selamat tahun baru.

2012, hey.

i don't mean to get all reflective, but it's a rainy day and i have my hair in a top knot (i did spend the weekend in ubud, after all) and i accidentally ended up here.

i read so many pre-new year tweets and facebook statuses that talked of how 2011 was full of so many things for so many people ('maaate. 2011 was one huge ride. no wonder i'm exhausted. lol')

on new years eve, i was sitting at my kitchen table, looking at all these tweets and statuses (that word seems wrong, like it should be statii..) and thinking woah. some people must have had and eventful 2011.

and i was thinking about how mine was pretty regular.


and then i realised that i was thinking that while sitting at my kitchen table
in my house with no walls
in bali.


when a year earlier i was going a little crazy in a house with the regular amount of walls in thornbury.

so, pretty big year i guess.

several people - completely out of the blue - told me that 2011 was to be a big year of change (something to do with energy, the universe, etc) and that those people that embraced this energy, would/could have amazing experiences, while the other people, who were unwilling to change or step outside their comfort zone, would be left behind.




i felt so stuck at the start of the year, just walking around thornbury thinking about being able to fly.

on the first day of the school year, when i was sitting in a chain fast food restaurant, in the depths of the eastern suburbs, drinking a latte and talking on skype to PW (because i was there hideously early, having left so much time to get to the weird outer east), i felt like things were really not how they were meant to be.

and then in the 12 months to follow, the crazy wave of change really swept me up - sometimes i didn't want it to, sometimes i was happy, sometimes terrified, sometimes excited, sometimes indifferent..

and while i didn't ever actually develop the ability to fly, i did go to so many amazing places, and places that even i (who wants to go to most places) had not imagined i'd ever go to.

i turned 30 on my first day in jakarta, for goodness sake.

i'm not going to list everything, but from moving to indonesia to discovering that i secretly love watching the kardashians (it is true. i have never been much of a tv watcher, and suddenly i have ended up in a house with cable and somehow become addicted to trash tv), spending my 30th birthday in jakarta to christmas on an island in sulawesi, it was definitely a lot more of an eventful, crazy, amazing year than i could have ever imagined.

i hope i really embraced the energy of change to the full extent. i think i did.
(jill from khs, if you ever happen to read this, thank you for your words of wisdom).

now for 2012 i'd like a year that is just as exciting, with just as many amazing experiences, although perhaps a little less tumultuous, thanks universe...






(i need a bit more time being settled, to fit in my reality tv watching...)

hujan.

last week was so very rainy.
it certainly was a big introduction to the rainy season.
i got back from jakarta and, while i was happy that i could breathe, i immediately noticed that everything seemed somewhat more damp than when i left, only a week before.

last week i was sitting on one of our many daybeds, looking at the rain, while every pair or undies that i owned was on the washing line, with no hope of getting dry any time soon. even moving the line inside did not work, as the air seemed damp. (i believe that is more commonly referred to as humidity).

this rainy season thing is going to be interesting..

the first of the 'road to singapore' (may i just point out that i had nothing to do with naming the tournament. thank you.) soccer tournaments organised by my work was held three sundays ago. it was sunny at the beginning, and the kids were there at 6.55am (for an 8am start) already warming up and playing. then, by 9am, the rain had begun. unfortunately for the kids, this was also the time when the soccer club hosting the event had planned to hold their opening ceremony, which saw all the spectators sitting in the stands, all the 'important people' (including ayuk and i, the only representatives from our organisation..!) sitting under a very fancy tent complete with gigantic banner and fabric sashes, and all the kids lined up on the field behind their team sign. official people (many of them) read speeches (from the comfort of the fancy tent..!) while the kids stood and got rained on..and rained on..as the rain got crazier and crazier, and the field began to flood, all i could do was sit there with my hand over my mouth.


ayuk was saying 'they have to let them in!' and finally one of the officials decided this was a good idea. the kids ran for the stands, where they hung their soaked soccer tops over the fences to try and dry them. we stayed under the tent and ate the second package of food brought to us by the soccer club, until the ground under the tent flooded and we had to move into the stand. upstairs in the stand i was amused to notice that the graffiti, scrawled in pencil, was very similar to that found in similar locations at home (penises. 'for a good time call..'. i <3 wayan 4 eva. etc). luckily eventually (after a meeting and some frantic texting to our boss in singapore..) someone did a ceremony to make the rain go, and then it did. so the kids could keep playing. and we didn't have to postpone. which i was happy with. i am not sure that many of the players' families were too happy, however, when seeing the state of their soccer kits after a day playing in the mud..

so, rainy it is.

it feels somewhat like rain and soccer have taken over my life, often combined in force. twice last week i had to leave my house early to get to soccer events, and, as it had been raining all night, had to take off my shoes and walk through the pool of water that my little street had become, in order to get to the little car i was renting.

(photo darkly attempts to show my street, 5.30am, post-wade..)

the dampness also brings with it those tropical things i had so far been pleasantly surprised not to have encountered: birkenstocks going mouldy, sheets/sarongs/clothes/pillows/everything smelling weird..
the other day i went to put on a skirt (one of my favourites) that i had not worn for a few weeks, and then wondered why it smelt a bit musty..and then i discovered it was covered in something that looked like it had been splashed with milk (CC's excellent description): a thin layer of mould/mildew. yuk.

however there are apparently solutions. i do not want to go too indo-style and get one of those super strong smelling 'fragrant' packet things and tie it to the fan to blow a breeze of weird citrus scent through my house, disguising the mustiness, but luckily there is another option: special magical amazing ball things that 'dehumidify'. i thought they were just a myth, but luckily (although initially not at all luckily, i guess) one of my friends, B, had her car filled with water in the Brisbane floods and used some of these magical balls to dry it out. while she reported that the balls did not make her car work again, they apparently did the trick damp-wise. so yesterday CC and C went to hypermart and came back with two special containers of 'bagus' brand extra power dehumidifying magical balls. they claim to help when
'the humid air will cause mildew, unpleasant odour and moth on your stuff'. 
i hope they do.

today, however, it is sunny. after super-rainy last week i have such a renewed love of the sunshine, even when it makes me so hot and feral i have several showers a day and have started to wear my hair up in a top knot just for practical reasons (and that is a whole other story..).

i must go and hang my washing out...

finally, october

..so I believe in my last/first post I may have mentioned that I am a terribly unreliable blogger.. 

I have actually written a few drafts for blog posts over the past two (?!) months, but they have ended up so long and rambling that I have left them, with the intention of editing them in the future, and then just never returned to them..

I have to re-think this blog, and not feel the need to write every detail about everything, and then I think all will be well.. I also have to stop writing about how I should write this blog, because that will also get exceptionally tedious, for all of us..

So..

The last two months have been somewhat challenging. No surprises there, really, however the surprises have come in the ways the challenges have cropped up, rather than in their actual existence.  Actually I feel like I spend so much time and energy talking about said challenges that I don’t want to do so here other than to say this:

The other volunteer at my (sporty) organization had to go home. Pretty much due to the somewhat reactionary response of my boss to his program and the things he was required to do.. I can not really say much more, as

a)as I mentioned spend a lot of energy on this already and

b)just realized that the fact that I am using a blog with my WHOLE ACTUAL NAME as the address may mean that I can speak less freely on such matters that I would generally like. Heavens, I can’t believe that I am self-censoring. I have come a long way since I once poured my heart out on a blog whilst sitting in a dodgy internet terminal in a Czech airport. (nope, you can not find it, I have made that old blog private after recently Googling myself at a school cybersafety workshop and realizing that it was the first thing to come up..!!)

and, even though initially when said other volunteer and I were living, working and socialising together it was a little challenging (as I mentioned in my last post,  I had gone from living either alone or in queer generally female-only share houses – even once a women’s co-op -  to suddenly sharing a house atop a factory with two rugby playing boys), he and I had come to really support each other, particularly in dealings with the “unique” nature of our workplace.. and so now I feel  a little bit like I have suddenly lost my (unrelated, rugby playing, very sporty) little brother.

And in light of this, there are other things that have popped up that, along with the ‘third month volunteer blues’ contribute heavily to the What Are We Doing Here thoughts.. that will hopefully vanish as we start the fourth month…

Challenges aside (or vaguely brought up and then slightly swept under the carpet - or daybed, if in my house - as the case may be), it is amazing to live in Bali. Here are a few snippets from my life. (I feel slightly uncomfortable that I have used the word snippet. It also gives me flash backs to my days at Helen O’Grady Children’s Drama Academy where our instructor always used to demonstrate that a ‘snippet’ was a little bit, by getting a corner of her  - brightly coloured, oversized, silk – shirt and pretending to cut it.. Anyway, I feel that some snippets, however annoying the word, are really what I am going to write).

I moved house.

It is really good.

For many reasons, including that I now live in an amazing house with an open living area and a fish-pond and a kitchen and many daybeds and I share with my friend CC and that is good and we have our own rooms and our own bathrooms with HOT WATER. It is so lovely. Come and visit, seriously.   

Also it is good because I was LOSING MY MIND at the factory. There is only so much factory noise drowned out by crazy Indonesian radio (it is basically exactly the same as TT FM in 1993. I mean the actual same playlist. I have heard Meril Bainbridge several times) drowned out by factory workers singing to said hot hits of 1993 that one person can take. Oh and also our water stopped running. CAN YOU IMAGINE SHARING A HOUSE WITH TWO RUGBY BOYS AND A NON-FLUSHING TOILET? And I do not mean that we had to use a bucket, oh no I’d not have minded a bucket. I mean we turned on the taps and….. nothing. yep. On a positive note it inspired me to finally commit to that gym membership, as at the gym there are really good showers..

So my new house is lovely and in a lovely area and I feel very happy about it.

We have lovely neighbours. One is an old lady with no teeth who sells watermelons. She always says hello and asks if we want to buy watermelons. I thought I was really clever and had worked out how to say ‘I can not eat watermelons’ (not true, but I felt that saying I don’t like them, when they are her livelihood, would be a little bit mean) and she stopped asking me for a while. But then the other day she saw me and smiled her toothless (actually, she has two teeth, which I think are the two main ones that get filed in the tooth-filing ceremony so it is probably lucky) smile and said, in English “melon?”.. From her however I have learnt the word for watermelon.

She sometimes has a gang of other watermelon selling old ladies. The other day I was walking down my street when her friend, a very old and small lady carrying a sack of about 25 watermelons on her head, passed me and was gesturing and saying in Indonesian what I took to roughly translate as “hahaha why are you walking and not riding a motorbike you crazy bule? If I was young and was not carrying 25 watermelons on my head I would be riding one! Hahaha”.

People in our area do seem to be a little amused that we walk places. And people seem to know where we live – one day CC and I had walked to our local shops, and a man on a motorbike drove up to us and said ‘oh, you live on the small road?’. I sometimes think that everyone in the local area thinks of us as ‘those two bule girls who live on the small road and wear the same clothes and walk everywhere’..

It is a lovely area to live in, though. It feels really quiet and safe. The nosiest things in the night are a) some far off karaoke, perhaps in someone’s house??and b) the frogs!! The scariest thing for me is that there are a few dogs that sometimes bark when I walk past, but I have learnt that they will bark but not come over to me (I was told that if you pretend to pick up rocks they will go away. Actually sometimes I actually pick up rocks, but not to throw. Actually sometimes I actually pick up the rocks and throw them, but not at the dogs, just near them). Although their visiting dog friend did come close to me the other day and I was scared. Luckily (as a building site full of young Balinese men were watching me, quite amused) I have learnt how to say ‘I am scared of dogs’ in Bahasa Indonesia. It is not true, but sometimes easier to say than ‘I really like dogs but I am scared of that dog because it is not wearing a red collar and therefore I am worried that it might have rabies’. Although sometimes I try it, and say something that probably comes out as ‘Like dog. But scared – rabies!’.

We do, however, have rats in our roof. They just came. They are not too feral looking (rats here actually look quite healthy and nice, they are nowhere near as tough as the Glasgow subway rats, which I imagine probably even carry knives..) but nevertheless I do not want them to come into my room. And they have become a little bit Out Of Control. They are so noisy, running around. So I told our landlord. And now someone is going to put traps for them. Which I do not think will be the special rat-collecting contraption I am imagining, where the rats go in and then have a fun time and then get humanely released in a field far away… So now I try to telepathically will messages to the rats:

Dear rats, if you are going to live in the roof please keep quiet, especially when I am trying to go to sleep, or just waking up. Also please stay in the roof and do not come inside, especially into our bedrooms. Alternatively you could move into the lovely spacious field behind our house, where I am sure there are lots of fun things to do, and things to eat. Also you can easily access a myriad of snacks as there are lots of offerings on the ground near there, and I am sure you snack on them. If you do not Bikas is going to bring traps and, as much as I like to think it will be humane, I don’t imagine that will end well. Thanks.

So I hope they get the message…

Anyway petals, I don’t really think that this has been altogether super interesting, but now that I am on track I will attempt to write more, and that will hopefully enable some interesting things (I imagine writing about the beach, ceremonies, incense, palm trees..) to filter through.

One interesting thing perhaps is that I saw Paul Kelly the other day. I saw him play (at the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival…I did not wear my EPL-style purple scarf and yoga pants, but did bump into a random relative..!) which was super, and also saw him the day before at the café where I met my friends for lunch after my monthly swimming program with the kids at the special school in Ubud. I did not speak to him then, however, and did not even go near to him. Partly because I was too shy, partly because it would have been a bit ridiculous to go up to him while he was eating, partly because I was busy eating a delicious vegetarian soup, and partly because I was not looking my best, straight out of the (lovely, villa) pool, and unfortunately that morning I had forgotten to pack my underwear in my swimming bag (I knew I was forgetting something… I had my towel, free red RLSSA rash vest, free Bali Sports red cargo boardshorts, just no undies!!..) (on the topic of my work costume, let me just say that with my current work outfit being an oversized ugly polo shirt, and my cargo boardshorts, I fear that before long I will end up with crew cut, be playing for darebin falcons and hanging out at libation trying to arm wrestle people..eep.)..  Thus, I got out of the pool and was faced with either a)wearing wet bathers under my clothes all arvo or b)going freestyle. I am not going to discuss my decision but needless to say neither was to be particularly glamorous.

On that ridiculous note, but in a more serious light, swimming was really good last week. Those kids are super, and getting more confident. It was great.

Anyway petals, (it slightly bothers me that I always write this like a letter…but I just can’t stop doing it..) now I will post this and go and walk past the watermelon ladies and perhaps have a coffee at the place around the corner where they allegedly sell cappuccinos (cappuccini?) (cups of chino?) but where when I asked for black coffee it all got very confusing and I got a POT of coffee… and maybe eat some green-tea cake, which I don’t love but which always tempts me.. although if only they sold pandan green swiss rolls…

finally, bali

well.


it has been a long time.


i am going to attempt to get into a routine of writing this blog, but past experience tells me that there is significant potential that it may not happen as i plan..


this blog will be about my next eleven months and three days living and working in bali.


three years of creative arts took it's toll on my grammar and use of capitals etc (subverting the patriarchal language and all that), however the last two years of a Proper Job did reacquaint me with the shift key somewhat, so i imagine that i will drift in and out of writing styles etc as i go. i hope that you will not mind, and that it will not make this blog seem like one written entirely by some sort of self-obsessed hipster wanker.. i could launch into a rant about my fears of how writing a blog is self indulgent etc but that would be excruciating for me and for anyone else who happens to read it so i shall stop myself..


i am in bali on a volunteer program and about that i intend to give little away. we have been given strict instructions about media clearance and not bringing the name of our program or the funders (a clue, it is probably you) into disrepute by freely posting online/in the public domain about the ins and outs of our placements. and thus, even though i have little intention of writing terribly things, i will try to keep the more identifying/bureaucratic details to a minimum.


this is the end of the first three weeks. prior to that i was in jakarta for a week of intensive language training and in country orientation. after twenty hours saya bicara bahasa indonesia sedikit. i am not sure if i have put those words in the correct order, thus the sedikit about of bahasa indonesia i can speak.
but i am trying. i feel desperate to learn - i want to be able to understand the people around me, and to communicate things other than 'my name is erin' 'i am a teacher' 'i live in sanur' 'i stay at my boss' house' (not entirely true, but i don't yet know who to say i currently stay in an apartment above a factory owned by the person who is the founder and ceo of the organisation i am placed with).


i found the first week a challenge. i am staying with a another volunteer who is also my colleague (he is Actually Sporty, unlike pseudo-sporty me) - who is a really great guy, but, after three years living alone, and prior to that years of living in queer, generally women-only sharehouses, often with people older than me and never with colleagues, i found it to be very different. in addition (and possibly more significantly), although i had attended preparation workshops endlessly going over similar information (about being flexible, etc) to the point where i said to my fellow volunteers 'i can not possibly hear this one more time. get me to seven eleven for a bintang asap' i found the pace of my new workplace (where there is not really an office..just my house or my boss' restaurant on the beach..) to be challenging, as i am used to being busy to the point of getting a rash. (in-joke with myself. i get rashes at the mere mention of getting a rash. seriously, i just wrote that and then scratched my shoulder..). and here i was, suddenly, in bali to do a placement focused on swimming and water safety, in particular focussing on creating programs and training swim coaches to work with children with disabilities, and i was given a task - to work on a document and some activities to teach traffic safety to mainstream kids attending a soccer tournament. interesting.


however, in week two i embraced the bali pace of life. and got to swim with some amazing kids in ubud. and sat, working on my laptop at my boss' restaurant on the beach in sanur, and thought this is really a pretty amazing life. even taking the kids home in the school bus (not unlike the rosamond bus, however with different rules regarding seatbelts, kids sitting on adults knees', the bus driver pulling over to buy cigarettes and then driving and smoking..) we went past countless rice paddies, temples, little old ladies carrying offerings, dogs, more dogs, dogs that had red collars showing that they had been vaccinated (against rabies) by the organisation my friends work for, and other amazing sites, to the point where suddenly i was looking at these amazing sights as though i was used to them..


and then week three.. it has been relaxed, with a holiday for independence day on wednesday - on which my friends and i went up the east coast and went swimming and snorkelling, and then a very full on day (but a once-in-a-lifetime experience) attending a cremation of a lady who was a member of ubud royalty - which i will write about hopefully in m next post, as it was a very big day and experience.
i was, however, hit by one of the pyres when it was getting carried out of the palace, as were two of my friends, and two of us fell to the ground. i had flashes of 'this is going to be where i get trampled' (whilst wearing balinese traditional dress, no less) but luckily the men carrying the pyre helped us up and there was no stampede. oh heavens a what a crazy crowd experience!


and tonight - friday night - we are going to kuta (i tried to avoid it but then went there to attend the nippers program, and discovered that kuta beach is amazing at 8am on a sunday, when all my (feral) fellow countrypeople are either asleep, hungover, still drunk or a combination of the three..) to see Empire of The Sun which will hopefully be fun, although it is a costume event, and i did not bring any costumes. i fear i did not even bring glitter. very out of form, for me..


and so now i must go, and walk past the rice paddies and possibly corn fields to drop my washing off at the laundry.


as i said, i will attempt to write again soon. i hope that i do..


i hope you are all well.


xxxxxxxx




and finally. soon i will have a work uniform. it is a polo shirt. yep. a polo. that is all.