Firsts

I have a growing list of firsts, new things I am doing for the first time.  Somehow they are all occurring together at once in a clump this week. Standing alone they are potentially invigorating, even enlivening.  Packed into one week they are a bit much and none of them is particularly relaxing. I had thought I would arrive in Bali and, after the extreme intensity of the last two years, take a few months of ease, some time to just be.  Instead I am continuing my advanced course in maintaining a balanced central nervous system through any kind of circumstance.

Most of my 24 previous trips to Bali involved eating in many restaurants; now I am the restaurant, (but with weekends off).  A lover of improvisation in the kitchen, I am now consistently producing, and training my assistant to produce, the same dishes so that each item has a reliable flavor.  This involves a skill set that includes writing out recipes, measuring, maintaining inventory of ingredients, pricing out costs, and keeping track of sales, not jazz improv.  

So what did I do this weekend?  I filled every moment of it, and parts of the week before it, with scuba diving certification.  Without a moment of fun floating with the colorful fishes, without time to get comfortable with the equipment and breathing underwater, we moved immediately into emergency training skills like removing our masks and replacing them, and having our air turned off and then back on by the dive master, not particularly soothing activities.  I took the written test, with (bare) minimal study, in a loud seaside restaurant full of vacationers.  On Sunday we were to have our last 2 dives, completing the course, but our air cylinders had all received contaminated air and we had to abort.  That means another journey to the coast and another day devoted to discomfort and sometimes anxiety under the sea in the name of safety.  During the Christmas holiday we are going to Malaysia where I hope to finally have fun floats with pretty fishes and a dive master who doesn’t touch my air supply.

(On the way to shore after our aborted scuba dive, we had a dramatic James Bond type encounter with two testosterone driven Russian spear fishermen.  Our Balinese boat diver, keenly aware of his surroundings as Balinese people are, pointed out to our dive master that two men were dangerously fishing protected reef life in the scuba zone.  When our boat approached the men, one swam out to sea and the other denied fishing, spear in hand.  Our boatman drove to the fishermen’s buoy, a dead reef fish tied to the side, and pulled the buoy onto our boat.  The enraged fisherman tried to mount our boat and threatened our dive master directly with his spear.  Mark, our dive master, repeatedly asked the man for his spear gun, telling him he could reclaim it at the dive shop, but the Russian man refused to comply and denied understanding English.  Then in English, insisted Mark give him his dive computer in exchange for the spear gun.  The Russian’s trust level was low and his adrenalin was high, a dangerous combination.  He made a grab for his buoy, catching the cording in his fingers and yanking hard. Mark, using his dive knife, cut the cording free.  We returned to shore where our boat driver notified his village authorities who in turn contacted the local police.  Within moments every Balinese person up and down the beach knew what was happening.  When the police arrived the village authorities knew exactly who the responsible men were and which restaurant they were sitting in.  Mark and the machine gun carrying police had a polite discussion with the spear fishermen and their girl friends, and eventually the police drove away with the spears, holding them until, I suspect, some money changed hands.)     

During all of my previous Bali trips I hired a driver.  I was content to be a passive participant in the dance of the Balinese roads. This week in a move toward independence, I have been learning to drive a motorbike, starting off around a flat futbol field and progressing to actually driving on the road, passing trucks, swerving around potholes, swimming in the sea of other motorbikes.  Look out!  The roads are for the most part unmarked and any rules seem to have exceptions if convenient.  For instance, in Bali vehicles drive on the left, but if you are on a motorbike turning right and feel like continuing on the right, you can just go ahead and do it.  Same thing goes for a one way street; that’s one way for cars, but if you are on a motorbike and want to drive against the flow of traffic, go for it.  Plenty of others will join you. 

An entirely orange butterfly just flew into our house, danced in front of Sofia and I to our delight, fluttered across the length of the room, took a moment to visit our orchids and left as silently as it entered.  This is a first.

One more first:  today I was commissioned to cater a raw dinner party this Friday night.  In addition to my warung prep, I will be creating a multiple course gourmet meal on a stunning property overlooking the Ayung River.  

Let’s see... how much more can I juggle?....

Food

This week I began offering raw food at the Green School warung.  Suddenly I am busy.  This is an understatement.  Food prep began on Tuesday for a Wednesday inaugural launch; soaking, sprouting, chopping, grating, blending, dehydrating.  I thought I had made enough to last a couple of days or maybe through the week.  Then I sold out of nearly everything the first day.  On the list of potential problems, this one is pretty high up in the favorable category, yet it is something to contend with, if I would like to include sleeping in my daily activities.  In order to create more delicacies for the next day I was now working around the clock.  Truly.  I am preparing all the food, hand crafting and selling all the food in the warung, explaining about raw food, how I create it and why, then preparing again.  This is completely unsustainable... and at the Green School, model of sustainability!  

When we first arrived in Bali we hired a pembantu (helper) who is lovely in many ways but turned out to be unreliable.  She is still fetching our drinking water from the school well and doing our laundry.  I had just found a new pembantu and she started working this very week.  Komang is smart, trustworthy and eager to please, but speaks no English at all.  I have been training her, in my limited Indonesian, to assist me in the food prep while doing all the food prep.  Today I said something in Indonesian that I swear was close to correct (close, of course, doesn't count): Komang started giggling and then we were both cracking up laughing.

Spending the day in the Green School warung is enjoyable.  The warung staff members are lovable and Sri, the woman in charge, is a bright light.  The kids flow in during snack time and at lunch.  Parents of the students and various visitors eat raw macaroons, raw tropical cookies with star fruit or raw brownies (with a raw creme anglais piped on top or a mint fudge drizzle) with their cappuccinos.  (Asher has now brought his locally grown, fresh roasted coffee into the warung, upgrading the espresso to the delight of the international coffee drinkers.  We have infiltrated the warung!)  I started with one lunch item, mango/coconut wraps (I order dozens of young coconuts delivered to my house by wheelbarrow from the Green School gardens) with ginger cashew pate, shredded vegetables and a sesame dipping sauce, thinking sweets would be more accessible to raw food newcomers, but the wraps are a hit.  I need to make more and more of them.  They are the first item I teach Komang to prepare, showing her how to smooth them just so and sprinkle each one with chopped mint.

The table I have been using in the warung (bamboo, of course) is not dedicated to me; I share the table with the lunch staff.  Before lunchtime two men come and carry my table away, back to the Heart of School where it used to live before I came along with my raw food, then return it (usually) after lunch is finished.  That is rather inconvenient, for all of us.  Fortunately John Hardy, who has been sampling all of my wares each day, recommended that I choose whichever table I like from the kitchen where, as I have already written, many interesting experiments in bamboo furniture design reside, but do not get much use.  The kitchen, located across the river from the school, is a rather inconvenient place from which to move my chosen table.  I'm wondering if the staff will carry it by hand across the rustic bamboo bridge (closest to the kitchen), or the newer, safer Green School bamboo bridge, or if they will find a truck, load it on the back and drive it all the way around (driving across the river by car requires going a distance out of your way either north or south)... Or will I be the one to carry it?

Friday was International Day at the Green School.  Each classroom chose a country to represent, studied their chosen country, decorated their room and created a presentation, including costumes, music, song or dance, for the weekly Friday assembly.  Loads of parents attended and made loads of food platters from the various countries.  With all that (free) food around the possibility existed that they would ignore my raw food in the warung.  Nope, not at all.  It was a busy day.  By the end of Friday I was beyond exhausted, ridiculously sleep deprived and not in a particularly clear state of mind.  Fortunately I found a second person to soon begin helping me in the warung so I will have freedom to come and go.

Friday night our friends and neighbors, Mona and Ajay, originally from India, invited us to join their family celebration of Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights commemorating of the victory of good over evil.  We sang sacred Sanskrit chants while waving a tray of lit candles, then placed the candles in different parts of the house and along the path to the doorway, assisting Lakshmi, Goddess of Abundance, in finding her way to their home.  It was sweet and intimate, and an honor to be included in the ritual as well as the meal of delicious Indian food.  I had been having a hankering for Indian spices and yes, I tasted the cooked food.  And yes, I felt the difference the next day.  I think my next creation for the warung will be Indian samosas raw style.

I needed a weekend in a big way.  We had previously planned a big weekend away, not exactly the weekend I was needeing at this point on the exhaustion timeline.  I came close to sending my family off on the journey and staying home alone, but I love an adventure and ended up packing clothes and... ugh... food, again.  (An overdose of food preparation could become a diet trend.  I find the more I am around it, the less I want to eat it, although I adore creating new recipes, blessing the food and sharing it with others.  To me food is an art form.)  We started off at Tree Tops, a series of zip line courses in the immaculately kept Bali Botanical Gardens, with most of the Green School first grade families and some others who wanted to join in.   We used to have a zip line on our property in Oregon and Sofia was afraid to ride it.  Now she is clipping and unclipping her carabiners from one line to the next with her buddies.  A big group of people and death defying zips through the trees into rope nets did not really constitute a restful day for me.  We ended the afternoon, along with 4 other families, in a well appointed lodge way up in the Bali highlands with a view of a lake.   We brought our own food and many cooks took over the kitchen.  I thought I had escaped food preparation when the request came for me to make salads.  No rest for the weary.  On the counter were whole enormous fishes, eyes bulging, headed toward the grill, and beside it I prepared my raw, vegan salad mandalas.  First the children ate at the large table and once the adults sat down I was, finally, asleep on the couch.

The next day I  felt like a human being again.  (Should I tell you about my husband waking up the lodge playing his flugelhorn at 4 a.m.?  I guess not....) After a rousing session of pillow fighting and tickle attacks with the 8 children, I took myself for a walk up the mountain through fertile fields.  Following behind an elderly woman carrying a load of greens on her head, I came upon a large solitary boulder seemingly out of place in the green landscape.  In true Bali style it had become an alter and someone had already placed the morning offerings in its cleft.  Further along the trail someone called to me; a woman, her husband and their shy 6 year old daughter were tilling the soil.  She invited me to use her hoe and I was honored to do so.  While the husband and I hoed, we all spoke about growing food, soil quality, our families, even American politics, all in my (very) limited Indonesian.

In the afternoon we caravanned down steep and nearly unpassably broken roads to remote hot springs.  A loud and close thunderclap, sounding like a bomb, announced yet another torrential downpour.  We walked down the hill to the hot springs in the rain, under the bamboo, the path lined with bamboo leaves.  Soaked, we arrived at the tubs to... soak.  The human made pool with lovely, fresh and nicely hot water (the weather is refreshingly cool in the upper elevations) merging with the cool rain, all beside a waterfall rushing with muddy rain runoff.  We frolicked in the water beside many Balinese locals come for a soak on their day off.

Then back to the Bambu Village.  Before more food sourcing and more food prep, we hopped on our motorbike and drove into Ubud where Dave Stringer (visiting from LA) led an ecstatic kirtan.  What joy!

The second week with raw food in the warung is more comfortable.  I have someone helping me prepare the food and someone working in the warung making wraps.  John Hardy brought his wife Cynthia over to sample my food for the first time and she raved about it.  A little later Cynthia brought her friend Donna Karan (the Empress of Fashion) over for a taste.  Donna and I naturally fell into a conversation about spirituality, Kabbalah, blending Judaism and Buddhism and Hinduism.  Donna has been eating raw food for years.  After finishing up, Donna told me mine was the best raw food she has ever eaten.  Now that is another great compliment to bask in, from someone who has access to the best of the best all the time.  Perhaps I am earning the title my friend Georgia has given me, Goddess of Yum.  

Letting It Rip

I have been searching for my exercise groove in Bali.

Asher has transitioned smoothly from Oregon to Sibang Kaja.  Immediately upon arrival he bought a mountain bike and, just as in the Applegate, he is up before the sun with a miner's headlamp on his forehead, pumping up hills.  On Fridays he takes monumental rides up volcanic craters.  As an alternative, he runs barefoot, also before the sun rises, around the meticulously groomed Green School football field (grooming means one Balinese man squatting in the sun, pulling out weeds and invasive grasses by hand).

The dance floor is my temple.  Dance, as body tune up and tune in, as prayer, has been the mainstay of my practice the last two years, interspersed with bike rides, hikes into the BLM beside our house, runs through the forest and yin yoga.  Nia with Rachael Resch, exploring the joy of each movement, micro and macro, has been a profound experience for me, reliably spiraling me into deeper awareness,  bringing insights and revelations.  Free dance, especially Sarah Marshank's Embody and the dance events Eden and Ryan facilitated at our house, far beyond exercise, has been for me a communion with self and with community.   In Ashland, every day of the week someone is offering a dance circle.  Not so here in Bali.

A big thing to contend with is the heat.  If Asher is exploring in the early morning hours, someone needs to be home with Sofia.  I like to see her off to school, which means heading out for a walk or a run after 8:30 when it is already quite warm and heating up to a simmer.  I like to explore little paths and see where they lead.  Private property doesn't really exist in Bali, so any trail is a good one.  This week I walked on narrow paths crisscrossing the river, finding flowers and small waterfalls, traversing a rustic but strong bamboo bridge.  I passed an elderly man crossing the bridge; he seemed startled to see me, but smiled and wished me a good morning.  With grit between my toes and mud splashed up my legs, I leaped across rocks and eroding mudbanks.  I ended up walking through a village, seeing grandmas taking care of little ones while their mommas and poppas are at work.  It has been raining often, but this was a bright sunshiny morning and each house had a full assortment of clean laundry hanging up to dry.   On my way back home I stopped by the Green School kitchen to visit my friend Kadek and exchange sweaty hugs; she had been cooking over a hot fire and I had been building my internal fire by climbing out of the ravine in the sun. 

Tuesday mornings a group of Green School moms leave from the school for a 2 hour walk, following the little foot paths through the jungle.  This week we discovered a red pineapple growing beside the road, a wild gardenia, a canal of muddy water, and stumbled upon a Hari Krishna temple in the middle of nowhere.

I am reconnecting with my yoga practice, a gratifying reunion.  Having purchased a series pass to the Yoga Barn studio in Ubud, I am taking classes with a variety of teachers working in a variety of styles, getting a sense of what is available.  From the second floor studio, overlooking an expanse of rice fields, I have been paying closer attention to my breath, twisting happily into contortions, revisiting poses like old friends.  Leading one class was a Balinese teacher, trained in Australia, moving in and out of  Australian and Indonesian accents.  At the height of the class, in the most strenuous pose of the day, this teacher encouraged us to keep our faces relaxed and to smile.  Then, clear as a bell, he said, 'I want to see your tits."  The Indonesian language does not have a TH sound; what he meant was that he would like to see our teeth as we smile.  None of my classmates tittered (couldn't resist).  I held the pose, but found this hilarious and giggled to myself throughout the day.

I checked out my first Biodanza class.  Birthed through Rolando Toro, a Chilean psychologist, anthropologist and poet in the 1960s, Biodanza is an inspired system fusing music and movement with emotional exploration and community building.  I had read about Biodanza while still in Oregon, finding an interview with Rolando Toro before his passing, and felt the authenticity of his work.  I questioned it though, in the yoga studio, with the international crowd grooving to the beat.  It seemed a little fluffy and superficial.  I felt my judgements arise and, with them, the opportunity to pass through the doorway of What I No Longer Have.  That passageway is not particularly pleasant and has to do with my kitty cat Malia, our wonderful home in the forest, the amazing array of organic products at the Ashland Food Co-op, Nia class... I could go on and on, but it won't make me feel good.  I kept dancing.  I did my best to stay open.  Our focus was on yin and yang.  We danced a series of segments exploring our yang, building up to stepping into our warrior power.  I let it rip.  I drew power up through the earth, the roots, the Bali mud, into my limbs.  I growled.  I roared.  Something shifted for me and, sure enough, something shifted in the room.  Having expressed our power, the tenderness of the yin movement was sweet and deep and real.  Total strangers, dripping with waterfalls of sweat, shared dance, eye contact, touch, love.  I thought, I can be here.

An exercise of a different sort:  persevering through the storm.  We went to a first grade party at a colonial style teak house in the hills for futbol (kids vs parents), potluck and conversation.  We were among the few remaining families still chatting at the party when the rain began.    We had all arrived by motorbike and decided to sit out the storm.  It took hours.  So much water fell to the earth that the grassy area that had been a futbol field was now a lake.  The rain pounded.  It got dark.  Finally, in a light drizzle, we attempted the ride home.  We were off to a questionable start on a little dirt road, fishtailing right and left in the muddy debris.  On paved roads it was smoother, though in one spot the terrain was so steep the bike could not pull our weight.  Asher drove Sofia up the hill, I got off and hiked.  South of Ubud parts of the road were still flooded (eventually all the water finds lower ground) and we cautiously made our way through pond sized pools of water in the dark, again and again.  At one point we passed large trucks pulled over to the side of the narrow road, discovering they were avoiding downed power lines.  One motorbike after another drove through the massive puddles, over the power cables, and we followed.  We were past all that and nearly home when we had a direct hit with a pothole.  The wobbly bike let us know that we had a flat.  In true Bali style, the moment we pulled over to the side of the road, a man who had been sitting in front of a shop leapt to his feet to help, knowing exactly what the problem was, and gave us directions to the nearest place that could fix the tire.  While Asher went off to repair the flat (at a hole in the wall shop he would never have found without the earlier directions), Sofia and I people watched at the nearby night market beside vendors frying wonton type snacks.  We were grateful for a dry roof over our heads once we finally arrived home.

More about excess moisture:  We have a stretch of wood floor in our bathroom next to the shower that never dries out.  Yesterday morning I walked into the bathroom to discover a mushroom growing out of the floorboards.  I'm wondering, with all this heat and humidity, if fuzzy green things and mushrooms will start growing out of my pores.

  

The Green School has been letting it rip in the appearance department.  Last week it was Crazy Hair Day and now it is Halloween.  I got wild with pipe cleaners on Sofia and Avishi, our neighbor and Sofia's most constant pal so far.  I'm also including evidence that Asher is tuning in to his feminine side.  

Basking

Basking in pleasing thoughts is like catching a good wave and riding it for every inch it will carry you.  I love being in the tide of inspiration, or basking in a wonderful memory.  Sometimes I find myself falling off surf out of basking and into the churning deep, sucked into the undertow.

The other day, for example.  Asher and I had important errands in Denpasar, the grimy congested capitol.  I wanted to go by car and Asher wanted to go by motorbike.  Our

usual driver had another job for the day so we took off on the motorbike, although we have never driven ourselves into the maze of Denpasar.

Driving in Bali is a dance.  Sharing the narrow roads are endless streams of motorbikes flowing around cars, oversized tourist buses, and open bed trucks carrying rocks or filled to capacity with villagers dressed for ceremony.  The motorbikes pass on the left or the right at will, shooting through gaps of oncoming traffic and dodging, on the roadside, elders carrying agricultural products in baskets balanced on bamboo poles, school children in uniforms, processions of sarong clad devotees with offerings on their heads, a little kid with a bike too big for him, a dog or a chicken darting out of a family compound... It sounds chaotic but it is not; driving in Bali has rhythm and consciousness.  It is a spiritual practice for all involved, an opportunity to be keenly present, to chart your course and yet always give way to another.  The rule of the road is grace.

It's one thing to drive through villages and past rice fields, and quite another to drive into Denpasar.  Aside from the congestion, the fumes and the hot sun, road signage is minimal and directions are usually along the lines of, "turn right at the street light that is not a light."  We memorize the names of the streets we need to get to and don't bother with the numbers as addresses in Bali are not sequential.  We just go for it, Asher and I on the rented motorbike.  We get closer and closer.  We know we are closer because the traffic thickens and the street options increase.  At one junction I spontaneously, without thought, tell Asher to turn right.  A moment later we are on the very street of our first destination, a silk shop, as if transported by fairy dust.

If we had gone home after that I could have easily basked in the ease of the journey, but we went to our next destination.  We found it without difficulty, but it was much farther than I remembered, meaning more fumes and more baking in the sun.  The real challenge was in returning home.  I was getting hot and tired of being on a motorbike seat when Asher decided to take a turn that I sensed was going in the opposite direction of where we live.  The road went on, and on, and on.  Asher said, "let's manifest a magical place to have a cold drink," but instead we passed endless Balinese compounds, ending up on a major road I recognized, with a groan, to be somewhat full circle from where we began.  Coming upon a gas station, we filled up the tank (for about $1.50), downed some bottles of cold water, enjoyed the relief of removing our butts from the bike seat, then wound our way home, stopping to ask directions (in Indonesian) every so often (then trying to figure out the response).

Thoughts are things, I know, and thoughts create.  My thoughts were rather sweaty and stinky at this point.  Basking is much more fun, and so is the result.

Later I decided to go to a yoga class.  Asher would collect Sofia from school and I would find my way into Ubud.  I'll just hire someone from the neighboring village to drive me the 20 minutes to Ubud, I thought.  It actually took a long time to find someone, then I had to wait for him to eat at the small warung and once we got on the road, with just barely enough time to get to my class, we got caught in a logjam of traffic.  I apologized, got out of the car and walked home, not a happy camper.  Clearly, when in allowance, things just flow.  And clearly, the farther I got out of the vortex, the farther still I moved out of the vortex.

It's a few days later and I have cleaned up my mental act.  I'm surfing again.  In the nick of time I remember that back in Oregon I had signed up for a John Hardy led tour of Green School for this very day, October 20. At the time John was a legend to us, yet a stranger.  Today he is somewhere between an acquaintance and... I'm not sure, but  today he said 'Hello, cupcake," as he gave me a kiss.  Our tour group consisted of myself and Asher, Ciara -- an Irish woman who has been teaching internationally for the past 10 years all over the globe and has just arrived in Bali for 2 months, placing her son in Sofia's class -- and Alixis -- a French Canadian man who runs scuba diving expeditions from yachts in the Maldives.  (The Green School attracts fascinating people and the student body represents 30 different nations and counting. They keep flooding in. Sofia is no longer the new kid in her class; 3 more have arrived after 

us!)  

John is no lover of redundancy.  Every tour is different.  Our tour began at PT Bambu Pure, the newest John Hardy empire.  On a green mission to do right by the planet and his potential grandchildren, John has not only created the Green School but also become a developer of bamboo construction.  The company structure, a bamboo warehouse he said he built for a few thousand dollars, houses stacks of enormous bamboo poles and vats of boron used to treat the bamboo for protection from insects.  Bamboo grows as a grass from a mother root, can mature to full height in 4 years and, once the stalks are cut, the same mother can produce again, and again.  On site were a couple of prototypes of their bamboo yurts; to my eye more beautiful than any other yurt I have seen and outfitted with some spiffy bamboo furnishings.  Each building they construct begins as a miniature model.  Initially they used glue to hold the sticks together, but that doesn't last long in this climate and, realizing the pieces should be archived for the future, now have a remarkably patient and nimble restorer tying each tiny piece together with string. 

We walk down the road to the Green School kitchen.  The multiple story building, bamboo of course, sits high on a hill just a one minute walk from our house.  We are across the river from the school which means the kitchen is across the river from the school.  Every day at lunch women carry all the freshly made food on their heads into the Heart of School building, serving all grades and any visitors at the same time.  The food is wholesome and most of it is grown on the school grounds.  We enter the kitchen through a tunnel at street level.  At work preparing the school lunch is my friend Kadek, who is in charge of the kitchen, and we have our first reunion since my arrival in Bali.  I met Kadek on our last trip to Bali and we had a huge, immediate heart connection.  During the jewelry years Kadek traveled around the world with the Hardys as their chef and at one point they sent her for training in raw food preparation, all unusual for the Balinese who rarely leave their island and don't eat much raw food.  The original concept for the kitchen is that it would also be a restaurant; each level was to be a different style of seating, earthy on the bottom level, posh tablecloths on the top and something in between on the middle floor.  Right now the kitchen is... a kitchen, and also a repository of various experiments with bamboo furniture design.  Most Balinese home kitchens are smoky little rooms with wood fires or ranges burning gas, but the Green School kitchen is airy, open and burns bamboo saw dust, a byproduct of the construction.  (That is also how they heat the water for our houses in the Bambu Village.) On the way out we sample fresh long beans (really long green beans) from the kitchen gardens.

After the kitchen tour we head out on motorbikes down the road a bit -- John's brightly painted three wheel motorcycle (that's 2 in front for greater contact with the road) turning many a head in the little Balinese village --  and across the river to the latest construction site: 18 luxury houses made entirely of bamboo, starting price $350,000 U.S. in cash. (That is still  a pretty penny here in Bali, but part of the gentrification boom I have mixed feelings about at the moment.  Bigger, more expensive structures are going up everywhere, most of them not green.  I can't blame anyone... I'd like to create something, too! ) The first three houses are currently under construction, all with a  view of the jungle ravine, all with sweeping roofs and organic curves built into the side of the hill.  Years ago I had a dream of building a curving bamboo house in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.  I am not sure I want to live in a bamboo house forever, but after the tour, in the middle of the night, I dream of a large bamboo structure on the land we are interested in as our retreat center way out in remote Tabanan, little bamboo yurts dotting the property.

Throughout the tour, in the midst of his entertaining, informative, opinionated and lively dialog, I notice John glancing or even staring at my neck.  A couple of times he interrupts himself saying, "That is a beautiful necklace."  Being in the jewelry business a long time and always wearing my creations, I am used to this, yet receiving such a comment from one of the most successful contemporary jewelry designers feels like a significant compliment.  We end the tour at the Green School warung where we sip ginger fizzes and fresh young coconut water.  At one point John takes my hand and examines my ring.  He asks if I still have workers,  says he likes what I do, and perhaps I could make something for him.  Yes, of course, I would be thrilled.  

Even if we never discuss it again, I will bask in this appreciation.  Just thinking about it now, I'm riding the wave a little longer and the radiance feels good.

Flores Adventure

So far life in our new home feels somewhat like summer camp in a bamboo cabin.  Then, after Sofia's first full week of school, we take a week's vacation.  Vacation from summer camp.  It's the Green School's mid-term break; while we were still in Oregon some new friends invited us to join them for a journey to Flores and we just had to say yes.  On the map Flores is a couple of islands to the right of Bali.  In all our years of traveling to Indonesia we have only seen Bali and a bit of central Java making this a big adventure.  We love big adventures. Our travel group is 4 families.  Each family has a first grader in the Green School.  An international rainbow, we fit nicely together: Asher and I (American Jews) with Sofia, our adopted daughter from Hunan; Michelle (Southern Cal) and Andy (Jewish Southern Cal) and their domestically adopted daughter, Kaila; John (London) and Edith (Bostonian Chinese American) with their 3 stair-step girls, two years apart, Lydia, Phoebe and Amelia, plus Edith's mom, June (Taiwan) visiting from America; Steve and Renee (both Canadian, both former U.N. employees in Asia) and their boys, Lochlan and Seth. We meet at the airport in Denpasar, Bali and excitedly board the small plane to Labuan Bajo on the west coast of Flores.  It's a loud, vibrating plane ride, rather like flying out of Medford, Oregon, only a wave a cigarette smoke floats through the cabin when a stewardess leaves the cockpit.  An Indonesian pilot can get away with that.  We fly over ocean and islands, landing on the small airstrip of a tiny airport.  We wait for our luggage in a room with no air con and intense heat.  Welcome to Flores. It takes 3 bimos to transport our herd and all our luggage to our hotel.  A bimo is a ragtag little van with bench seats that face each other, operating somewhere between a taxi and a bus, and is a common form of transportation for locals all over Indonesia.  It seems to be a form of expression for Florenese bimo drivers to decorate their windshields with decals and dangling stuffed animals to the point where you might wonder how they can focus on the road.  Driving the roads in Flores, as we soon learn, requires a high degree of concentration.  Tourist money from Bali is definitely not finding its way to creation of infrastructure in Flores.  To drive is to swerve around potholes. We take our lodging at Chez Felix, up high on a hill overlooking the port.  The rooms are humble, clean and cheap, with overhead fans and cold water showers.  The restaurant area has a view of the ocean and is decorated with a picture of Jesus.  (Flores, once colonized by the Portuguese, is largely Christian.  The Portuguese influence in the gene pool is evident in the features and wavy hair of many Florenese.  We see brightly painted rustic churches throughout the countryside, as well as mosques with silvery mushroom domes.)  During our first outing into central Labuan Bajo, for a meal, a fitting of scuba gear, and a scorching walk along the gorgeous but not so tidy port, Michelle (who has made all the arrangements for the trip, for everyone -- I have not had someone else plan a trip for me since I was a child traveling with my parents) discovers that the two live-aboard boats reserved for us are not what she expected, but more like simple day boats without cabins or tables.  We would all be in intimate quarters, sleeping under the stars.  She is unhappy with the news and feels responsible for the group.  It becomes my job, and Asher's, to know that all is well, that a solution will unfold.  It was an uncomfortable evening for Michelle, but by the next morning we have an even better arrangement than Michelle was anticipating; through another company we have secured one big boat we can all fit on instead of two, and for the same price.  We leave a day later and entertain ourselves by visiting a bat cave and tooling around fishing villages on motorbikes.  The hotel staff give us copious blessings when we depart. Three days at sea... beauty in every direction, endless magnificent cloud formations reflecting into tranquil  waters, a softness and a moistness always in the air.  Mystery and beauty below the water, majesty and beauty above.  We motor past nameless islands and set anchor several times each day, moving from one diving spot to another.  None of us are too keen on our cabins so we sleep comfortably on cushioned lounge chairs pushed together underneath the glorious stars.  The crew prepares all our meals (I teach them to make green smoothies and not add sugar.)  On one idyllic beach we find fantastic shells we cannot keep (national park land) and see perhaps the most gorgeous sunset ever (we did get swarmed by mosquitoes shortly thereafter and had to dash for the boat), only to be rivaled by the next morning's sun event: dolphin sunrise... at least 100 dolphins jumping in the reflection of the sun on the ocean.  The past becomes irrelevant and the future is non-existent. Five of the adults are diving; I have not dived before and take the little motor boat with the children and 2 other women to various stretches of white sand beach and nearly perfect snorkeling (except one day when an aggressive trigger fish charges at three of the children and actually bites one of our Flores crew members).  Two firsts: Sofia, who during swimming lessons this summer still refused to put her face in the water or even try on a pair of goggles, takes immediately to snorkeling in the open sea.  Initially we go out together for long stretches with my arm around her.  Later she tells me I don't need to hold on to her any longer.  She wasn't even phased by the trigger fish coming at us like a torpedo and bouncing off her mask.  The last day,at Asher's encouragement, I took my first ever scuba dive.  With only basic explanation, I got suited up, jumped in and breathed my first breaths underwater.  I didn't have trouble clearing, but every time I went horizontal to swim I bounced up to the surface.  I'd like to get certified and try again.  I guess seeing komodo dragons in the wild is another first.  We did that, too. The last three days we spend in a much more beautiful and comfortable hotel on the beach, with air con and a swimming pool.  The highlight for me, perhaps of the entire trip, was the journey to Cunca Rami, a waterfall in the highlands.  We went by bimo, bouncing and curving our way up to a remote village where we created quite a stir amongst the locals at the opportunity to porter our children in along the 2 km path.  Each of our children had someone who carried them piggyback style down the sometimes steep and gravelly footpath, then back up again. Down, down, down the narrow footpath we paraded, our 7 children and 7 porters, about a dozen school children and a few random adults who decided to join us.  Down, down, down through a jungle of tall trees, across a mineral rich stream, through terraced rice fields, and the stunning waterfall always in the distance. Then we happen upon the falls and the natural swimming pool of clear, fresh water.  The power of the falls sprays cold mist on everyone who comes close enough.  I couldn't wait to get in and swam against the current to let the powerful falls pound on my head.  Three of us swam behind the falls into an alcove.  For years I had visualized a cave behind a waterfall as my special meditation room.  Now it had manifest into form.  After the swim we were actually cold, quite the luxury in Flores.   Now up, up, up, climbing out of the ravine, the local boys singing angelically most of the way.  Sweaty again.  We relax another day and return to Bali.  We all get such a chuckle out of returning from vacation to... Bali!  Bali looks like a metropolis compared to Flores.  The first person we see when we return is the general manager of Green School who invites us to begin creating raw food in the school warung (small restaurant).  The Flores adventure ends.  The culinary adventure begins.

Bali Glow

I noticed it our very first visit to Bali.  A liquid radiance in the people's eyes, an inner glow pouring out into the world.  I saw it when bargaining with shopkeepers, after we had reached an agreement and everyone was happy, sama sama, good for me, good for you.  I saw it when trekking through the rice fields, exchanging simple greetings with the farmers, seeing their faces light up like sunshine with each smile. I found it everywhere the children play, not with expensive toys, usually not with toys at all, just tussling and rolling and running around with each other, eyes flashing brilliantly.  I photographed it to remember it.  We were on our honeymoon, in 1997.  On the porch of our beach cottage, a couple of weeks into our stay, I captured on film that same warm glow in my husband's eyes.  I thought to myself, "That is the way I want to live."


Many years earlier, traveling in Kenya alone in my 20s, I happened upon a mirror near the kitchen of my little bungalow on the Indian Ocean.  I hadn't seen myself in a mirror for a couple of weeks.  I was startled by the look in my eyes; clear, peaceful and radiant.  I had come into alignment with myself.  Much of my life since then has been about learning to maintain that alignment.


Living daily in Bali vibe, earthy and open to the elements, I already see the Bali change clearly in Sofia, in Asher.  We pick Sofia up at school and she has an air of uncensored freedom in her movements; not that she was restricted in the forest of southern Oregon, but the degree of relaxation and fluidity is notable.  She came home after her third day of school and said, "The Balinese kids in my class talk like this," and proceeded to pull off a perfect Indonesian accent the rest of the night.  I can tell she is digging the variety of subjects and I don't have to prod to find out what she's been doing all day, she rattles on and on.  Asher has a grin just about all day long.  That's not really anything new, is it?  Still, there is that certain Bali glow that I am beginning to notice in my family.  


It's easier to see it in others than in myself.  We have only one mirror right now, in the bathroom, and it is not a full mirror.  I don't look at the mirror much, but when I do I don't immediately recognize myself:  my hair is about three feet high with curls.

One of my neighbors, Phan, a Cambodian woman who grew up in Thailand after her family escaped the madness of Pol Pot, gave me a Thai massage at her house.  She used a menthyl balm as she rubbed; it caught the breeze of the overhead fan making me almost cold, an increasingly unfamiliar feeling.  In the background I could hear the soft thud of a machete against plant material as the Balinese man who tends to all the gardens in our village cleared space for a new plot.  (I have seen this man working in the gardens the last several days in tall boots, long pants, a long sleeve shirt and a great big wool hat as if he is expecting an ice storm, while I am wanting the lightest, most wispy fabrics and find even my usually comfortable yoga clothes feel heavy.)  I hear the ever present song of the insects, soothing jungle white noise.  Softly, in the distance, Asher is playing the flugelhorn.  Phan folds me into poses that stretch me, using her knees, elbows, hands and sometimes her whole body to knead me.  She expresses amazement at my flexibility in some positions, but when she gets to my upper back she asks me if I carry a lot (maybe giant water bottles up deep ravines or baskets of rocks on my head like some women in Bali).  I've just been carrying stress, the stress of moving halfway around the world, of major life transformation.  Now it starts to dissipate...

Another of my neighbors came for a visit.  Visiting happens often in the Bambu Village and does not involve knocking on the front  door as there isn't any.  A visitor simply shows up, says hello and the visit has begun while I am perhaps peeling a pineapple or doing a yoga stretch.  Sometimes the visitor walks in and sometimes the visit happens from the front steps.  This visitor, Ajay, joined Asher and I at the dinner table.  I wasn't quite sure of his function at the school -- he seems to be involved in most everything -- and it turns out he is the General Manager, meaning he has his hand in everything other than the actual classroom education.  Ajay asked us to put ideas together for improving the school warung (small restaurant) and bringing raw food to the school community.  I came to Bali with the intention of creating a raw food restaurant in Ubud, only to find out that one had opened just days before our arrival.  I have been completely at ease with that news, knowing somehow it would all work out.  Working with the existing Green School warung feels like a wonderful start, an opportunity to share healthy living food and develop bonds with this community at the same time.   Ajay said we'll pour over the ideas and decide where to begin, which equipment to acquire, which equipment to create, what direction to head.  Music to my ears.  I'd like to build a solar dehydration system.  If it's for the Green School, it will probably involve bamboo.  Scroll down to see some other uses of bamboo in the school's central building, called Heart of School.

Bamboo poles suspended from above...
a dangling musical instrument that is also a great place
for hide and seek.

Groovy Green School use of Bamboo

Danish Modern Bamboo style.

Bamboo poles slit in half and filled in with
glass form a long table.

Settling In

We are settling in nicely!  Sofia has had her first two full days of school, Friday and Monday.

We walk to school; down the mountain, across the bambu bridge, up the mountain, through the 8th grade rice growing project, past the scarecrow wearing crocs, up to her classroom.

She is making new friends, but doesn't always remember their names, and rattles on all evening about what she did during the day.  Her first grade class has 2 periods three times per week of green studies where they learn about the environment in both the macro and micro/hands on the compost.  The schedule includes music, drama, visual arts, p.e., Indonesian language, math/English/science, global awareness and community outreach (not sure about the actual content with the last two as we haven't had them yet).  I could write pages about the school and probably will as time goes on.  What a dynamic and cutting edge place, and what an honor and blessing to be a part of it, to live beside it, to be immersed in this community.

While Sofia and I were at her school (I promised her I would stay the first day), Asher had an outrageous cycling experience.  A group of 4 men and 1 woman headed out from John Hardy's house in the back of a padded, open bed truck with their bikes.  (If you don't recognize the name, John Hardy is one of the most successful contemporary jewelry designers and the founder of the Green School.  He came to Bali in the 1960s and put Balinese silversmithing on the international market.)  The truck left them off high in the mountains beside a volcano and the group proceeded to ride into and climb out of a crater, then work their way back to the Ubud area around 40 miles later.  Somewhere along the way the Asher followed John around a curve to the right and the others missed the turn.  Asher ended up back at John Hardy's house where they had lunch together.  John had his staff make Asher a full raw meal.  They talked for quite a while and John invited us to a party the next day.  Asher said every moment was magical.

Sofia's homework on Friday was to have fun during the weekend and we took the assignment seriously.  Not having many groceries or kitchen equipment yet, we went out to breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants in Ubud beside the town futbol (football, as in soccer) field where we could watch the school children in hot pink uniforms playing during gym class.  Then we went to the Ubud organic market, carrying home on our motorbike several big canvas grocery bags full of tropical fruits and vegetables, including a bunch of freshly harvested baby ferns I've been using for salads. 

At three in the afternoon we were at John Hardy's house, as requested.  He lives along the Sayan Ridge, near the Aman Dari and the Four Seasons, overlooking the Ayung River (the Green School is also beside the Ayung, down river about 10 minutes from Sayan).  The house is rustic, yet refined, rather like John's personality (he can be a bit gruff, yet is welcoming and generous), with everything facing the spectacular jungle view of the deep ravine.  We sipped healthy stevia sweetened drinks, chatted and waited for the family to assemble.  John's drivers took two carloads 45 minutes up into the hill country.  Sofia and I were in a car with John and his daughters, 14 and 10, open, vivacious, worldly girls who attend the Green School, and it was fun to listen to the banter.  

The party was a spectacle.  An American man who specializes in building fake waterfalls for casinos purchased a huge, remote property and then spent 5 years landscaping it, keeping the whole thing a secret from his wife.  The party was a surprise for her 50th birthday and had actually begun the day before when 60 of her friends from California showed up at the beach.  We walked past the heart shaped rice fields (see facebook photo) to the massive and magestic main pavilion built traditionally from bambu by John's company (he's out of the jewelry and into the bamboo business) for mixed drinks and your choice of 6 kinds of gelato while taking in the unobscured view.  We followed the stones -- there must have been thousands of them, carefully laid out -- all the way down to a clear creek, then back up again (sweating in nice clothes is socially acceptable in Bali), finding a bambu yurt and 2 joglo (traditional Sumatran) houses along the way, simply and gorgeously appointed.  A band played from the upper of two stages on the property.  At dusk the crowd moved to the lower stage for what started out as a traditional Balinese dance performance, the music a contemporary blend of Balinese gamelan and electronica.  Soon the dancers had fire in their palms.  Suddenly they wisked away their costumes, revealing little burlesque outfits underneath (I have never seen anything like this in Bali), and danced with flaming umbrellas, some with peacock fans of flames behind them.  The conclusion of the dance rolled the crowd back to the upper stage for another band and a happy birthday song.  During the huge buffet of Balinese food fireworks erupted, not from a safe American distance, but up close.  The pacing was different, too: instead of a slow build up to a grand finale it just went full force from the first moment to the last in the most spectacular and loud display I have ever seen.  I screamed with delight through the whole thing!

Back home in our Bambu Village we needed to deliver a message to one of our neighbors, a family from India who have lived in Connecticut and in Singapore before Bali.  She is a the second grade teacher at the school and he is a Green School administrator.  They invited us in, we fell into a remarkable conversation about raw food and nutrition, and they are eager to have us bring raw food to the school warung (little restaurant).  Turns out they had been dreaming of something like that, and so had we!

Sunday, after a potluck breakfast at our house getting to know all of our Bambu Village neighbors, we went river rafting with a group of 63 people from the Green School.  I have stayed at the Four Seasons and seen the view, similar to the Hardy's, from other properties in Sayan throughout the years, but I had never been on the Ayung River in a raft.  It was a completely different experience being IN the ravine; magical, gorgeous tropical views in every direction giant ferns, giant trees, waterfalls everywhere.  One long stretch of the stone wall ravine has been intricately carved with scenes from the Ramayana.  Our Balinese raft guide had a fantastic smile and gave off an air of strength and confidence.  Having worked for this outfit for 14 years, he knew how to expertly poise our raft on a rock, then wiggle the raft around knocking it off backward into the rapids to our squeals.  We stopped at a giant waterfall and got in -- one of my favorite things in life -- the water pounding hard on our helmeted heads.  

After the spectacular ride was over, John Hardy (yes, he was there again) invited us to the home of another Green School family for cocktails.  The owner, Chris, is an American married to a Japanese woman who has been running Lifespring type sessions in Asia for years.  The house was exquisite,  rustic and elegant at once.  I walked around the various pavilions in dreamlike wonder at the beauty of it all while Sofia and friends played in the infinity pool overlooking the spectacular Ayung valley.  Chris is the kind of host who can't bear to see an empty glass in your hand and immediately refreshes your drink.  He was serving very, very good vodka, so I was glad we had arrived by car with our new Lithuanian neighbors instead of traveling by motorbike.

Today, Monday, I walked Sofia to school (down, down, down then up, up, up) then joined about 25 other parents for a presentation by an author in town for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival which begins on this week.  His name is Imran Ahmad and he did a reading from his memoir "Unimagined", a funny, heartfelt story about growing up Muslim in England.  I have (barely) started a memoir and it was encouraging to hear his tale.  I spoke to him afterwards and he discreetly slipped me a copy of his book and told me to hand it to him for signing.

It's the middle of the night, the first chance I've had to write and it's pouring (pouring) rain during the supposedly dry season.  Everything is working our beautifully.  Just when I wonder how we will get water for our dispenser -- the school has a deep well of pure water, but remember the down, down, down and the up, up, up) -- a Balinese woman from the neighboring village shows up looking for work and is happy to fill our 5 gallon jug, carrying it on her motorbike.  She is also now doing our laundry at her house, another thing I was wondering about having received an answer.  More pictures soon.  Much love to you all...