Gaia Grant’s life in Sydney was becoming increasingly unsatisfying and stressed out. She wasn’t getting as much as she wanted out of her relationship, her child or her work. A nameless urban ennui was setting in.
Professionally and emotionally unfulfilled, the dream of taking off work and escaping for a year kept her sane in an increasingly insane city environment where people were bombarded by "on average, 3000 TV, radio, newspaper and magazine ads in the course of a day."
You have to admire the woman’s pluck, her daring in starting a new life with her family on a breath-stoppingly beautiful but feudal island in a faraway developing nation. The author’s choice of Bali was the deductive result of the need to find a tropical, idyllic and affordable beach environment. To keep her husband happy, it also had to have good surf.
After a false start applying for foreign aid jobs and subsequently being offered menial teaching posts on remote Pacific islands, they decided to look for their golden paradise on their own.
A phone call one day started the writer and her family on their year-long odyssey. A friend’s father suddenly needed a replacement for an educational assistant. Within weeks they were in India and the pace of the book immediately picks up. After canceling a visit to Sri Lanka because of the danger of suicide bombers, and an arduous and soul-searching side trip to Nepal, the family at last lands in Jakarta. At that point, a sixth of the way through the book, I started taking a personal interest in the tale.
The family spent months on Kuta finding their way, living simply with no TV or house help, trying to break out of the tourist mindset. Eventually the Grants took on domestic and business staff, grew to love the Balinese people, and found contentment in the shared experience of an extended family.
This is not a travel book. There are no high adventures at sea, no hair-raising surfing stories, no visits to remote tribal territories. It does contain the sensitivity, wisdom and perspective of a woman’s efforts to start a new life; also practical and amusing advice on how to drive a car on Bali, how to recognize moneychangers’ ruses and what it’s like to run an international business on Bali.
With its descriptions of birthday parties, child rearing practices, disciplining new puppies and how to explain death to a child, in some ways it is a useful homemaker’s manual. We are present when the author hires her first household help and when she starts a new playgroup with her friends.
I became intrigued as to where exactly she had found her patch of paradise. This was soon revealed when she refers to a row of smoky beachfront cafes and one day coming across "a 60-plus year old man who had studied Balinese customs and ways of life intimately, and had published volumes about every detail." This could only be Fred Eiseman and the seafood barbecue restaurants could only be Jimbaran.
Ms. Grant sings the praises of Bali’s sports and recreation activities (both foreign and local), theatre scene, cockfights, the rhythms of village life, the island’s dining and entertainment riches, simple pleasures such as massages and the serenity of the wild areas, as well paeans Bali’s spiritualism, sophistication and multi-culturalism.
The monetary crisis in Jakarta in 1998 and subsequent riots traumatized the family’s easy island existence, putting many friends out of work and laying low the tourism industry. This was followed by Outer Island forest fires and upheaval on Bali after Gus Dur was elected president. In the back of the reader’s mind is knowledge of the outrage and tragedy yet to visit the island in October 2002.
A Doris Lessing or Anais Nin she is not, but Gaia Grant’s verve for life is inextinguishable. She’s a keen observer of Balinese compounds, temples, ceremonies, all wrought in overwhelming detail. Indeed, her memory for detail is extraordinary if not at times a bit excessive, even recording the linen items she took when moving into her new house.
She is also embarrassingly honest, describing with glee how she actually delights in airplane food and the glamour and excitement of airports.
Throughout such enigmatic Australianisms as "chooks" (baby chicks), "kindy" (kindergarten), "crash hot" (very good), "kerfuffle" (definitely not in my 1285-page Oxford) find their way into the prose, but this shouldn’t be surprising as the book is published in Australia.
When your life is over, you do not regret that you had not spent enough time at the office. You regret that you did not spend nearly enough time with the people you loved. The writer understands this. For instance, she made a pact with her young daughter, Zoe. At least once a day she will go to the beach with her, no matter what, even if it was for just 10 minutes.
In the last pages of the book, Gaia Grant warns her readers not to expect too much of Bali, not to choose the "geographical cure." People searching for their own patch of paradise may end up taking their unhappiness with them no matter where they go. Those seekers must first be prepared to search for and deal with their unhappiness at its source.
Perhaps the book’s most important raison d’etre is to convince people how easy it is to start a new life. It’s sub-subtitle could almost be "You can do it, too!" Bali, Gaia writes, is "for people with an open mind and an accepting spirit who can reap the treasures of a tropical, community-oriented lifestyle."
This sincere, good-hearted woman has only the best and purest of intentions. The person is the book. If you like the person, you like the book.
***
A Patch of Paradise: A Woman’s Search for a Real Life in Bali by Gaia Grant, Bantam Books, Australia 2002, 304 pages, ISBN 1-86325-360-2. Available for Rp125,000 at Periplus Bookshops in the Bali Galeria in Kuta, Warung Made in Seminyak, Ngurah Rai Airport, in Gramedia bookstores and in the Matahari in Kuta Square.
For comments and suggestions, please write : pakbill2003@yahoo.com
Copyright@2003 PakBill
