A Million Miles From Here - Tales from the Cultural Frontier.
Final Episode (for now!) - Treasure and Trash...
Did you sell your flat?” - the first question from
everyone I meet at the moment. ‘Eh? How do they know
about that?’ I ask myself, forgetting my nightly musings
get published so everyone knows what I’m up to!
— -
Our first stop in London is ‘Oxfam’ (second-hand
shop): coat for my husband Putu, warm clothes for our daughter
Cahya, toys and puzzles, all for about thirty pounds. We will
let go of everything, return it to Oxfam, when we go back
to Bali. They’re our ‘one stop rental shop!’
Good reason not to hang on to things though - ‘treasure’
in London becomes ‘junk’ the instant I get it
back to Bali! Paying two hundred pounds for a bag of stuff
I couldn’t let go of last time, back in Bali I couldn’t
understand how or why I had chosen such things! No clothes
translate (one forgets how hot it is, or conversely, how cold,
in the ‘other place’). And styles are somehow
different. It’s weird. One dons a different mind set
- different things are important, different priorities, though
it is hard to define just what those differences are.
The prize for the most ludicrous thing I brought back from
London goes to… my fur coat! Second hand – a boon,
perfect for freezing London. Bit casual, like a duffle coat
of fake snow leopard, big bone tusk hook buttons. It even
has a hood. I enjoyed spreading it out, making impromptu beds
for our daughter Cahya, tucking her up in the corner of a
cosy pub so she could sleep. So I brought it. Though actually
the first thing you need when you get off the plane in London
is… a warm coat! So maybe it’s not so daft…
for next time.
Anyway. Here we are back in Bali in the village in Tabanan,
steaming heat alternating with torrential rain.
My lovely coat hangs on an aluminium rail in one of our several
‘junk’ rooms, ceiling falling down, mice running
around, likely prey for myriad insects, ants, bugs that eat
just about anything… including the carved double doors
of our tiny room, the picture frames of Putu’s paintings
(only the crust remains –completely hollow inside).
I dose the coat with lavender oil hoping to repel the invaders!
Nothing lasts here, nothing. It is a ‘now’ society.
The courtyard in between the open-air buildings (or ‘balés)
in our home is awash with water, nay, mud. Splooshing across
from our ‘bedroom building’ to the ‘kitchen
building’, chasing squarking chickens, I try to remember
to employ the Balinese way of donning flip-flops before I
leave one building, and shucking them deftly just before I
enter another, to avoid plodging mud all across the kitchen
floor. I am improving though it seems to take me ten times
longer than everyone else to get my shoes on and off.
You may notice, I describe it as ‘our home’; although
in Western terms this is my ‘mother and father in-laws
home’. In Bali though, there is generally one home,
owned by the family, (so no mortgage to pay!) and everyone
shares it, each having a room there. Girls leave home when
they marry, boys stay, bringing new wives with them. It’s
lucky it does feel like ‘our home’ to me (otherwise
I might be living some nightmare ‘mother in-law sketch’!)
Somehow, in Bali, though, ‘other rules apply!’
A far cry though, from our lovely flat in London with hot
water (couldn’t lever Putu out of the bath!), privacy,
no dawn cockerels, and fishfingers. (Fishfingers – oh
luxury! What more perfect food to delight a child has yet
been invented?).
Such fun in London, discovering a different way of life together.
We’ve kind of re-invented our little family. Togging
our daughter Cahya out in titchy school sweatshirt and bobble
hat, she masters thick woolly tights and leather boots with
ease. Doesn’t even feel the cold – wants to wear
a T-shirt in the snow!
Awake to a perfect counterpane of white; fluffy flakes falling.
Putu peers out the window. “Is it snowing next door,
too?” He asks. We rush into the garden to find out and
I get to savour a rare moment of ‘perfect parentdom’
– ‘look what Mummy’s got!’ I cry,
producing magically from the shed… a sledge! Just happened
to have one! Cahya’s face lights up in pure joy (how
she knows what it is I can’t imagine, but she seems
to) and we pull her jubilantly round the garden and later,
achieve the ‘longest run of the day’ sledging
in the park.
Cahya gains independence in London, and now chatters away
in English (she always understood, but never spoke a word
before leaving Bali.) As I write this, she is cuddled up in
the ‘Balé Dangin’ (‘East Pavillion’)
on the high bed. She’s jabbering English nursery rhymes
and songs, and her doting Balinese grandparents are mimicking
as best they can, it’s very funny.
In London we eventually get the hang of ‘the school
run’, and back in Bali, try to maintain these useful
structures we were able to create in London. Yet, in a free
flowing Balinese compound with open boundaries and people
wandering through, it’s a
challenge to maintain ANY structure! Possessions just seem
to wash about the place like so much detritus on the tide!
We have created the ‘sanctity of bedtime’, though
the dotingness of grandparents allows Cahya to sometimes flow
around this eddy! Balinese people, after all, have few (if
any) personal boundaries. They see themselves more as a group.
In London, Putu quickly perfects the art of grabbing a frozen
pizza and combining with ‘sambal mata’ (fresh
Balinese chilli salsa), adding frozen seafood bites, green
beans flavoured with Balinese turmeric… he produces
the most wonderful kind of ‘fusion picnics’ on
our tablecloth on the floor (I always had cushions, never
a settee… part of me pined for Balinese simplicity,
perhaps.)
Back in Tabanan, our electricity level is too low to run more
than our teeny fridge, and we don’t yet want to boost
our electricity bill, so another form is needed! (‘When
in India, drink chai’ as my friend Jacqueline wisely
advises.)
- - -
The Jamu lady strolls into our Bali courtyard this morning,
smiling, beautiful, high cheeks, yellow skin like a Mongolian
countess, ambiguous sidestep eyes. Sets down a large round
basket, jammed with nine or ten large plastic mineral water
bottles of vile looking yellow and brown brews. She carries
assorted packets of ‘Jamu’ – the magical/medicinal
powders and potions of Java. Java, famed for its strong magic,
and the Javanese themselves, are rather feared in Bali.
Claiming cures for everything from ‘hot stomach’,
to piles, to infertility, ‘jamu’ brews also cover
vaguer remedies ‘for beautiful woman’, ‘for
handsome man’ as well as emotional remedies such as
‘against laziness’. There are hundreds of kinds,
in colourful little paper sachets, often with a dramatic photo
of someone suffering the relevant ailment (reminding me somehow
of medieval tortures) – a man clutching his throat,
face pulled in grotesque grimace, for a sore throat remedy.
Putu jokes with the lady about a remedy for ‘bangun’
(erection) and she laughingly says there is a remedy to make
it last longer. It’s ok to talk about things like this
in Bali, they seem to have missed out on the ‘sex is
naughty’ we picked up in the West. Putu settles at last
on a remedy for a sore back (but winks at me and says that
this is related).
So she mixes up her brew – grainy brown liquid tasting
of ginger, turmeric, and who knows what else (the jamu sachet
lists various roots making up forty-five percent – the
rest is ‘other materials’ – who know what?).
There’s a chaser – the Jamu lady slooshes the
glass with water with halved limes floating in it and I down
that too.
Off she goes, smiling, carrying her ‘portable shop’
on her back.
And ‘No!’ Is the answer (a classic bit of ‘not
letting go’ that I didn’t confess to in the last
issue!) After struggling with selling my flat for a while,
various possible sales falling through on their own or being
subtly sabotaged, I surrender! I really enjoyed experiencing
‘having it all’ – living in a Western society
with ‘all mod cons’ and my husband and baby. It
was…treasure. And now that we have a model for being
there, we may want to go back...NEXT ISSUE: But What Does
It All Mean?
Having unearthed ‘the rich manure’ of my life,
what to grow in it?
Jeli Lala created the ‘Ashram of Spiritual Jewellery
and Art’ at no. 1, Sukma St., Tebesaya, Ubud, with her
husband, Putu S. She has studied yoga and many other spiritual
practices for more than ten years. She writes “As a
life-long artist, I’ve been exploring my inner world
since I was a child. In this column, I will share some of
my personal experiences and spiritual methods – hopefully,
you’ll find this interesting, and maybe it will give
some ideas for your own journey”.
Jeli welcomes comments and may be contacted on:
Email: jelila@jelila.com
Website: www.jelila.com or www.imagine-retreats.com
