, he instantly went Kamikaze, hurling himself at SusieJo, pelting her with windmilling fists of fury.

“Auggie, no!” I was trying to stop laughing, not wanting him to think it was ok to hit grandma. I had to physically restrain him, make him look me in the eye. He was furious. “Auggie, Auggie! Grandma was just playing! We were laughing. I promise, grandma was not hurting me.”

He wasn’t buying it. He glared at SusieJo.  He was standing stiff, seething, sure his mommy had been harmed. The only harm, however was to Grandma Susie, emotionally wounded after having been tackled by the grandson she adored.

It was not okay he physically attacked someone and I felt bad SusieJo was disheartened. But, because I am a weak person, I was secretly flattered to have someone love me so much that, without thought of consequence, he launched himself into the fray to protect me. Granted he was taking on a 5’3” 60-year-old -- but she is one daunting, physically-fit elf. I hugged his angry little body to me and carried him off to bed, cuddling my pint-sized savior. As we lay in bed, reading, Patrick looked on from the ceiling beam, a smug grin on his rat face.

 I’m well aware that this confession speaks volumes about me. 

I. WANT. TV.  

Or at least a movie that doesn't stutter and then freeze two-thirds of the way through it. Pirated movies SUCK.

I really really could use some good old fashioned escapism. I have read 263 books, 260 of them crappy genre pieces. Please, lord, let me wake up to find a new Pixar movie for Auggie and a Booker List novel for me, nicely tucked into the Bali bed. Or on the beach. I don't care, please just make it happen.

Humor at someone else's expense

We’ve been listening to Norah Jones newest album this morning, eating mangoes and bananas, reading books, watching the sunlight bounce off the palm leaves. If the eyes are squinted, even the swinging fly traps can be aesthetically pleasing. A basic start to the day in the tropics.

Yesterday’s story was so maudlin I think I need to cleanse the palate. I do have one funny story I love to tell at parties, accompanied by character voices, body charades and pointed pauses.  I am no David Sedaris so bear with me.

TWO fourteen year old twin girls, living eight miles outside of Nowhere Town, were trapped inside their house one hot summer afternoon. As a matter of fact, Holly and Heidi were not even allowed near the windows. Now, this particular limitation was self-imposed, for outside the window was their father.  He was washing the little blue Toyota truck while their mother, little brother, and the exchange student Arne gone for the day.

The reason the girls stayed in their room? He was standing in the sun-dappled country driveway with a Budweiser in one hand, a running hose in the other.  He was wearing a pair of tighty-whitey’s (though no longer tight or white), a weathered pair of Romeo’s on his feet.  Most horrifying for the girls, who had seen their santa-bellied father in his underwear many times, was that the Fruit of the Looms were now wet . . . and see-through.

Lounging on the top bunk, sweltering, Holly looked up from The Scarlet Letter, hearing a noise out front. Heidi, sunk into the world of trashy teenage novel, did not stir. And then, shot from a double cannon, the girls startled and bolted. The noise was a car approaching, winding up the long driveway.

“Oh no.”

In awkward haste, they stumbled through the living room, crouching at the window. Their father had also heard the car.  He stood frozen for a minute.  Then, in a split second decision that the two girls would never understand (why not just come into the house?), he put the beer on the roof of the truck and stepped into the cab. He pulled the door shut, arm propped casually in the open window, holding the still running hose.

Another small truck pulled in, crunching the gravel as it parked.

“Oh no. No. That can’t be . . . “ Heidi and Holly lay flat on the floor, defeated. But the train wreck couldn’t be ignored. They shared a long look and then crouched back at the sill, watching their teenage reputation settle firmly into outcast status.  Emerging from the truck was Russ, the senior quarterback and most popular boy in the history of the world.

“Hey there, Russ! What are you up to today?” their father exclaimed heartily from his seat in the truck, looking for all the world like this was how he spent every afternoon.

Russ, either too confused and polite to mention the water spewing from the truck, or intimidated into silence on the subject by the hairy Viking of a man sitting in front of him, simply said, “Hiya Gary. I was just wondering if you knew where Arne was?”

Then Russ went on to ask him about the salmon run, duck hunting, the trap line, all the while avoiding the obvious weird situation.

Finally, the father could no longer keep up the charade. Heidi and Holly heard it in his voice, when he said, “Well, you caught me Russ. I was just washing the truck . . .” His door started the slow creak.

“Don’t do it, Dad. For God’s sake, no!!!!”

Quite obviously, God was on vacation that day.

Their father emerged from the rusted cab. Unfortunately, he did not realize the already well-stressed elastic around the right leg was caught on the window roller. He strided out, confidently, while the worn cloth barely made a sound, ripping from the leg to the waist. Their father wasn’t just caught wearing dingy underwear, he was caught with his dick hanging in the wind.

“I’m blind! I’m blind!” Holly screamed, rolling on the floor, clawing at her eyes. Neither of them saw Russ’s reaction or retreat. They eventually heard the truck peal out and scuttled back to their room, threw themselves into Heidi’s bottom bunk, pulling the blanket over their heads. 

At least ten minutes of silence and stilted breathing passed.

Finally, Holly said, “Is he still outside? Washing the truck naked?”

Heidi said, “ You know we can’t go to school tomorrow.”

Holly said, “Or ever.”

NOTE: Russ, probably the only nice 18 year old ever to live, never said a word at school.  Also, Heidi was probably reading the literary book while I was reading the trashy novel. I just thought I’d tweak her a bit. I haven’t been able to snap her bra strap in a long time. Finally, sorry Dad. This one was too good to keep in the family vault. Frankly, I let it free a long time ago. 

Off the cuff

Trying to get the family out of the house on a snorkeling adventure, we were searching everywhere for lost items. Under the bed: broken sunglasses, one flipflop, and a Bingtang beer bottle.  Nothing says vacation more clearly than these three random objects.  Throw in a condom wrapper and it could be a hotel room anywhere in the world. Unless there is a mother-in-law and a five-year-old in the room. Then that would just be creepy.

A motorcycle laden with son, grandma and husband is quite a sight, especially as they are pulling away, leaving me alone for the day. Ahhhhhhh. A beautiful sight, if I may.

What to do?

First I dropped off our laundry next door, then walked into the village to see if I could find some not-broken sunglasses. No-go at the first two little roadside markets, I gave up. I didn’t want to waste my free time trying to protect my eyes. Screw it. I can always have surgery later. Or learn braille.

So here I am, on the beach, a warm cup of honey tea, the colorful boats, the blue green water booming into the low lying sea wall.  I could write about the benefits and harms of open air bathrooms, or the plethora of blessed offerings left outside our gate entrance yesterday (do they think we are unlucky? Or evil?), the cat chasing the rat across the hot tin roof at two in the morning, the nasty letter I am writing to Johnson and Johnson in reference to highly-inadequate levels of cortisone in their Cortizone stick (a handful of rough sand or a wire brush vigorously rubbed over the bite is the only successful anti-itch method I’ve discovered) . . . but instead I would rather tell a story, an incident from my teens I dreamed about last night. No worries, I’ll come back to the afore-mentioned list.  I have a lot to say about open air bathrooms, believe-you-me.

Oh, but first, I may have just figured out how to get a picture onto the blog, a shortcut to be sure . . . this is from the photobooth app on my computer . . . let’s see if it works.

AHA! I can paste the pictures into this word document!  (IT snobs can bite me, I’m proud of myself when I can get spell check to work.) The real test will be when I can get online and try to paste this doc, pics and all, into the blog. We’ll see. I won’t hold my breath.

Anyhoo, a story, apropos of nothing.

When I was a teen I had my heart broken not by a boy but by a family. Sure, being slightly nerdy, plenty of unfulfilled boy crushes littered my youth, but that is not this story. Well, actually, maybe it is, at least partly.

During high school, a young girl with a fisherman father, a secretary mother, a diametrically different twin sister and a quiet little brother spent her summers in another town, staying with another family and working at their restaurant, earning money for clothes and necessities (like hair crimpers and stock in Aqua Net hairspray). Oh, how she loved them, wanted them to be her family (there was no offense meant to her own family, she was the same as every teenager across the world, believing that the grass was always greener in the neighbor’s lawn, that everyone else’s daddy but their own bought their babies a pony). This other family was wealthy (so it seemed to the girl). Their daughter was two years older than the girl, a bronzed beauty, a prom queen. The mom and dad played golf on their off time. The handsome college age son was also home for the summer. They had a hot tub. There was always good food in the cupboard, REAL food, like Kraft or Chef Boy R D or Rice A Roni – no plebian foods like venison, potatoes or fresh salmon. 

The girl worked hard at the restaurant. She loved it, really. A fourteen-year-old dishwasher, blonde hair in a ponytail, turning the radio up, singing and running the big silver steam cleaner for hours. She played Ms. PacMan on her breaks, drinking root beer by the gallon, and secretly (not so craftily) adoring the college boy and coveting the friendship of the prom queen.

The dad was gruff but fair, a good father, an excellent boss. The girl was intimidated by him, slightly frightened in his presence, cowed as she was by all male authority figures. Halfway through the second summer he took the girl aside and asked why  she hadn’t asked to be moved from dishwasher to cook, considering she has been there so long and others hired after her went immediately to cook. He told her he was moving her into the kitchen. She was surprised, not realizing at the time she even had the right to ask, or that she was deserving of anything higher on the food chain. (That was the first of many times she fell into this trap, she still has yet to learn this lesson thoroughly, to reach for more and know she deserves it just as much as the next Joe, or to even recognize the opportunity is there.)

The summers passed. She was eighteen, still a cook, still in love with working, feeling like she was fulfilling expectations while making money. She was no slacker and she knew it. The mother would often trust her with managerial tasks. She didn’t mind covering other people’s shifts, she would work night or morning hours, it made no difference to her, life at the restaurant was defined, known, and she liked it, felt safe and happy.  She certainly wasn’t perfect, maybe mooning over boys too much, maybe not cleaning her room enough, definitely not picking up the dog feces in the yard  enough (this job was hers but she could not stomach the squishy stench). 

One night she came home, entered her room and found a packed, zipped bag instead of her clothes strewn everywhere. Curious, she walked into the living room, pulled up short by a scornful look on the prom queen’s face. She was told the prom queen’s clothes had been found in her bag; the girl was struck in the stomach by such a lie, ill that the prom queen believed that or, worse, perpetrated the theft, set her up. How else explain such a ludicrous comment. The prom queen shoved the red tshirt, the bra, the shorts in her face, telling her that she was tired of her stealing. Crazy! The girl wasn’t a thief.

The girl had stolen, though.  In her room, in the closet, on the top shelf, were old clothes the family had stuffed away, out of the way. Old sweaters, old shirts, shorts, underwear. She had, over the years, “borrowed” a pair of underwear, a couple of sweaters, always with the intention of returning them, but, well, time passed, no one seemed to care . . . she could have asked, she should have asked, but pride kept her from asking for what she knew was already discarded. Obviously, this habit had been noticed. She was crushed. They thought she was a thief.

The mother came home in the middle of the argument, pulling the girl aside, saying she thought the girl had been doing better. Better than what, the girl wanted to know, but too afraid to ask. The girl tried to explain, over and over, that she had not stolen the clothes, she hadn’t even packed her bag, she didn’t know what was happening.

The mother went back to her room, the prom queen disappeared to a party, telling the girl to stop pouting, the college boy looked on from across the room, the father did not glance away from his football game. The girl snuck back to her room, broken.

She packed her bag, walked out into the night. It was midnight. She was going to walk the three miles to where her sister was staying, call her real mother, a mother that couldn’t stop being her mother even if she wanted to.  She could hear the father yelling back in the house, screaming for the wife to go get the girl. Then it was quiet. The girl was broken.

One mile down the dark road, a car swerved to the side of the ride, the mom ordering the girl in the car, to stop with the over-dramatics. The girl tearfully promised if she could rip out her heart and show her the truth, she would. The mother believed the prom queen. The girl put down her head, broken.

She got into the car but refused to return to their house, insisting, weepily, she be brought to her sister. The mom did not want to cause a late night scene but the girl swore that she would never again sleep in a house where the people she loved did not believe in her. The mother sighed, looked away, frustrated. The girl looked for love, saw none. She was broken.

The girl became a woman, a woman built on the many lessons of that night.

dizziness on the beach . . . not quite the same as %$@ on the beach

Clever phrasing is rolling around in my head but, honestly, none of it is authentic Holly today. I am sick. I am so sick of being sick. I woke up on my stomach; pushing my head up made me dizzy. I was immediately on the swaying dock, rocking back and forth under my unsteady body. Tidak bagus, no good. I groaned, knowing it was another day of “get up and do, survive” instead of “get up and enjoy.”

I try very hard to not even talk about it to my family. Mentioning it over and over everyday has become old, mundane, irritating to all of us. Yet just doing the dishes, bent forward over the short, deep Balinese sink, is so extremely uncomfortable I feel that my body is going to fall out from under me. But I do these tasks, knowing I have to pull my weight, keep this trip from being unbearable for everybody. My body drops in to a chair when I’m done, worn out from fighting the dizziness.  Of course I have been in a chair much, much too often in the past few weeks – my feet are now painfully tingling by the early afternoon. I need to be up walking more, swimming more, doing more. I try. I know to the others around me it doesn’t seem like it, but I try. I am just so goddamn tired, every inch of me filled with lead.  I am too tired to fight about it. I am too tired to cry about it. I am too tired to write cleverly about it.

I wonder sometimes what this trip would have looked like if I was healthy. Would I have been brave enough to try driving the motorcycle? Would I have gone on more side trips? Would Auggie enjoy it more, having me in the water with him more, running with him more? I don’t think anything has been bad, or that Auggie has been unhappy – the pace of the days has just been slower than what was sometimes desirable for the boys. Thank god Auggie is at the age that he loves going on adventures with Andre or that he can entertain himself for chunks of time.

Andre’s mom is here now, SusieJo. She is Auggie’s new play toy. She brought quite a few books in preparation of reading and sunbathing – hahahahahahah. Auggie has other plans. Which is good, because sunbathing next to a woman in her sixties who looks amazing in her bikini is hard on my fluffy body’s ego.  Maybe I will hide her swimsuits . . . but then she will just go naked. If you know Susie, you know I’m not lying. Though that would make Auggie happy; they could run down the beach together, naked and free. And I could read my book in peace, covered in a one-piece, frying in the sun.

Tarot Cards and the Inner Tussle

Back on Nusa Lembongan with Andre and Auggie now; Andre’s mother, SusieJo, will be here in two days. It will be nice to have another adult to talk to at night, another human to help keep Auggie entertained.

I missed the Mayan Astrological gathering the other night but I did end up with a Tarot card reading. It claims my lord and my artistic side are at war, that I will go through a dark inner spiritual death but arise happy and fulfilled by my new world.  I asked her if the difficult decisions I had to make this past year counted and she said no, I will be faced with life-altering decisions that will kill off something inside my soul. Bloody excellent, I said.

SEMI-USELESS SHIT I NEVER LEARNED FROM MY FATHER:

• ·      Overdosing on B12 does not keep the mosquitoes at bay. However, my fingernails have never looked better.  On a related note, despite having heard otherwise from someone I once considered a good friend, Nusa Lembongan has mosquitoes.  A lot of them. Auggie calls himself Auggie Cake for Mosquitoes. I just itch and bitch.
• ·      Filling the solar shower from the sink is the better choice since the hose fills the bag with not only water but leaves and other choice morsels most people are trying to wash off in the first place.
• ·      The solar shower needs to be filled every time it is used. Both times the power has gone out for the day (killing the running water), we had forgotten to fill the solar shower. Believe me, you want a shower after spending the day swimming, sweating and walking through dusty sand. Watching Andre and Auggie climb into our bed, grungy and tired . . . goodbye white sheets.
• ·      The romantic image of a single rooster waking up a quiet farm with one or two melodious calls is a fantasy perpetrated by travel agents. Fucking roosters travel in flocks of 1,697 and crow all fucking day long, beginning at the delightful hour of 4 o’clock a.m.  Chicks are equally deceptive, playing the “ahh, isn’t he adorable” card while secretly herding a sibling contingency of yellow and brown puff balls out into the middle of the road just as a tourist, new to motorcycles, is trying to find the hand brake.
• ·      Anyone who has issues with dizziness, compounded by bending over, should not clean house in Indonesia. The broom handles end at the waste. The sinks are set at thigh level but the bowl is two feet deep. The floors need to be swept after every meal and snack lest you desire spontaneous ant hills, featuring the famous biting ants.  The dishes must never reside, dirty, in the sink or zillions of knats will make friends in your kitchen, the curious rat in the ceiling will show up, and various insects as big as your fist will soon arrive to the party.
• ·      Leaving the light on in the bathroom at night will make it easier to find your way in the dark, but the insects and geckos will also find this true. I leave the light on purposefully now because I like to see the lizards on the ceiling, though the one that was as big as my forearm was a bit unsettling, huge eyes staring at me as I urinated, a defiance of gravity I hoped he could maintain.
• ·      Scooby Doo Suduku on Auggie’s Leapster Explorer is too hard for him. And me. I can only hope one of us doesn’t throw it into a wall before the trip is over.
• ·      The Hindu Elephant god is my new favorite warrior. From what I can glean during muddled conversations with Balinese, the god is called Ganesha (?).  At one point he fought evil by breaking off his tusk, using it like a knife, stabbing evil to death, preserving good. The Balinese have a three day holiday celebrating the defeat of evil. I am going to learn more about this god and his particular story; I would like to teach this mythology alongside the story of Achilles and Beowulf.  We have purchased two pieces of art that feature him holding his tusk in his hand (he has four, I think) or in his trunk.
• ·      It is possible to become sick of rice.
• ·      Indonesian pizza is NOT pizza. But Bali Budda delivers.
• ·      A smile goes a long way . . . but it still won’t get an internet login and password from the uptight classists who own the resort next door.
• ·      Discarded water bottles, coconut husks and sand can make an interesting game for Auggie. Don’t bother playing chess with him, he cheats.
• ·      Andre can not be placated by the beauty of an island if there is no surf or wind. He needs to become a drinker, life would be so much easier for him.
• ·      I’m about to finish another great book, one that would be good for book groups: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.
•  I can't decide if a Tarot reading is self-fulfilling prophecy. If so, I just wasted a lot of money on a prophecy I should have re-directed. 

kill the chicken yourself - it tastes better

Thursday, 7 July 2011

Selamat Sore!

It has been forever since I have been able to get online. Okay, that is a complete and utter lie – the book I have been reading is so damn engaging I have not wanted to use my precious Auggie-free minutes traipsing to the internet café. Instead I have immersed myself into Abraham Verghese’s Cutting For Stone, the best read in almost a year, since Pieces of the Whole.  Getting up at sunrise and burrowing into the damp couch on the veranda in order to read about Indians in Ethopia, shivering in Bali’s pre-morning air, 2,679 roosters crowing behind me – my days are lovely.

Shorthand notes in my calendar journal keep track of our movements, major events of each day charted for ya’all . . . but I’m going to abandon the day-to-day diary entry system in the blog, opting for the lazy, holistic method of recording events, writing in circles, memories and days swinging back and forth on a pendulum.

On June 28, we waved goodbye to F and Legut, her driver, from a speed boat pulling out of Sanur, Bali, rolling seas and four engines carrying us to the small island of Nusa Lembongan.  Auggie kept his hand through the boat’s window, spray smacking his hand backwards. The smile didn’t leave his face. We chose the smaller, 20 person speed boat instead of the larger, slower public ferry, hoping my dizziness would be minimal. Luckily, the ride had no effect accept to make me smile like an idiot when we caught sight of the magnificent white beaches and beautiful landscapes of N.L.   

Getting in and out of the boats is a wet affair, trying to time a leap to the beach with the waves surging out. No one stays dry below the knee. A good portion are soaked from the waist down, which is really funny to watch when it is a prissy tourist dressed in white standing wet and angry on the beach, perhaps insulted that a magical dock did not appear to save their expensive pants from salt water.  Yesterday I watched a group of 6-8 Balinese women working together to unload a boatload of mattresses. How they managed to keep the beds dry was a miracle, but even more amazing was watching them balance the mattresses on their heads while the tide was pushing and pulling like crazy.

Since arriving on Nusa Lembongan, I have tried multiple times to teach myself some simple vocabulary to use with the locals. No matter how hard I try, all I can really remember is sooksma (thanks), permissi (excuse me), and maaf (sorry – which I had to learn because Auggie runs EVERYWHERE, generally into things and people). Luckily, toilet is toilet (kecil is their word for toilet but all signs say toilet in English).  None of us has had horrible Bali Belly but we have taken turns fighting for the toilet some mornings.

The people are honestly friendly, especially with Auggie, always offering real, tooth-filled smiles and earnest welcomes.  For instance, we met a small family that owns a beach restaurant in the mangroves and operates a snorkeling boat. We have gone out with PJ twice for snorkeling and he has taken Andre and Auggie out fishing, free, a couple of times. His wife could be a chef in a three star restaurant. Instead, she cooks these amazing meals on a two-burner propane stove in a kitchen the size of a clothes closet while her ten year old and toddler play with the pet monkey.

Snorkeling here is a dream, straight out of a movie. I am a huge coward when it comes to water sports. I was a reluctant scuba diver for years, finally abandoning it all together when I was 50 feet down in the San Juan’s and became so terrified I screamed into my regulator (screams bubble and rise).  But I forced myself into Bali’s blue and . . . it was comforting while exotic, calming while thrilling. I couldn’t stop smiling around my snorkel, though I tried to control that happy impulse since my apple cheeks would let water flood my mask.  Auggie has become adept at holding his breath and diving with goggles but wants nothing to do with a snorkel. He also wants to get back into the boat after five minutes of swimming in the open sea, thoroughly happy with the colorful fish and reef but overwhelmed. PJ has been wonderful with Auggie, helping him in and out of the boat, putting his mask on and off, fishing off the side with him . . . Really, this snorkeling experience just couldn’t be better.

What COULD be better are the motorcycle laws in Bali. Children Auggie’s age drive motorcycles through the villages!! Without helmets!!! I watched a man drive through Denpasar on a motorcycle holding an infant in one hand, the elbow of that arm holding a toddler to the handlebars. This on a road with four lanes, white divider lines painted on only as a suggestion.  I am not exaggerating the horror of the situation. The only rider required to wear a helmet is the driver; they don’t have small helmets available for the children even if they wanted to purchase one. Helmets of any size are expensive, a luxury. Despite this, everyone drives like Godzilla is chasing them, swerving everywhere, passing on either side. Tidak bagus. No good.

Speaking of tidak bagus, the mosquito situation bites. Literally. Andre swears he has yet to see a mosquito. He certainly hasn’t been bit.  On the other hand, Auggie and I are a delicacy. We have tried dosing ourselves with b-12, deet, citronella candles, smoke . . . it doesn’t matter, our blood is made of mosquito ambrosia. I can only hope the mosquito population of Nusa Lembongan now has a bad case of Epstein Barr Virus. Soon they will be too tired to fly around and suck on pasty white tourists.

We have been eating as well as the mosquitos. We bought tuna fresh from the boat the other day, having fish, rice and fresh vegetable and weird fruit for dinner in our little villa. Yesterday, Andre went out to a chicken farm, picked out a chicken, killed it, cleaned it. We had grilled chicken for dinner. He thought he was going out to get an already dead chicken.  Quite the experience. Two days ago, Auggie and I were sitting out the hottest part of the day, lounging on our veranda, when we had a similar experience, totally unexpected: the Balinese family living behind our villa killed a pig. I had no idea what was coming.  Auggie and I had smiled at the first little pig noises and then all of a sudden there was pig screaming. For a looooong time. I almost walked back there and finished the job myself, a job that stretched out WAY too long to be ethical.  Luckily, Auggie thought it was just normal pig chatter. I’m not opposed to him seeing where his food comes from.  He understands the life and death cycle but this was brutal, cruelly delayed, not an experience anyone needs to have. Especially the pig.

Some very interesting experiences indeed. By far the best experience, however, has been running into two people we knew from home, two more teachers from the Oregon coast. Normally people travel to meet new friends

We are going back to Ubud tomorrow for a few days. Andre wants to go to the water park. I want to go to the elephant park and the turtle sanctuary.  Auggie wants to swim in F’s pool again and play with the ants and run, screaming, from Made when he sprays him with the hose.  We may go spend one night in a treehouse. More than anything I want the magical massage again. Then we will be coming back to our little Nusa L villa for two more weeks. Time has stopped. But it has also disappeared.

Whoa. The ride back to mainland Bali was, ummm, exciting. An adventure. We took a cheaper version of the speedboat.  This entailed a small boat making multiple luggage and passenger trips from the beach out to deeper water where a slightly larger boat with a cover, 20 seats and four motors awaited us. As the “bigger” boat was finally ready to pull into the open ocean we became stuck on the bottom, keel lodged in the low-tide sand. Andre and two other passengers jumped out to help the Balinese guy push the boat back while the 17 others crammed into the back, trying to lighten the front end. (I told the neighboring Australian girl that it was my fault, our suitcase was ridiculously heavy. She wasn’t amused.) Once free, we headed into fairly calm seas. Then not so calm seas. It wasn’t stormy. No, it was sunny, steamy, beautiful and the biggest fucking cross-current swells I’ve ever been on, especially on a narrow, open boat. We’d get to the top of a swell and . . . fall. Free fall until we hit the water. Auggie no longer needs to go to Disneyland. He’s been on the best ride EVER, stoked out of his mind, delighted with every rise and drop. I pretended equal enthrallment while promising myself a two hour massage in Ubud if we lived.

In Ubud now, on my way to a massage. Road the elephant Gigi with Auggie yesterday. We are both in love, though I feel sorry for the elephants. They were rescued from Sumatra only to give tourists rides around the park six days a week, eight hours a day. Today Andre is taking Auggie to the “biggest waterpark in the world” in the south of Bali. When I get back to the villa, our friend is hosting a Mayan Astrological gathering. I will give more details after the experience. And I’m sure it will be an Experience, with a capital E.

I want to bring back furniture. And doors. And lights. All the attention to detail and heavy woods and colorful paints soothes my aesthetic side. Container ship?

If only I knew Indonesian this would have been posted days ago!

·      Just got back from our nightly swim at the restaurant pool. I love swimming at dusk here, not cold at all, stars and pounding surf our backdrop.  I better continue the good fight, getting all these memories recorded before mono-brain eats them.

·      I now realize that the last entry should have read FRIDAY, 23 JUNE 2011.  We lost a day in flight. Moving on . . .

Saturday, 24 June 2011

Auggie had fallen asleep the afternoon before on the hour-long car ride from the Denpasar  Airport to Ubud. We tried to wake the bear when we pulled into our friend’s village. No one survived. He slept soundly until 4 a.m.  Luckily, my friend, F, was soon up and we watched the sunrise over the back of her garden villa, the rice paddies and banyan trees in the background, Auggie cannon balling into the pool in the foreground.  The new sound of dawn.

Andre and Auggie on a motorcycle is a pretty sweet image. They motored around the village, checking out the wood and stone cutters, the temples, the little store, the cemetery (where they pulled on the Banyon tree, not knowing they were disrupting the spirits, letting them escape by pulling back the Banyon vines). They let me sleep and try to recover from dizziness and bleeding gums (I looked like a native from a Nat. Geo. issue chewing beetle nuts).  At one point I did walk to the village with them; yes, a green snake slithered off the path into the rice paddy, about 10 feet from me, within three minutes of our walk. Shudder. None of us has seen one since then, just pure luck on my part.

My friend’s villa is amazing. I would love to attach pictures but, well, the camera didn’t make it through the day. Neither did the hair dryer, flaming out despite the 220v claim on the handle. Lying piece of flaming crap. The camera made it a few hours longer, recording our morning and then an afternoon swim. It was the underwater shot that killed the little bastard. But maybe it’s for the best  considering I can’t fix my hair.   We were able to get the pics off the camera, so I will put those on the blog as soon as I figure out how to the change the blog tabs from Indonesian into English.  That will be hard since the instructions are in Indonesian.

It is true what “they” say about the tropics and colors. Absolutely everything has a vibrancy and color here. The flowers are everywhere. Picking a banana from a tree in my backyard is a treat I never expected to experience.  The little ants are crazed. The air is heavy and warm; I can feel what I breathe. It is not oppressive, it is . . . comforting.

The architecture is absolutely the best aspect of this trip. The smallest hut to the most ornate temple incorporate layers of detail in the walls and roofs. I cannot stop looking at the ceiling in our room, peaked groove and tongue teak.  Oh, and outside bathrooms!! Even these are works of art.  Granted, so far I have only seen inside my friend’s villa. I’m sure the basic local homes are not quite as ornate.

My friend, F, has a cook, a cleaner and a driver. Cadek is sweet and shy, quietly creating beautiful meals. Made is the grounds keeper/errand boy. He found a coconut to cut open for Auggie, giving it to him with a straw. They both are kind, helping us with some basic Balenese terms, trying to make us feel welcome and comfortable.  We are not used to servants, that is for sure. I feel awkward handing my dishes to someone and walking away.

I’m already plotting. How will I get the Auggie-sized, stone Elephant God back to the states without Andre noticing? It’s not quite as easy as hiding a skirt.

Sunday,  26 June 2011

I woke up unable to walk steady, the dizziness really kicked up a notch. Both Andre and I are frustrated – illness makes everything so much harder, stealing the joy. But I rallied.  Taking a morning swim with Auggie and F in the villa pool was relaxing, until the noodles became jedi light sabers. Then it was just plain old fun.  Auggie could care less that he is in Indonesia, he loves the pool and the motorcycle. Rice paddy? Big deal. Temples? So what.

The monkey forest:  Andre and Auggie rode on one motorcycle, I on another with F, from the village into Ubud. Beautiful, sunny day, about 85 degrees with occasional clouds. The monkey forest is sacred, consisting of temples, carvings and statues in a tropical forest loaded to the tree tops with bearded monkeys. A human with food will be swarmed. They will also try to take loose jewelery, bags and flipflops. We watched a little dude snatch a water bottle from one unsuspecting tourist, unscrew the lid and start drinking. I could have spent all day in the monkey forest. I felt the magic.

 Auggie, on the other hand, proclaimed loudly, “Listen. I hate monkeys. I always have and I always will.”  (He has never gotten over being charged by an orangutan at the Portland Zoo.) Having said that, he just wanted to run free. Thank god Andre is his father. Two energetic peas in a pod.

The only flaw was that I couldn’t walk up and down the stairs. Literally, I looked like a 97 year old woman trying to walk. F held me up half the time. Transporting my body was like moving an old sofa bed, heavy and unwieldy and just as ugly.

 I let the boys go on an adventure on their motorcycle, they let me go on an adventure to a spa. Ahhhhh, I tell you, that was the best damn massage I have ever had in my life, no exaggeration.  An open air room, filled with floating, gauzy material, soothing chants, thick warm air, lomy-lomy massage . . . I could do that every day.

After the massage, oily and glowing, I wandered through the markets by myself for awhile then took a taxi back to the villa. I felt very adult, bartering and maneuvering around by myself in a foreign land J.

Auggie finally saw his cobra.  If it had been a free range cobra, I wouldn’t even be able to tell this story, I would be in the nut hatch. Andre took Auggie to the Reptile park after being led on a wild goose chase 40 miles out of the way – but, boy, do they know their way around now. Auggie has not stopped talking about the King Cobra since then; Andre has not stopped talking about the bad directions.

That night, I was taught body healing yoga. Complicated. Not sure I understood most of it. The main point is to listen to the body, focusing on the biggest ache. Become one with the ache. Go with the ache. Do not fight the ache. By concentrating on the ache, the body is subconsciously sending energy to the injury, helping to heal the area. Sounds easy. Concentrating, concentrating, concentrating . . . ooo, a butterfly! What was I doing?

Monday,  27 June 2011

We needed to go to the market to get supplies for our stay on Nusa Lembongan so the four of us once again hopped on the motorcycles for a ride into Ubud. Juuuust as we drove into the village WHAM! Pouring down rain. We decided to keep going , we were already soaked.  All part of the experience, right?  If only I had worn something other than tan linen pants. Do you know what happens when you wear tan linen pants in a rain storm? Without underwear? I do, I do!!

Auggie was a total trooper. Winding through the market alleys, we had to wade through calf-high water and floating debris while being deluged from above. Sellers would offer us head scarves from under their tiny tarps. Already soaked, we just smiled. Auggie was stoked when we found a carved wooden cobra. I was stoked when I bartered them down. After a bit, we left Andre to finish the shopping while Auggie and I took a taxi back to the villa.  Don’t worry, Andre liked the adventure.

I was still dizzy. F brought in a cerebral-something-something healer. He worked on untangling knotted conduits in my brain by holding my head. I fell asleep. I woke up still dizzy but pretty mellow.