Moving from remorselessly efficient Singapore to laid-back Bali is somewhat like coming to another planet. I remember calling Singtel one Friday afternoon to ask for a dedicated fax line to be installed in my house. "Well, we can’t do it today," snapped the Chinese operator. "You’ll have to wait til Monday." Imagine.
I’ve decided that there’s a certain demented charm in getting things done here. This attitude usually keeps me sane, if not sweet-tempered, in the face of the most astonishing misunderstandings. It’s taken me a couple of years to begin to understand the nuances of how things work. The early days were somewhat frustrating.
When I first moved to Bali, I contracted a house and garden at the end of a lane off the main road. An unlovely barbed wire fence, strung from a series of concrete posts, was my sole barrier against the world. There was a steep ravine to one side of the house, and the busy road 50 meters away. My fence had collapsed in places and could easily have been broached at any time by an enterprising child with a pair of strong scissors. I was not very happy there alone at night.
With the coming of Karma, a Kintamani puppy, I decided that we both need a fence. He would have the run of the garden instead of living at the end of a long chain to prevent him wandering up to the road. And I wanted the psychological barrier that six feet of bamboo would provide. Made Driver assured me that he could get good bamboo near his village, so I embarked on my first building project.
Made knew of a tukang who could make a good fence, and one afternoon brought him back from the village for a meeting. His name was Wayan, of course, and he was accompanied by an unnamed giggling youth with a wall eye. We sat around the big table on the patio and Made served as middleman and interpreter. I already had a good idea of the cost of materials and knew what the daily wage was. I’d measured the perimeter of the property and estimated the number of metres of bamboo required. Only after Wayan had toured the garden, taken part in a long general chat about the house, consumed a glass of coffee and smoked two clove cigarettes did he feel it was appropriate to get down to business. How long did he estimate the fence would take to build? About a month, he stated gravely. A month? With two men working on it full time? Why so long? Because, he indicated with a sweep of his arm, the garden was very big. The fence would be at least 200 metres in length.
I very gently informed him that I had measured the perimeter and the fence would, in fact, be about 65 metres long. Aha, he said without blinking. In that case the fence would take about 16 days. Of course, he and his friend would both be paid a premium on the going daily rate and provided with two meals and a place to sleep and wash.
Ketut Pembantu, who had been eavesdropping shamelessly while sweeping the same step for twenty minutes, furrowed her brow in a way that clearly informed me she would not be doing the cooking. And where would they sleep? They’d hang a few sarongs in the carport for privacy and set up housekeeping there. Of course they would have to use the house for washing and the toilet. Ketut Pembantu’s body language indicated that she would not be happy with this arrangement. Nor was I.
I thanked them most kindly for their time as Made brought the car around to drive them back to the village. As the black Jimmy lumbered up the lane I sat back and gazed blankly out over the rice fields with the calculator in my hands. Pak, the neighbouring rice farmer, was squatting in a corner of a field, hammering a wooden box into shape. Ketut Pembantu swiped at a cobweb with her bundle of twigs, her little face expressionless.
"Ketut," I ventured, "Could Pak make the fence?"
Her expression changed instantly. "Pak can make," she assured me with a wide smile. The next morning Made confirmed this. We called Pak in for a meeting. We went over the same territory again, with Ketut Pembantu taking a place at the negotiating table. At one point Made turned to me and said, "We should be friendly. Sometimes Pak fix the roof. Sometimes you ask Pak to cut the grass. So…" I got the message; don’t negotiate too hard. I needed Pak for future work around the house. It turned out he was happy with the going rate and required neither meals nor housing. The deal was struck. I left a wad of rupiah with Made and departed on a 6 week business trip.
Email communication with my house-sitter informed me that the fencing project was not proceeding particularly smoothly. Made Driver had not ordered enough bamboo. He’d had to bribe the truck drivers to bring it from the mountains late at night because it was illegal to cut bamboo without a license (now he tells me) and Pak was not working every day. I read the periodic updates from cyber cafes in Manila, Bangkok and Singapore and congratulated myself on being absent during all this angst. In fact, when I returned, the fence was fine, just what I’d wanted.
Emboldened, I decided to undertake another project. When I first took the house, I had quickly (by Balinese standards) added a two-by-three metre nook to the patio. This would be my kitchen; I envisioned myself contentedly chopping and stirring while enjoying the ravishing view, with my guests sipping arak cocktails at the dining table on the patio a few feet away.
The addition had stood empty for two months. Now it was time to build the customized prep table/storage unit that would be the anchor of my new kitchen. This piece of furniture, lovingly designed over many weeks, was to be nearly 3 metres long and a metre high, with enough drawers and cupboards to store my dinner service for 16, Cuisineart and other exotic kitchen accessories I’d been crazy enough to bring to rural Indonesia.
The household negotiating team convened once more. Pak and Made muttered in Balinese over the calculator, explained to me about the different kinds of wood that could be used and their cost, and named a figure that made me groan. This was on a Wednesday afternoon. We agreed that Pak and Made would go and buy the wood on Monday, and construction would begin immediately. Pak sauntered off to his fields.
On Friday morning at eight o’clock, Ketut Pembantu arrived on the back of a motorcycle. This was unusual enough but her escort, a handsome lad in jeans, followed her into the yard, settled comfortably on the top step of the patio and lit a cigarette. Ketut went about her morning routine and I returned to my computer, somewhat puzzled. I peeked out a few times but the man showed no signs of going away. Finally I asked Ketut, "Who is that?" "Ketut brother," she explained. Oh. She continued to wash dishes. "Why is he here?" I finally enquired. "Talk to Made Driver." Oh. I returned to my office. Evidently a meeting had been set up for some reason. All would no doubt be made clear when Made arrived.
But it wasn’t. Ketut’s brother chatted briefly to Made when he arrived, then roared away on his motorcycle. When Made and I had left on our round of errands, I asked, "What did he want?"
Made looked puzzled. "He was talking about making the kitchen table."
" But Pak is doing that."
" Yes, he is."
" And Ketut knows that."
" Yes."
We drove in silence for a while, digesting this. "So why did he want to talk to you?" I pressed.
" I don’t understand."
At least I wasn’t the only one out of the loop. Only later did Made discover that a relative of Pak’s had died the night before, and Pak would be required to work on the cremation ceremony for two weeks. Ketut, who lived in distant Begawan, had somehow got wind of this. Knowing that I was eager for my kitchen project to proceed, she’d asked her brother, a woodworker, to step into the breach. But she hadn’t bothered to mention this to either me or to Made.
The prep table was made, on time and within budget. Then I had a bookcase and a duck enclosure made. Dizzy with success, I went on to build a house. Having learned by then to make my expectations crystal clear and having the luck to find a wonderful contractor, the project went quickly and smoothly. There was one small quirk, of course. I’d forgotten to mark the height of the walls on the sketch that served as our blueprint, so the workers just kept going until I arrived one day to find that I had 3.6 metre high ceilings. Never mind, it keeps the house cool.
I’ve learned that an apparent lack of structure in the project planning stages does not necessarily mean that chaos will follow, although it’s certainly an option. My Singaporean friends, who like everything cut and dried and signed and sealed, can’t stand this. I find that I rather enjoy it.
