Life in Amed

We spent the past weekend with another family from the Green School in Amed, a fishing village on the east coast of Bali.   On our way there we stopped at Tirta Gangga which is a water palace built in 1946 by the King of Karangasem.  Much of it was destroyed when Mt. Agung erupted in 1963, but since then it has been rebuilt and restored to close to the original.  The kids had fun hopping across the steppingstones and swimming in the pool where the king used to swim.

Once we got to Amed, we settled into the slower pace of life in this small, coastal fishing village.  Every morning we watched the fishing boats come to shore at 7:30.  Mainly they were catching mackerel which they sold for 10-30 cents depending on supply and demand.  At times the boats go out in the late afternoon, but the morning seemed to be the most bustling time for the fishermen.  The boats all have colorful sails and were a beautiful sight on the horizon.  

Our timing was good and we were there for the big culmination of a 10 day ceremony for the opening of a new temple.  We went to the temple for the ceremony and the beginning of the 


'melasti' or procession to the beach to make offerings and gather holy water.  In preparation for the ceremony, we all got dressed in our Balinese ceremony clothes.  We had brought them along not knowing whether we would need them for Tirta Gangga which we didn't.  However, we weren't planning on going to a major ceremony so I didn't bring my kebaya, ceremonial top, and when the women living next to the hotel saw me, they brought out all their kebayas and let me borrow one.  Tom and Nat were brought in by the man of the family and blessed with holy water and ceremonial rice grains.  I would have liked to see the whole melasti but the kids were restless and we weren't sure what they would think about the offering of a goat in the sea, watching it die and be washed away.


The new temple cost $35,000 to build which is about the yearly salary of about 15 people. These villages must have been saving for many years.  The excitement was palpable as it seemed that this long-standing dream had come true. 


The driver who took us was at the ceremony, so we had a bit of an adventure getting a ride back to the hotel.  We were able to flag down a minibus that took us.


          

 My favorite thing about the weekend though was our time playing on the beach with some local girls.  Tom taught them a bunch of camp songs and Alexa taught them some hand games and they taught us some Balinese dancing and songs.  We seemed as enamored by them and they were with us. You can check out Tom in action in this short video posted by our friends http://youtu.be/LoUekld_fAA