after eating rice

after eating rice

the Sai Sai Bar disc jockey

tells amusing tales

After the midday meal, served on banana leaves, Robin and her oldest daughter listen with amusement to the disc jockey from Sai Sai Bar. He hardly eats anything, only a little rice. He speaks English but with an accent that makes it hard for me to follow his stories. His own life is a walking story, which Robin tells me in bits and pieces.
          His father is a balian with three wives. His favorite was the second wife, who controls the chicken market in Denpasar, a fat, disgusting Chicken Woman. The fifth child, a boy, was given at birth to his uncle and aunt to raise because they didn't have any children. According to tradition, at three months they named the baby, and since he was their only adopted son they gave him a name that means "big brother." His real parents and adopted parents lived in the same family compound and Big Brother was picked on by his real brothers and sisters. At puberty he underwent the traditional tooth-filing ceremony in which the "animal" canine teeth are filed down. This is supposed to keep the six enemies at bay: lust, anger, greed, jealousy, confusion and intoxication. However, it didn't keep one of the enemies, anger, at bay because when he found out at that time who his real parents were he was so furious that he ran away to Java and worked scum jobs.
          When he came back to Bali, he got involved with a Japanese girl whose parents had sent her to Bali by herself (this seems unbelievable) to get over seeing all of her classmates killed during the Kobe Earthquake in 1996. She left the school building just before the quake and saw it crumble. As a pretty young foreign girl in Bali, she became a target for the Kuta Cowboys, who passed her around as an easy lay. Big Brother rescued her and became her protector. She wanted to marry him, so when she went back home she sent $10,000 for him to come to Japan, but it got intercepted by his father, so she thought he didn't love her. When Robin asked him who the girl's father was, he said, "He works for some company called Subaru." He didn't know what that was. When Robin told him, he realized he and the girl were in a different league (and I can't imagine her father letting her marry him).
          His own father arranged a marriage with a girl from a very poor area of Bali. He didn't want to marry her but didn't want to disobey his father. He dressed in a short-sleeve temple shirt and went to the wedding. All of Denpasar had been preparing for weeks. But when the girl's parents saw Big Brother for the first time, his arms covered with tatoos, they called it off, so he was free.
          D. saved his life when he overdosed on cocaine and she brought him to Robin. So now he wants to marry her. But since neither his father nor Robin would approve, it would probably involve ngrorod, elopement or "kidnapping," one of the two types of marriage practices in Bali. Robin tells me her daughter is able to handle men and not get in trouble, but the way she looks at him, I'm not so sure.

first snow of winter

first snow of winter --

Black Angus with white blankets

on their backs munching stalks

The first snow of the season started falling last night and by morning the ground is white. When I pass the small herd of Black Angus at the corner of Osage, it looks like someone put a white blanket on each of their backs. They cluster with their heads together around the round cornstalk bales, trying to consume enough calories from the nutrient-poor stalks to stay warm, taking one day at a time, not knowing what their future holds in store.
          At the Bargain Box on the south side of the square, I spot a Character trying boots on his sockless feet. He looks like a clown, with a black bowler hat and jacket, rolled up jeans and layers of accessories -- red and blue fringed scarves, a striped tie and a striped legwarmer worn on one arm. Or maybe he's an Irish Leprechaun, with curly red hair and beard and that twinkle in his eyes.
          I look like a Character myself, with a fuzzy alpaca hat, knit snood, white scarf, bulky hand knit striped cardigan, purple tights and white boots. Two Characters with something in common.
          "Nice hat," I say.
          He introduces himself as Ian Montgomery. "We've met before," he says. "I have a tree farm south of town."
          "We live out that way too," I reply, "in the LaPorte house."
          "I know that place, I'm friends with your next-door neighbor."
          "What kind of trees do you have?"
          "Oaks, pines, walnuts."
          "Did you lose any in the drought?"
          "No, did you?"
          "Yes, a few."
          "How old were they?"
          "About 5 years old."
          "Mine are 20 years old. They have really deep roots."
          I'm wondering whether he's old enough to have planted those trees himself, but I don't ask. Just to own a tree farm means he's put down deep roots. Outside the store, I wave as he walks by in the still-falling snow, his arm around a girl wearing a red knit stocking cap, an elfin smile on her face.

deep in the river

deep in the river

they found him kneeling by a rock

his hands in prayer

The Balinese belief in magic runs as deep as a river, and everything gets categorized as good or evil, white or black. While we are sitting at a little outdoor restaurant overlooking the river, the dark water flowing past flat black boulders reminds Robin of a story about black magic involving the eldest son of a family she knows well. As is traditional in Bali, sons remain at home to take care of their parents while daughters go to live with their husband. In this family, the eldest son married first and his wife came to live in the family compound. The second son hated his sister-in-law so much that he married out of the family, a terrible thing to do because he was to inherit from his uncle, a wealthy wood carver. He found a girl who had no brothers so the family would take him in as their son. His mother cried for days and the family disowned him. A year later, his older brother drowned, the day after he found out that his wife was a balian hitam, a "black healer," who did black magic. He was a good swimmer, but he went down and did not come up. Mangku Liyer, a balian putih, "white healer," told Robin that they found the young man right where he went down, kneeling by a rock, his hands in prayer, no sign of struggle. Perhaps he was hit by an electric eel, but clearly black magic was involved. The second son told Robin that if he'd known, he would never have done that to his mother. But he escaped having to marry his brother's widow, the witch.

gesturing with her hands

gesturing with her hands

with a man in black and white --

the heart and the head

Up at 3:30, Robin awake too. We do some asanas together. The priest sees us and tells Robin he is "shy" because he can't talk to me. I say, "Tell him we speak to each other from our hearts."
          Robin is sitting on the bale talking with Patminya, the head of Bumi Sehat, Happy Child Foundation. She says, "He is the head, I am the heart. After I left Bali, the foundation fell apart." She is using a lot of hand gestures while she speaks in Bahasa Indonesia, which means "language of Indonesia," the official national language. She translates for me from time to time, but I feel like I am holding them back and I wish I could speak the language. I do occasionally recognize words that sound like Sanskrit or Dutch or Portuguese, not surprising, since their language, like English, has borrowed from many other languages. Robin tells me that the majority of words, even those referring to people, don't distinguish between the genders. On the other hand, an important distinction is made between older and younger. Everyone must know his/her place in the age hierarchy.
          Patminya is dressed all in black and white, representing the balance of good and evil. He is the leading expert on Hinduism on the island, has written many books and can read English. He and his wife live in Gianyar, where he is getting his Ph.d. He has come to ask her permission to campaign for her to come back, but only if she wants to. He wants to move back to the village, but his wife will come only if Robin and Wil are here, for intellectual and spiritual support. He has really big plans but feels he can't achieve them by himself. He is trying to change "bad" cultural habits and promote "good" ones. At 47, he's feeling frustrated in the pursuit of his goals. For example, the local hotel, a New Age spa, only hires outside people and won't let Balinese children swim in the pool, even two of Robin's children, half Chinese, who look Balinese. When Robin lived here, she tried to buy a year's pass so they could swim there but the hotel wouldn't back down. Unfortunately, discrimination seems to be a world-wide phenomenon.

gingerbread houses

gingerbread houses

adorn the square, shops open

late, cold heads, warm hearts

It's cold and windy, but that doesn't stop folks from turning out for the annual Gingerbread Extravaganza during the December Artwalk. At the corners of the square and in the windows of every store in the downtown area, gingerbread houses are on display, each one more fanciful than the last. Carolers stroll around the square, stopping in front of various shops to sing. People pour in and out of stores and galleries. I stop at the At Home Store to get warm and to enjoy their display of beautiful things for the kitchen in the front of the store and a collection of yarn in the back. 
          While I'm looking at bayberry candles, I hear someone behind me say, "Excuse me, Ma'am, where did you get your hat?" 
          I'm wearing a Peruvian ch'ullu, and when I turn around, I'm surprised to I see a boy of about 12 years, with the beautiful brown skin and dark eyes of a runakuna, as the native Quechua call themselves. 
          "I got this when I was in Peru," I tell him, though I don't add that it came from the Island of Amantani in Lake Titicaca.
          "I was adopted from Peru," the boy says. "I'd like to go there some day and see my family."
          I suddenly feel warm all over. "Oh, I hope you get to go. It's so beautiful, the land and the people."
          "Do you know where I could get a hat like that?"
          "Well, I believe they have some at the bookstore on campus. Do you know where that is?"
          "No, I'm from Ottumwa. I just came over tonight to see the lights. My name is Carlos and I'm on the soccer team."
          There's no way I'm going to let him go back to Ottumwa without a ch'ullu. I take off my hat and hold it out to him. "Carlos, I want you to have this."
          "Oh, no, no, no," he says, genuinely abashed.
          "Oh, yes, yes, yes," I say, pressing it into his hands. "I have another one at home and I want you to have this."
          "Thank you," he says, and holds out his hand to shake.
          I take his hand and then pull him into a warm embrace. "Enjoy," I say as we part.

          Head now cold but heart warm, I get the last seat on the red wagon drawn by a pair of Clydesdale horses taking riders from the east side of the square, past the old Carnegie Library to the new public library, where children and their parents go inside to make a small gingerbread house to take home. Then the wagon returns to the square from the west. The County Supervisor, riding in back on the wagon steps, tells stories about the history of Fairfield.  
          It takes about 20 minutes to travel a few blocks and I ask Steve how long it would take at this speed to get to Mt. Pleasant, 25 miles away. "The horses can go about 10-12 miles an hour," he says, "but they can only keep that up for about 32 miles in a day. One time we drove to Des Moines and it took us four and a half days. That's one of the reasons they built the county courthouses about 25 miles apart." 
          I try to imagine what it would be like in the mid-nineteenth century to do business at the state capital. You'd have to plan on taking at least two weeks, whereas today it's a two-hour drive. Life was slower then, but even now, you can slow down and enjoy the fellowship of warm hearts from all over the world here in our little Fairfield.

sitting on the porch

sitting on the porch

behind the motorcycle,

listening to cooing doves

After the wedding, we stop at a small store owned by a woman who greets Robin effusively. Robin says the store owner was responsible for her becoming a midwife. As we walk down the main north-south street of Nyuh Kuning, she recounts the long story of how this came about. Between more greetings, she actually manages to get all the way through the story before we arrive at another family compound. 
          This is the short version. Robin was attending the birth of the store owner's baby. The mother was gushing blood because the baby had a detached placenta. Robin broke into a locked clinic for Pitosin to stop the bleeding. The baby came out holding its placenta, its birth angel, and both the baby and the mother survived.
          The second family compound has spacious grounds and new concrete block buildings with plain wooden doors and big glass windows that look more Japanese than Balinese. About a dozen family members are sitting along the edge of the porch, behind a fancy motorcycle. We take off our shoes and add them to the collection below the bottom step before joining the family. While Robin chats in Bahasa, I listen to the beautiful sounds and rhythm of this language, mixed with the plaintive cooing of a pair of doves in a cage. Robin "caught" many of these children and she is delighted to hear how they're doing. When we leave, they give Robin an enormous custard apple, which looks like a spiked chartreuse football.
          We stop at Robin's house to get some stuff out of storage above the kitchen. It's all mildewed. A chartreuse lizard falls from the roof onto my arm and I don't even let out a peep. I put it on some rocks where it lurks, changing to dark brown in minutes.

komodo dragon

komodo dragon

and winged dragon statues haunt

the Monkey Forest

During our first walk through the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, I am startled to come upon a pair of Komodo Dragons hunkering on boulders amid the jungle. Fortunately, these ferocious giant lizards are stone, not flesh. Robin tells us that Komodo Dragons still exist on a few islands in Indonesia, but not on Bali. The winged dragon statues undulating down a flight of stone stairs may represent Nāgas, the legendary serpent race who are the eternal enemies of Garuda, the mythical eagle. There are real Flying Dragons in Indonesia, though they are only about a foot long and their "wings" are flaps of skin which they extend to glide from tree to tree. Imagine having one of those land on your head!