Caught in the Bali Web – #12

my dear friends,

hope you are well. 

life in bali is peaceful and intense at the same time, as usual. dogs bark, pigs go for a walk and it’s durian season. those of you who know durian you don’t need any explanation. if you like it i admire you, as it is described as king of all fruits with a heavenly taste – but – i haven’t managed to try it yet. for those of you who don’t know durian.. what to say? the fruit is either a huge favourite or absolute no-no and the stench is incredible. at the moment you can smell it everywhere – on the streets, in supermarkets, driving down the road (even if your windows are up!!).. it has this weird quality of staying stuck in your nose so you can still smell it when there is no durian around! i guess i’ll have to stay here a bit longer to muster the courage to taste it. at the same time it’s mangosteen and rambutan season and i’m a happy consumer of both. this island is so abundant and there is always so much to try.

apart from the natural bounty there is the man-made bounty too – the trash. the garbage season is still on and as last year we have participated in ‘one island one voice’ event – the biggest clean-up in bali so far, with more than 100 locations across the island. this time we decided to give beaches a miss and see what is hidden in the ubud jungle. i certainly wasn’t prepared for what i saw )-: john hardy, the founder of green school and a passionate green warrior (who organises trash walks regularly – you can participate in one when you come to bali. i know it might sounds like something you do not wish to do but it’s actually super interesting and educational) took us to an illegal dump site close to the sacred Ayung river. and we discovered… everything. the enormous amount of shoes, used nappies, alcohol bottles, plastic in all shapes, colours and sizes, organic waste mixed with it all.. we even had a little competition with other locations for the ‘weirdest’ thing discovered – my personal favourites being (unused) condom and morning after pill ((-; the cat scull also gained some points.

the most difficult information for me to digest was the fact that all those things were household trash – and the householders actually paid for the garbage collection. what they (i guess) didn’t know was that after being collected, their garbage is simply tossed in the nearby forest by those same people they paid to for collection. the absence of any waste management is certainly to blame but at the same time it is a great opportunity to look at our own shopping and consuming habits. how many useless things in even more useless containers/packagings we regularly and without thinking buy.. the spearing of nappies will certainly stay in my mind for a while.

to move away from this depressing topic – we had a cute visitor in our garden recently – completely innocent-looking little snake that turned out to be a baby spitting cobra. as i’m no fan of killing snakes we have called the famous ubud snake guy to our (and cobra’s) rescue. it took him a while to arrive so dan was guarding the snake with a spear, dogs and kids as spectators. when the guy showed up he asked me for a dustpan and broom and in 20 seconds swept the snake into a sack to release him into a rice paddy later. very impressive! i must laugh as i vividly remember when my dear dubai friend was sharing a story of her mom in goa who had a cobra in the house and had to call snake catcher. i found it hilarious that somebody would have a snake catcher’s number in his/her phone just in case.. and here i am, doing exactly the same! who would have thought so couple of years ago in dubai!

life is changing and we are changing with it. i have never been an extremely orderly person and certainly not obsessed with cleaning (as some  of you might know..) but i do observe my standards are seriously slipping while i’m adjusting to our bali life.. having a shower in our outdoor bathroom recently i noticed a huge spider web in the corner. instead of freaking out i found myself observing beauty of the water droplets on the net, sun shining through, really enjoying sharing my shower with the spider. ugh?!?

and although i do not particularly fancy the gecko shit everywhere i became kind of used to the constant presence of these little (and sometimes bigger) creatures. i do not jerk anymore when i enter the kitchen and they scatter into all directions on the countertop. i’m just a little bit worried about one of them falling into our indo version of vitamix.. then the smoothie would be really high in protein! i seem to be turning a blind eye on more and more ‘imperfections’ and just wonder where the relaxed approach ends and filth starts.. there seems to be a lot of space in between. i must say that i still have a lot to learn from dominik who took the lowering of standards to a completely new level. as i do not want to be that ‘always yelling, demanding and criticising mother’ i have given up.. but i sincerely hope that one day he would start to care. i recently spoke to a few friends who grew up with older brothers and the stories they shared.. were pretty gross. the brothers all seem to have turned out pretty much ok so there is a hope!

getting to the kids – they both are doing really well and the time at school just flies which worries me a bit. why everything goes so fast!?! linda and her ‘little’ friends are suddenly not so little any longer, interested in countless previously unheard of things, having secrets and lives of their own. excuse me? dominik apart from challenging us on a daily basis is the most conscientious student giving us a lot of joy as we see how he absorbs, evaluates, creates.. green school is such a great place for him!

and for us too. recently – on february 14th – i again realised how lucky we are. instead of the usual ‘valentine’s day’ style which makes me slightly nauseous, green school as a community celebrated the V-day – day that reminds, informs, confronts the violence against women. sad, funny, crazy, profound.. simply unbelievable. what an experience to give to your kids – for the boys to clearly see what is not acceptable, for the girls to raise their voices!!! check out the 1 billion rising!

looks like i have again written more than enough, not even mentioning dan’s trip down memory lane (10 days in dubai), my newly acquired gorgeous girlfriends (who can among other things seriously discuss life, gossip and alien abductions), the great books i recently read, weird places i went to (like ubud pyramids..). i’ll keep that for next time!

lots of love,

jarka

xx