4 days of vacation

Last week Hindu Bali celebrated the holiday of Galungan, honoring the creation of the universe, rather like Rosh HaShanah.  Galungan is also a celebration of the victory of good over evil.  The Balinese calendar is on a 210 day cycle, so Galungan occurs about every seven months.  I have paid close attention to the Balinese calendar for many years as the entire island closes up shop and there is no chance of any of my workers paying attention to my projects. 

A strongly visual aspect of Galungan is the placement of a penjor outside of every home.  A penjor is an extremely tall bamboo pole decorated with dried palm leaves and a variety of other adornments and, somewhat like Jacob’s Ladder, signifies the connection of the holy and the earthly by going up high into the sky, then arching downward from the top.  It was a great pleasure on Galungan Day to take a joy ride on our motorbike through numerous villages, appreciating the creativity and the variety of penjor.   

Before Galungan the Green School children had their own celebration.  All of the students dressed in their best Balinese ceremonial clothing.  Each classroom spent a couple of weeks designing and constructing their own penjor.  Sofia and a friend were the designated penjor holders for their grade, carrying in the long pole for their assembly.  The first grade explained and acted out the basic ceremonial duties for Galungan and the second grade, dressed to the nines in ritual costumes, performed a Balinese dance.

In the midst of Galungan we also celebrated the eight days of Chanukah.  On the first night our Indian neighbors, who last month had invited us to share in the Diwali lights with them, now joined us in lighting Chanukah candles.  A couple of teachers asked me to talk to their students about the meaning of Chanukah.  Sofia loved having me address her class and helped with the explanations.  The first graders listened attentively, active sponges they all are, and became fascinated with the Hebrew language, something new for just about all of them.  They drew pictures of their own version of a chanukiah and asked me to spell each of their names in Hebrew.  They got a kick out of the letters going from right to left.  Multicultural Green School at its best. 

Galungan is a school holiday; even though the end of the semester and winter break are just a week away, we had three days off from school this week.  When there is a break, we are on the go.  Another vacation!  What a joy!  After years of travel primarily for business, we have been deeply appreciative of our (increasingly frequent) real holidays.  

This time we set off for Nusa (island) Lembongan, a small island to the south of Bali, only 30 minutes away by boat.  Along with several other Green School families, we jumped into the shallow water of Mushroom Bay and walked across the sand to check into our hotel. Sand and water were our life for the next four days.  Ocean water, pool water, outdoor shower water, more ocean water.

We did a good bit of exploring by motorbike.  Cars are not allowed on Nusa Lembongan and, though we did encounter a few trucks and some other motorbikes, the roads were mostly open and clear.  Clear of other travelers, that is; the bouncy, rocky, pitted roads of Lembongan make the Bali roads look smooth, but busy.  

A high metal bridge painted bright yellow connects little Nusa Lembongan to its even more diminutive neighbor, Nusa Ceningan.  The bridge is just wide enough for one way motorbike traffic, but as the only bridge it is, of course, two way, making for some interesting moments of instant non-verbal communication.  The bottom of the bridge, the part you drive your motorbike across, is made of wooden slats.  Some of the slats are missing.  The bridge sways.  For those who are able to look -- that is, those not driving and needing to concentrate straight ahead, or those with a fear of heights and eyes scrunched tightly closed -- the view from the bridge is of tropical jungle, beautiful bays and numerous seaweed farms in the shallows.  Nusa Lembongan is far less developed than Bali, and Nusa Ceningan is even less developed than Lembongan.  It’s worth braving the bridge to discover Ceningan’s hidden beaches in pristine coves.

We came across promontories overlooking see-through turquoise waters.  We found perfect white sand beaches strewn with cowrie and other shells, tucked between steep, rocky cliffs.  Body surfing, frisbee throwing, sand castle building, shell collecting (later donated to Grade 1 for use as  eco math manipulatives) and ocean gazing took up our hours until all the snacks were gone and everyone was starving.

Alas, even the mildly trodden, nearly pristine beaches of Lembongan, Ceningan and Penida have bits of trash and plastic bags caught in some of the rocks.  It washes up from...?... bigger islands...?... cruise ships...?... The Green School has its work cut out for it educating a generation about natural living.

Asher and I shared romantic moments snorkeling hand in hand, allowing a gentle current to pull us past some of the biggest schools of fish I have seen.  The ever social Sofia, who took to snorkeling with natural ease in Flores, chose to stay on the boat with her friend who is not so keen on snorkeling.  Our outboard vessel dropped us at a stretch of beach difficult to reach any other way on sparsely populated Nusa Penida where we spied a piece of natural sculpture/furniture in the form of a gigantic driftwood tree root and took turns lounging in its arms.  

A highlight of the vacation was some scuba diving magic, making worthwhile my recent uncomfortable, sometimes scary scuba certification process.  Our first dive, at a spot called Manta Point, was ho hum.  No mantas. Not worthy of its name.  As the boat bounced over choppy water to our next dive location we spotted something floating nearby.  Is it a car hood?  A manta!  The boat slowed, the driver and the dive master excitedly training their experienced eyes on the nearby cove.  More mantas!  Many of them!

Fully loaded with gear, I rolled backwards over the side of the boat scuba style.  As I bobbed up, two mantas were just before me and moving right towards me.  My initial reaction was to want to get the heck out of there, but as the giants passed on either side of me I sensed their gentleness.  For the rest of the 45 minute dive the curious mantas circled continuously around us; I was completely fascinated and completely at ease.  Mantas dance through the water, elegantly flapping their wings like space ships from another dimension.  Usually while diving we are hovering over coral looking down but, with the mantas feeding near the surface, we mostly dove underneath them looking up.  Each manta has distinctive markings on their underbellies and it became easy to distinguish them.  My favorite looked like an abstract painting of strong black lines and circles on a white canvas.  My new intelligent, dreamlike friends helped me find comfort underwater.  Swimming with mantas is like being touched by an angel. 

Poolside, back at our hotel, all the way out on this tiny Indonesian island, one of my favorite India Arie songs is playing on the hotel sound system like a soundtrack to my life:

Freedom is mine today

I found

Strength, courage and wisdom

It’s been inside of me

All along

I close my eyes 

And I think of all the things 

That I want to see

Cause I know that 

I’ve opened up my heart

I know that anything I want 

Can be

So let it be

6 DAYS in my life

I felt their presence before I spotted them.  On Wednesday morning a group of men were eating breakfast, some seated and some standing, at a bale near the Green School warung.  A bale (pronounced bah-lay) is an open sided, raised wooden platform with a high ylang ylang grass or ceramic tile roof, found in every village and roadside, usually with village men casually relaxing together on top of and around it.  These particular men, new arrivals at the Green School, gave off an energy different from the rest of their surroundings; they were not speaking yet they emanated a strong signal.  Looking closer, I could see the men were clearly not Balinese.  Maybe they are from Timor, I thought.  Later, while serving up mango wraps in the warung, I saw the same men walking single file down a gravel path wearing only grass skirts and headdresses with feathers.  That caught my attention.  Their loud silence reminded me of an experience I had decades earlier, back stage with a group of Nigerian musicians (Sunny Ade’s first U.S. tour), a thundering meditative silence bursting forth into a musical explosion of creativity.  I followed the grass skirts and found the men sitting with clusters of fourth graders, teaching wood carving skills using bamboo.  I discovered the men are from the Kamora tribe of Papua, guests at the Green School for the week, sharing their traditions.

A storm blew through on Thursday.  I was at home preparing food for the dinner I would be catering on Friday night.  At first the sky grew dark and I had to turn lights on in the middle of the morning, but the rain held off for so long that I forgot about it.  When the sound effects began, one thunderclap so loud I gasped and jumped, the downpour was not far behind.  Lightening struck a tall tree beside our neighbor’s house, felling a massive branch.  Meanwhile, at Green School, it was lunch time and the entire student body was just finishing the midday meal in the Heart of School, seated at tables according to age group.  Strong wind blew the rain in around the circumference of the open sided building, corralling the children into the heart of the Heart of School.  They shrieked with each thunderclap.  Ordinarily after lunch all the students socialize and play outdoors until the gong announces class time, but the teachers could not let anyone outside in such a powerful storm.  They insisted the children stay on the first and second floors only, safe from a potential lightening strike to the top floor roof.  Ben Macrory flew to the rescue, grabbing his guitar and leading all the children, from the first floor and the second, in singing the school song “Living in Bali”.  I love the image of all the children taking shelter from the rain and singing together.  I picture it as the Green School version of High School Musical.

Living in Bali 

We know where we’re going

Our river is flowing

And the current is strong

The light in our eyes

Is the place we believe in

Destiny’s weaving 

It guides us along

Hey, hey, yaaaaa

This is who we are

Hey, hey, hey yaaaaa

Living in the heart of Indonesia

Living in Bali

The island’s life giver

The great Ayung River

That flashes and darts

It carries our hopes

From the hills to the ocean

A powerful motion

That strengthens our hearts

Hey, hey, yaaaaa

This is who we are

Hey, hey, hey yaaaaa

Living in the heart of Indonesia

Friday was show time, my big day.  Cynthia Hardy hired me to create a raw food dinner to kick off John’s birthday weekend celebration.  I wanted everything to be scrumptiously magnificent.

Over the years some of my favorite films have involved food.  The Spanish language film “Like Water For Chocolate” has a lead character who pours mystical awareness and the full force of her being into all the meals she creates and everyone who eats her food falls in love.  “The Big Night”, a movie that contains one of my favorite lines (you have to “take a bite out of the ass of life”), an Italian chef stakes everything on one magnificent dinner, putting his heart and soul into every dish.  I witnessed aspects of these films coming alive through me as I thought out the menu, gathered the ingredients and sculpted them into edible treasures.

A car arrived for me in the late morning and I loaded it with stacks of food containers, each meticulously labeled.  Every course contained multiple hand crafted components.  Once I arrived in the large, open kitchen at the Hardy home I wondered how I could fit all of my food into the single refrigerator.  Not to worry; the spacious “cool room”, a cave- like walk in refrigerator, allowed all my creations to spread out in an orderly fashion.  I adored walking in and out of the cool room, which I needed to do about five thousands times, each and every time reveling in the sudden delicious contrast with the tropical heat.

I worked slowly and consistently, wanting to take my time and remain in the joy of creation, mostly ignoring the sarong clad staff of four to six to eight... more arrived as the hours wore on.  I asked for their help only when it was convenient for me to do so; some thing are easier for me to do myself.  While I hand tied each of the colorful dumplings, an appetizer to start off the evening, a small video crew from Java, hired to document the weekend, interviewed me about raw food.  Once it was crunch time -- as the next course needed to go out -- I made up a sample plate showing each layer, sauce and garnish and the staff built the rest of the plates assembly line style.  A stream of servers carried the final creations out the door and I began on the following course. 

The party took place next door to the home at a hotel the family owns.  All the buildings are Indonesian antiques reconstructed.  The staff set up for dinner in the Javanese Panjang building, a long open structure built high on stilts, with cushions on the floor, painted Balinese temple trays as individual tables, and candles lining the stairs.  

The party was eating the appetizers and I was in the kitchen coaching the helpers on assembling the salad mandalas when I thought I heard John call my name from all the way over at the Panjang building.  One of the serving staff informed me John had requested my presence, so I made my way through the family gardens, across stone paths, and climbed the dramatic stairs to where the party lounged on their cushions.  They all broke into applause.  John said, “ Avara, you are crazy good! This food is insane!”  Sometimes an accusation of insanity is the highest compliment.

The rest of the evening flowed beautifully.  

Saturday morning was the John Hardy birthday hike.  Our family had signed up to go but chose to stay home all day and all night.  We lounged.  We rested.  Friends came over to visit.  We hung out.  A most unusual, quiet day.

Sunday was the John Hardy birthday bike ride.  Open bed trucks left from the Hardy home, one carrying people and one loaded with bicycles.  First stop was breakfast at a lovely setting overlooking a gorge, the restaurant of a boutique hotel owned by a Green School family.  Then back in the truck, holding on as it rounded corners, dodging low lying branches, all the way up the mountain to the top of volcanic Mount Batur.  We grabbed our bikes and lined up in front of the temple where women with trays of small offerings blessed each of us with flowers, incense and holy water, squeezing an offering between the break cables.  We descended the mountain in three groups accompanied by Balinese guides; two intermediate groups and one advanced-Asher-style-go-for-it group.  I chose the intermediate experience which required good breaks; we mostly cruised downhill past stunning views in every direction, downhill except, of course, when the road went (steeply) uphill.  We returned into the rice basket north of Ubud, rice terraces to the left and right, in time for lunch at John’s favorite little warung.

Sunday night brought the conclusion of John’s birthday weekend with a dance party at the Hardys’ home.  Sofia, of her own accord, made John a large birthday card covered with drawings on four sides and many loving messages.  According to an East Bali tradition, we sat for dinner upon cushions on the lawn with dinner spread on giant banana leaves instead of tables, a long line of rice down the center vein of each leaf.  We reconnected with an old friend from our years of traveling to Bali, mingled with many new friends and danced up a sweaty storm on the dance floor. I was happy to have an opportunity to swirl in my Yes! dress, the Ginger Rogers meets Aphrodite silk extravaganza I have been producing with my friend Elise.

Monday morning my friend Paula and I drove with our dive master to Padangbai, a southeastern beachside town, where we completed the last two dives for our PADI scuba certification (including fun exercises like swimming 50 meters without a mask

and making an emergency ascent ssssslllllllloooooowwwwwllllllyyyyyy on one exhale).

Our deepest dive was 18 meters, which didn’t feel much different than 5 or 7 or 12.  The most exciting moment was seeing four large sea turtles in the afternoon; one of them didn’t immediately swim away but spent some time floating with us.  Now I have an official card and a log book, and can dive in Malaysia at Christmas time.