sounds of indonesia

Love, S1

Month two in paradise and finally, the amazing swimming turtles

Dear sisters,

You can't know how happy I am to be showing this video to you, which I had promised you in my last post. It took a mere three hours and twenty minutes to upload and that is not counting the five days of frustrated and frustrating attempts. Internet is neither a fast nor reliable medium in Paradise.





As you can see serious underwater swimming training has been going on in the past month. The first challenge of swimming a pool length underwater has been conquered and now the turtles are training for a length and back again, in a single breath.

The weather is hot and the living is still easy. Not much has changed, although we are both making slight personal progress on the yoga mat and in Bahasa Indonesian, which means I can now push my hands up to a backbend saying "saya suka ini" (I like it") at the same time. This, of course, is of no interest to anyone except me, so I will keep it at that.

We have seen ceremonies, cock fights, big birds, ugly birds, more sunsets and eaten good things. I am wearing flowy garments to manage the heat. In the evening we may watch an illegal copy of a recent movie, for purchase at 1 USD everywhere, with strange English subtitles, but usually our eyes fall shut before 10 pm.




And now it is alright for both of you to tell us all about you.

Love S1

healer

On the outskirts of our village lies a large concrete walled house with a two car garage, and what seem like watchtowers overlooking the rice paddies. Often when we drive past, a blue "taksi" will be coming, just as another is going. Frequently multiple cars are parked in the sandy gutter.



Here lives a locally renowned Balinese healer, who has a busy practice.

One day Wayan, our present driver, asked if we would like to see him. I stuck my hand up, so the next day he set off early to ask permission. He came back and said I was lucky, because the healer could see me at 9.30 the same morning. I borrowed a sarong from Putu, our cook, who could not hold a straight face as she tried to fasten it around my big white body. She also prepared an offering basket with pretty flowers and two sticks of incense. I would just have to add some money when I got there.




At the entrance to the house, a monkey chained to a wire, munched a banana.

Inside was a flowery courtyard with statues placed here and there. A pretty woman in Balinese ceremonial dress came out smiling to greet me. I smiled and returned her greeting. I was uncertain what to do next. Wayan coached me. He advised me to put 100.000 Rhupia in the basket, which is about 10 USD, not a local offering. I placed the basket under a golden statue of what looked like Krishna and Wayan lit the incense. Soon a friendly faced man dressed all in white, with a bushy mustache and big warm hands came out to greet me. His English was very good. "What can I do for you?" he asked with a big grin. Not quite sure what he could do for me, I said I had been ill not too long ago and wanted to know if I was okay.




"Come in, come in." I will first have to see you" he said as he ushered me into a small room with a low table covered in flowers and colorful fabrics, banana leaf mats on the floor. I sat cross legged on one side of the table and he on the other. "Now concentrate on my forehead", he said. "I must see you", gesticulating his hand in a up and downward motion. I concentrated very hard on the spot between his furrowed brows as he closed his eyes. At a certain point he lifted his left arm slowly over his head and flicked away a flower from between his thumb and forefinger, which I guess meant he had seen me. "You will be very lucky , he said. I can see that'" Then: "Your stomach, you have problems with your stomach (that's from our colonics I wanted to say, but didn't), lower back and neck". "Okay", I said, waiting to see what would come next.

"Come here and lie down."

There was another mat with a white pillow next to the healer. I lay on my back with my head on the pillow and he started massaging my abdomen very hard. I had to turn over on my stomach and he briefly massaged my lower back. Then I was asked to sit cross-legged facing him, lowering my head onto his chest, so he could massage my neck.

"I see your heart" he said suddenly, and made me sit up again.

"You have a very slow heart rate"

This, actually is true. Very often when I had my heart rate measured in San Francisco, the machine would start beeping because I fell under the normal range. There, nobody seemed too bothered about it. But the healer was concerned. My heart needed a massage too, he said. He prodded hard in my chest bone for a while. And then again.

"Now let me see you again" he said and I had to look at his face again as he closed his eyes, the lids not quite falling shut, so I could see the whites of his eyes vibrating ever so slightly underneath.

"You are good now", he eventually said, "Just a slow heart." "Keep breathing deeply" And with that advice, he fixed a fragrant flower in my hair, dotted my forehead with holy water and I was on my way.




And now for something completely different:

The amazing swimming turtles!

Detoxing

The first thing on the list of "thing to try while we are here" was a good detox. "And when you do it, you should do it thoroughly", was my idea when I signed my husband and I up for the "tissue cleansing special", which included supplements for six days of fasting, a massage, and six colonics!

Yes, that is correct, we voluntarily signed up to have six colonic hydrotherapy sessions, which, without beating around the bush, basically means you get a garden hose up your bottom, which then flushes water at body temperature in, in order to flush the toxins out, bits that may have been sitting there for years, in my case nothing other than flowers and butterflies.

The favorite story was the one of the man who had been a vegetarian for six years and still had undigested red meat removed.

This treatment promises many things - of course non of it scientifically proven - but a good colonic could, according to the pamphlet, help rid you of symptoms such as exhaustion, bad skin, obesity, bad breath, loss of sexdrive etc etc. The list was long. We heard stories of of people who knew people who knew people who claimed it was almost a religious experience. Lady Di was a big fan of colonics.

We were starting to look forward to this.

In the treatment room these masks hung on the wall, to motivate us:


This is how it works:



To cut a long story short, during the first session we felt nauseous, sweaty and dizzy, and very few flowers and butterflies came out, nothing to justify a letter home. We came out angry and confused. Our high hopes dashed. One day of fasting and even Paradise lost its luster. Allard had his conspiracy theory at the ready. We quickly changed to the less demanding three session package.

Of course after three days we hopped on to that table like old pro's, and I suppose we are glad what came out is out, but not as glad as we are to be back on our usual diet of nasi campur and banana lassies. Not sure if this is going to be my favorite.

Love S1

one month in paradise

One month in Paradise. The newcomer’s eyes and ears have faded. Vowels have popped into focus, formerly hidden in the collection of consonants that seemed to be the Bahasa language. The sounds are now familiar, although the meanings, we are ashamed to say, can still only be guessed. We will be starting lessons next week.



It is harvesting time and the smoke from burning the stalks that remain after threshing the rice, drifts into our open living room in the afternoon. The little makeshift tents at the side of the roads house the Javanese who are here to do the work. The rice husks are laid out on plastic sheets on the road and if no room is left to manoeuver, our driver will drive over them. I love the ‘scarecrows’; lines drawn across the paddies with bits of plastic tied to them, varying in size and color, flapping in the wind.



Katut 2, our driver, honks two brief pips, every time he passes a sacred Banyan tree in front of a cemetery: to warn the sprits in the tree, should they be thinking of crossing the road. We are glad to have found out demons only move in straight lines and cannot turn corners.



My husband and I have proven we are remarkably good at doing nothing much. In January we found partners in crime with an Australian accent and what started out as morning coffee and heated discussions often developed into late lunch and undoubtedly ended in rushing to pick up the children.



Since the beginning of the month we have moved into our rock star villa on the coast and have joined the carpool in the village, which involves coordinating the drivers to take and pick up the six kids. We have been keeping up a busy schedule of yoga, swimming, massage, reading and involuntarily smiling resulting from the bearable lightness of being here.



Rosie unfortunately looks like she has chicken pox with the bug bites covering her arms and legs. They just seem to get her wherever she goes. For some reason she talks about death a lot, asking people if they have seen a person die. On the bright side, Rosie has learnt to swim in three weeks; water spouting through a curtain of hair, pink goggles and furious paddling. Before every meal she makes us sing a song, which thanks Mother Earth and Father Sun, and all the plants in the garden where the mother and father are one. She is not completely settled and misses her friends, but it could be worse with a 17 meter infinity pool in her garden.



Jip is still having a great time with his new friends, with only the occasional relapse, and likes the fact they sing songs at school to help him subtract. He will be starting guitar lessons next week. We hope the musical genes have sidestepped a generation.

Yoga: we are doing a lot of it. In fact we have just spent two intense and painful days with "yoga is political activism" Yivamukti founders David Life and Sharon Gannon, who told us with wagging fingers that doing yoga while you still eat meat is like driving a car with your brakes on. I haven't eaten meat in four days. I do not like friction.

We roll our eyes a little at the spiritual journey travelers drawn to Bali, comparing their latest treatments in the health food cafés, but you can bet your favorite dress we will be trying everything they are trying while we are here:
Detox cleansing week with garden hose and supplements? Check.
Aryurvedic healer with lymphatic drainage massage? Check.
Spirulina in our drinks? Check.
Massage from God? Check.

Love S1

Snowflakes and Elvis

Warm greetings from Prague where everything is covered in a thick blanket of snow , even our friend Elvis.
Here is a star of a song dedicated to you all and the snow
Love me tender
Love S 3

The curious incident of the dog or one week in Paradise

Dear sisters,

One week on Bali and it feels as if we have been here longer. The island is as beautiful as they said it would be, although I feel I have only seen a muted version so far, the sounds and smells not quite making it through the window panes of our chauffeur driven car, often hindered by curtains of rain, coming down fast and furiously, making us look at each other and say; "Glad we are staying longer. "





The kids started at the Greenschool/ ecological experiment/bamboo showcase last Monday. In fact, We ALL started at the Green school, which is luscious, living up to its name. The Heart of the school, as it is called, is a three-story bamboo structure, the biggest of its kind in the world we are told. Around it, smaller bamboo open structures house the bamboo classrooms, dotted over the grounds, which is essentially in the middle of green nowhere. It is all quite impressive. In the bamboo bathrooms there are two toilets, one for number one and one for number two. The waste is used to compost the organic vegetables grown on the land, which can be ordered weekly. Three times a week parents can do a yoga class in the morning, when they are not having coffee in the school warung (café), which has (spotty) wifi and grand feathered cockerels pecking their way around. We have met lot of nice people all doing interesting things, but not too much.





At some point we will plug the kids into the mini van pick up service to school, but for now we are all up at 6.30 am for breakfast and off by 7.15, driven by our driver, a Katut, or when he "has ceremony" a Made ( they only have four first names here) manoevering through the sea of mopeds, bumping along the crater ridden roads, slaloming to miss the big ones, through the rice paddies and past the temples, before arriving at the school forty five minutes later. In the car Jip and Allard may play Monopoly on the i-phone because the landscape can get tedious in its beauty. "Like it is a painted", Jip says, "especially the palm trees." "Painted by a very good painter."

Jip and Rosie both seem to be going to school quite happily, although Jip complains it is too easy. We will see how that goes. He has found a friend who started on the same day, so that is good news. Rosie’s lunch was grabbed out of the lunch basket and eaten by a stray dog on the first day, but this opened up a wonderful sharing opportunity. She clearly appreciates this school has swings.




During school hours Allard and I have been looking at houses, hanging in health food cafes, and taking an occasional massage or yoga class, gently easing into Bali sabbatical life while we get ourselves sorted. Hearing our mothers voice in my head (“I hate unmaintained feet!”) I had a pedicure on the top floor of Balinese wooden building, overlooking red rooftops, the beaded curtains clicking gently in the breeze and cocks crowing, as the smiling girl wafted my toes dry with a small hand held fan.



Other highlights have been the monkeys in monkey forest, daily swimming, a baby bird found dead next to the pool, lizards scampering over the walls at night, and the water park called Waterbom. The mosquitoes are bothering us and I might have a nasi break at breakfast tomorrow, but otherwise we have few complaints.

So you see, we are off to a good start. I would like to get into a more permanent place and get those eight suitcases unpacked, half of which will probably not be used until we travel to cooler places. It is still unclear if we can get the dream house we have seen. The owner is apparently not so keen on having small children in his house. If he knew how bad.

Tomorrow we move into a temporary place closer to school for ten days. It has a Toucan living at the entrance. By the first of the month we will hopefully know where we will be for the rest of the year, just in time for the first guests. The fact that we have only seen the coast once since we have been here, and from a distance at that, suggested to us we are not the beach people we could have been, so for now we have settled on Ubud as the place to land, which is more inland and has views like this.



Will keep you informed.

Love,

S1