street life staples

street life staples --

cardboard (sign, sleeping mat),

small donation cup,

backpack, blanket, towel,

umbrella, shopping cart,

one pink tulip

Coming from a small town to the big city of Vancouver, the first thing I notice, which everyone else does not seem to notice, are the homeless people. Sleeping on the sidewalk in the middle of the day or huddled under an umbrella by the bus stop in the rain. But no one is holding out a hand, just the cardboard sign and the cup on the pavement.

One evening after a generous meal, as we are walking back to our rooms in the YMCA, we spot a woman sleeping in an alley. Our teacher, Gabe, who hails from Mexico, walks up quietly and leaves his carryout container by her feet. This becomes our modus operandi while we're in Vancouver. On our last day, we eat at a Thai restaurant before driving down to Seattle. A man is sitting outside our cafe beside his two dogs, carefully covered with a blanket, reading a dogeared copy of Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan, one of my favorite authors. When I hand him my extra rice, the dogs get to their feet, sniffing, but he says, "That's not for you." I'm wondering how he feeds those two big dogs, but I don't ask. Instead, I dump all of my remaining Canadian coins in his cup and say, "That's for your dogs."

Then there are the street performers. A young man with long hair playing his banjo, case open to collect donations. I like to support people like this who actually provide a service. However, I pass up the guy sporting a blue Mohawk and holding a white rabbit (better than a cardboard sign) because he doesn't look needy and he doesn't even pull the rabbit out of a hat.

I get drawn in by the man in an orange street maintenance worker's jacket. He doesn't look like an actor, but he's soon commanding an audience as he dramatically recounts an incident where a truck nearly collided with the steam-operated clock in Gastown. I'm happy to give him a tip for his storytelling. Ironically, I find out later, one of the reasons the clock was built in 1977 was to cover a steam grate so that homeless people wouldn't be able to sleep on the spot warmed by steam from the underground pipes which heat most of the downtown area.

I love the street artists, but because we're on a Van Arts Institute tour, we don't have time to stop and shop.

Some painters are happy, some are serious.

We take note of a little group of cheerful wood carvers, promising to come back when we're free.

I'm of course intrigued by this highly focused (ha, ha) photographer and models (girl and dog). Not sure who is paying whom here!

And I do take the time to purchase one flower from a smiling street vendor.

sawa terraces

sawa terraces

undulate around the slopes,

sparkling in the sun

Ida Bagus has invited me to go to Tegalalang, northeast of Ubud, to see the beautiful rice terraces. His young daughter joins us for the trip. It has started raining, unusual in mid-July.  Ida Bagus is building another woodcarving shop just below the road on a steep hill overlooking the sawa terraces. The bright green terraces undulate gracefully around the contours of the mountain slopes, the water in the paddies sparkling in the sun. The shop is surrounded by tapioca and sweet potato plants, and tall coconut and mango trees and one tree with fringed leaves. 


As soon as I get out of the car with my camera, two toothless old men carrying baskets of coconuts on shoulder poles ask if I want to take their photo. Ida Bagus warns me that they will ask for money. "How much?" I ask. 20,000 Rp (about $2). They ask for 20,000, then 10,000. I have to borrow small money from Ida Bagus. I also take his photo as he stands in his shop, giving me a thumb's up. "How much you charge me?" I joke. He has me borrow one of the men's palm frond hats to stand in the rain. The old guy tries to sell it to me. I pull out my ratty straw and ask if he wants to trade. We all laugh. Ida Bagus goes to the little warung for cookies and drinks, Fanta orange for me, coffee for the men. He hands out cookies to passing farmers, to make friends. One of the farmers climbs an 80-foot coconut tree like a frog to bring down one baby coconut for a large banten offering. I feel almost guilty taking a photo and not paying, but it is the end of the roll so it might not turn out anyway. 


We sit in the sawdust and his daughter "sands" wood with a scrap of wood while Ida Bagus tells me his story. He is from a poor mountain family, no land, no rice fields, so they had to buy rice and try to find work all over. His father's nephew had no father, so Ida Bagus' father felt obliged to help the boy. He says land is very expensive near Ubud, 300,000 Rp for 1 are, about 30' x 30'. This is about $33, an entire month's earnings. He says the people in the mountains cut down their clove trees when Suharto drove the prices down and planted coffee, but now cloves have gone from 3,000 Rp/k to 85,000 Rp/k. He would like to buy land when his shops do well enough. 

Ida Bagus pulls down a black and white ceremonial sash hanging from a rafter and ties it around his waist over his white shirt. Even though he is casually dressed in blue jeans, the sash allows him to make canang offerings at a crude platform set up in the corner of the foundation. He has to do this every day during construction. His daughter stands nearby, watching carefully. He says she is already good at making offerings. When we get home I give him 20,000 Rp for gas, photo, treats. He tries to refuse, but not very hard.

yellow coconut

yellow coconut,

beautiful frog, early morning

chain saws and mallets 

We are staying in the woodcarver village of Nyuh Kuning, which means “yellow coconut,” in a natah, a family compound called Pondok Frog, or “beautiful frog.” Inside the rectangular perimeter wall, palm trees provide shade and plumeria cast their fragrant white blossoms. Every compound has a family temple, but Pondok Frog is the compound of the pemangku, the village priest, so there are more shrines here than in other compounds. Three generations live in this compound: Ida Bagus Mangku and Ida Ayu, their sons and their families. The buildings for family members have elaborately decorated doors, walls and pillars, and white marble porches. The sons are undagi tapel, woodcarvers, and they have a shop at the rear of the compound. At 8 am every morning we hear the sounds of chain saws and mallets as they begin work. We are staying in the rice barn, which has been converted into guest rooms. The door to our room is intricately carved of wood, but termites have gotten into it and there is a little pile of sawdust accumulating at the threshold. Robin and I are sharing a small room, while the six girls share two more rooms. I am sleeping on the bamboo frame bed, under the mosquito net I brought with me, and Robin is sleeping on my inflatable camp mat. Above the bed is a tiny shelf for offerings. Behind a divider wall with no door is the squat toilet with a bucket of water for washing. In front of our rooms there is a tiled porch where we sit on bamboo mats to talk and eat. Next door is the kitchen, which has a wood cook stove without a chimney, a well and no refrigerator. The Balinese believe that Brahma, the Creator (not Agni, the God of Fire), lives in the kitchen, so they make upakara to prevent hurt by fire. Vishnu, the Maintainer (depicted seated on a shell in the ocean and holding a conch), lives in the well. 

In Bali every village and every compound is oriented relative to Gunung Agung, the highest and most sacred peak. Kaja means “facing the mountain” and kelod means “facing the ocean.” Since there are settlements all around Gunung Agung, these terms are relative. In Nyuh Kuning, for example, kaja is northeast and kelod is southwest. The other two directions are kangin, “where the sun rises,” and kauh, “where the sun sets.” Since Bali lies just south of the equator, these directions are almost exactly east and west. There’s a bit of a logistical problem when kaja and kelod are not exactly north and south, but the Balinese don’t seem to be bothered by this. Their sense of orientation is more organic than linear.

The Balinese believe that the family compound reflects the human body. The measurements for a new compound are based on the measurements of the head of the household, so a tall man will get a bigger compound than a shorter one. The top of the compound represents the head and that is where the bale daja, the sleeping quarters for the head of the household, is located. The family temple is located in the kaja-kangin corner, closest to the sacred mountain and the first to see the sun rise. In the center of the compound is an open area which represents the navel. On either side, representing the arms, are the bale dangin, the ceremonial pavilion, parallel to the kangin wall, and the bale duah, the guest pavilion, parallel to the kuah wall. In the kelod direction, there is the paon, or kitchen, and the lumbung, or rice barn, representing the feet. Outside the kelod wall are the compost bin and the pigpen. I would not have figured all this out just by looking at the layout, but now that I know, it feels good to be living inside a living body.

a puppet maker

a puppet maker

surrounded by his creations,

lively and alive

Between the woodcarver's village of Nyuh Kuning and the Sacred Monkey Forest, there lives a little puppet maker. He looks a bit like one of the monkeys in the forest and some of his monkey puppets look a bit like him. However, unlike Jepeto, this puppet maker has already brought to life two adorable dolls. He lives in a two room house that is both shop and home. When I visit the showroom, his wife and daughters pop up like jack-in-the-box from a trapdoor in the corner of the room. He makes exquisite puppets with wooden heads, arms and legs, beautifully painted. The bodies are little squares of traditional cotton batik, with no stuffing. The resulting puppet is extremely flexible and can be arranged and made to move in many ways. I pick up one after another of the puppets, finally settling on a man with the cosmos on his head. They don't have change for my large bill, so they give me a scrub brush with a carved wooden back and a crochet hat. He says they have not made a sale all week. If he goes to the market in Ubud, the cops chase him off, and his shop is out of the way for tourists. If I don't see what I like, he can custom-make something and I can choose both the fabric and the paint color. I love his puppets and I want to give him more business, so I order cats in three different colors for my three sons. When he hears that I have three sons, he tells me with downcast eyes that the government only allows two children, so they did not get a son. Robin says she is going to write a book on how to get the gender of your choice.