Selamat Hari Raya Nyepi

Yesterday was the beginning of our Nyepi Break.  Based on the Balinese calendar, this is the beginning of the year 1934 and the celebration of Nyepi.   Nyepi is celebrated over several days.  The first part of Nyepi is The Melasti Ritual which involves going to the beach to acquire sacred water from the sea and purify oneself.  The second part, The Bhuta Yajna Ritual is performed in order to vanquish the negative elements and create balance with God, Mankind, and Nature.  Huge demonic statues called Ogoh-ogoh are made symbolizing negative elements or malevolent spirits. After the ogoh-ogoh have been paraded around the village, the ogoh-ogoh are burned.  The purpose is to scare the evil spirits and create a balance between good and evil.  Then there is the official Nyepi Day which is an island wide day of silence.  On Nyepi you must obey the following rules, 

• Amati Geni: No fire/light, including no electricity
• Amati Karya: No working
• Amati Lelunganan: No travelling
• Amati Lelanguan: Fasting and no revelry/self-entertainment

Owen has been taking an art class where they made their own ogoh-ogoh.  This afternoon, we went to a neighboring village to Ubud to parade around with their ogoh-ogoh.  After that we headed into town to check out the other ogoh-ogohs.  Many of the roads were closed to cars and motorbikes so we ended up walking several miles back to our house taking in the celebrations of the ogoh-ogohs.  

Dr. Ating Foundation

Owen's class recently did a segment on "Saints and Sages".  One of the people they learned about was Dr. Ating, the Green School doctor.  He worked in Papau for over 12 years and is now starting a project in Sulawesi, a lesser known Indonesian island.  His work focuses on improving health in areas near national parks and areas of unique environmental resources and beauty.  Through improving health and doing eco-education he aims to conserve these areas.  He believes that by improving the quality of life for the locals there becomes less of a need to harvest the rain forests and degrade ecosystems.  At the same time he educates the locals on eco tourism and turns conservation into a road towards economic stability. Owen's class is currently raising money for the Sulawesi Project and as always Owen takes this very seriously.  If you are interested in supporting the project, please check out the website for the Dr. Ating Foundation, http://www.dratingfoundation.com 


The first phase of this project, a mobile health service team will visit villages along the margins of the Park and provide simple curative treatment and health education. This project intends to save the endangered species in the Lore Lindu National Park, Sulawesi, Indonesia — home of at least 227 bird species, 77 of them found nowhere else in the world, and of thousands of species of flora and other fauna. Realizing that rapid deforestation involves, partially or fully, the impoverished people living at the margin of the forest whose livelihood depends significantly on the harvesting the forest product, the project approach is to help these people achieve a better standard of living through improved health care and potential eco-tourism and sustainable forest product income. The team will also carry out an eradication program for schistosomiasis.  This program component will bring down morbidity and mortality rate and cut the family’s medical expense and workdays loss due to the sicknesses.

In the second phase of the project, an edu-ecotourism will be introduced with three aims: giving extra income to locals, financing the on-going costs of the health program initiated in the first phase of the project, and educating national and international students on conservation.

By addressing both the health care and livelihood objectives of local people, and linking the achievement of these aspirations to forest protection, this project hopes to pilot a successful model of local community engagement that could be replicated in other protected areas around Indonesia and the world.

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New Wheels

The boys on Muffins

Well, I broke down or got brave, and rented a motorbike.  I was having a hard time being dependent on a driver to take me anywhere and some places were just too far to ride a bicycle to or took too long to get to.  We have named it "Muffins".  In fact Tom suggested the name even before he heard me complain that it is part pink.  I hope a sweet, cute name will secure a sweet ride.  So far, I have only rode it up and down my path a couple of times to try to get a feel for it before venturing out into traffic.  I think with a couple of rides outside of town, on quiet country lanes, I will be ready to actually go to the grocery store or to a restaurant or a friend's house.  You won't see me carrying a passenger who is carrying a 32" TV on their lap as I saw this morning when dropping the kids off at school.  


The update of Muffins is that I got in a minor accident on my second ride and have been a bit slow regaining my confidence.  It was a rainy day and I was on a small cobblestone path that is quite slippery.  Another motorbike was coming so I moved out of the middle of the road and into a slippery patch along the side and the bike slid right out from under me.  I skinned my knee and broke my flip flop, but it was pretty minor damage.  Another passerby helped me pick Muffins up and I finished my trip to the grocery store with no more problems.  Rock took over the riding for a bit and has a new appreciation for Muffins.  He has also braved some short trips with the boys which they both seem to enjoy.  Overall we appreciate the added freedom and are taking it slow.  Sunday seems to be the quietest day on the roads so we do a grocery run and take care of errands. 


We are also having our first major power outage.  There was a huge wind storm yesterday and branches were flying down all over the place.  We have been without power since yesterday afternoon.  Doing bedtime in the dark was fun last night with candles and flashlights.  I am afraid the chicken curry in the refrigerator may have to get tossed and my phone battery is about to die but minor casualties.   Mostly, we have just been enjoying the experience.  Our water is dependent on a pump though so it means no running water.  I am still baffled how Wayan was able to wash the dishes.  Maybe she used filtered water, but the dishes we left in the sink since there was no water have been magically cleaned and put away.  


We had a minor hiccup earlier this week when I found out that Waterbom, the water park that Owen is going to have his birthday party at, is closed for maintenance and cleaning on the day we picked and was on the invitations.  It was a staff development day which made it perfect because I thought it would be less crowded but oh well.  Keep in mind though, that when Owen is asked, "what is your favorite thing about Bali?" he answers, "Waterbom" and he hasn't even been there.  Therefore, I thought he would be majorly bummed to have to wait 2 more weeks.  We quickly brainstormed something else fun we could do that day and found out that the Bali Marine and Safari Park also has a small waterpark plus lots of animals.  We decided to book a night at the Safari Park Lodge and let him bring one friend.  When I told him, he was totally fine with it and said, "That isn't bad news Mom. That is good news.  Now I get to go to the waterslides twice." 


We have also found that buying toys is quite challenging.  I asked our driver, Gede, if there was a toy store in Ubud and he responded, "What are toys?" His english is very good and he has a 3 year daughter so this was a bit surprising.  It says a lot though.  Balinese kids don't really play with toys, except balls and kites.  They might make a toy out of sticks or bamboo but their houses aren't filled with plastic trinkets or toys from China.  Although, please note that Mattel is made in Indonesia and most Barbies are made here but it is almost impossible to buy one here.  After asking more, we found out that the closest toy stores are in Seminyak, a hub of expats.  With more thought, we realized Owen doesn't really play with toys much either so we will get creative. A couple books, some audiobook downloads and some fun trips. 

Update

The past couple of days, we seem to have been hit with an electronics curse. First our camera stopped working, then our computer stopped working and then the DVD player at our house stopped working. It is definitely time to find out about the god of electronics and make some special offerings. I will have a chat soon with Wayan who does all the offerings at our house to make sure we put out a special sweet cake for the correct god. It is amazing though how much we miss our computer. We took it in today to the local apple store and they thought it was probably the hard drive or the motherboard. Both sounded bad. We will see what they have to say. 


We also took a trip down to Denpasar to buy a new camera so that is done. 

Offering on my bike

Me on the ridge above the crater

On a more fun note, last Thursday, I went with a group of parents from the Green School on a mountain bike ride along the rim of Mt. Batur. Before hitting the trail, our bikes were given offerings and we were blessed with holy water and rice. I wonder if this should have been my first clue that I was in over my head, the need for a blessing for a safe ride. I was the least experienced rider of the group, but in the end I impressed both myself and the others. While I did feel a bit out of my league on a couple of occasions, it was a beautiful ride and was exhilarating. We rode along the edge of the crater ridge on a combination of single track and broken up paved paths, at times with grass taller than me making it virtually impossible to see. I had to walk my bike up most of the hills, but towards the end, I started to get the hang of some adjustments I needed to make for mountain biking versus road biking. Then we rode down into the crater, past a bat cave and along the floor of the crater to the other rim where we got picked up. Here, many of us including me, loaded back up into the flatbed of a truck while several rode up and out of the crater. On the ride back, it poured and we got soaked to the bone. It was the coldest I have been in Bali and I was happy to get home to a warm shower and a bowl of soup. When our computer is back up and running, I will post a couple of pictures.


It turns out it was the hard drive which I think was a good thing.  It turned out to be $160 for a new hard drive which has three times the capacity of our old hard drive.  It is nice to be back up in action with a computer.  It is amazing how dependent we are.