Dear sisters,
We have returned to Bali where it rains every day and a Starbucks has opened on the Ubud high street, much to the dismay of the expat community.
Nevertheless, the traffic seems to have died down some, and the temperature is good. The butterflies are out and the swallows still dip the pool at dusk. It is only three months before our Bali adventure is over and we shall return to the homeland. The realization is here.
The children have told us the two weeks were too long for us to be away and they may be right, although the weeks flew by on our side.
San Francisco was beautiful and Burning Man second year round was better.
My husband and I found a good modus vivendi for our different ways of expressing appreciation of the event (You might be surprised, but my husband likes to jump around, shouting "I love it!", while I am more of the smiling and walking type.)
After communicating as much on the first day, we let each other express however, and whichever way, each one felt was necessary for their enjoyment, meeting at intersections, which worked out wonderfully. Couples together at BM are not necessarily a success, so this is a breakthrough.
Our camp was named Camp Zardoz after a movie by John Boorman (1974), involving Sean Connery running through the movie in a red leather diaper as a "barbarian" called Zed and Charlot Rampling playing a character called Consuella, an "immortal". The immortals eat green bread.
The New York times critic Roger Ebert called it a "genuinely quirky movie, a trip into a future that seems ruled by perpetually stoned set decorators....The movie is an exercise in self-indulgence.."
We watched it twice before we went out to the desert, once with the director's commentary which did nothing to clarify the plot. In both instances, it served well as a sleep-aid. Even John, in his commentary, admitted that here and there, it may have been a bit much.
It involves, amongst others, a giant floating head. You need to know that you can only enter the vortex through the head and Zardoz is derived from 'The Wizard of Oz".
At 8.50 and Jakarta, we built four yurts made of foam board and reflective insulating tape, developed by Dutch students for refugee camps, and they were luxurious and spacious by Playa standards, especially after we installed our own air-conditioning units. We made a shower, which you could use kneeling down, and set up a small vertical privacy -tent, set back a little from the rest of the camp, so the men could pee in a bottle without walking all the way to the porta potties at night. Yes, you wanted to know that. We had a chill dome, a kitchen dome and shade for hanging during the day.
Our fellow Zardozians, all 13 of us, blended beautifully this year and made the event.
We shared meals at sunset, followed blinking hearts Deep into the Playa, complimented each others' outfits, played petang in a park at midnight, clustered close together in dust storms, shouted "ZARDOZ! across the sands, sat cross-legged in a circle, observing the lights from a distance and were always relieved to see a Zardoz rescue team find missing persons, especially if we were the ones missing.
Music camps played very loud music this year. I can only describe it as sawing metal to random beats - A. can do a good impression, you could ask him. We do not know what style it is; punk house, metal house? I know not, but I think the general idea is to avoid melody. We tried to get away from it, if we could. The art cars were the ones we went to for dancing.
When it was done, breaking down camp on Sunday only took 5 hours, we hugged and kissed, and promised to bring camp Zardoz back again.
Right, that was it.
S3 and friend are currently escaping the Ubud rain with a trip to the Gilli islands for a few days, with a bag so small, my toilet bag wouldn't fit in it. I have respect for this kind of light traveling.
Love S1
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