Living in Singaraja Bali: Walking with Rebecca

Back in Singaraja once again after a few months in Denpasar (written about over at lifeinthetropics), Rebecca and I have been taking hour walks around the city early in the morning so that she gets some doctor-ordered exercise before she gives birth sometime later this month. I tried to get the other children to accompany us, but they are definitely not up for early morning exercise. Today we took off to wander the streets and neighborhoods to the west of Kampung Bugis. Even at 6:30, the streets are teeming with traffic and the small, local markets packed with throngs of ibus (ibu is a generic term of address for adult women similar to Mrs. or Ms.; it also means mother ) doing their shopping for the day's cooking.

Unlike years past, many of the neighborhoods now have narrow sidewalks, although using them can be a challenge as they are often used as parking spaces for motorbikes, convenient spots to expand the boundaries of small shops and eateries called warungs and places of rest for the irritating presence of Bali's wandering dogs (still here despite the roundups over the last few years due to the rabies epidemic on the island). We navigate our way through these obstructions, carefully hugging the edge of street so as not to become one of Bali's many traffic fatalities. A young mother-to-be and her old father gather a few stares and some smiles along the way, as well as some surprised greetings from neighbors, family and acquaintances who are also out shopping, having some exercise, or just passing the time watching life in neighborhoods.

Out on Jalan Dewi Sartika, we pass an old acquaintance who built one of the first discos in North Bali several decades ago. I rarely see him these days and am surprised to notice his graying, thinning hair. I still have a mental image of him as he looked decades ago when we'd sit in his bar/restaurant having a few beers while talking about life in North Bali. We chat about what we're up to these days and how many grandkids we have and make some plans to get together in the near future. The chance encounters with old friends that I've had since I've been back in Singaraja reminds me of just how long I've been here in Bali and how much things have changed here over the past several decades. The north coast is in the process of changing from a quaint, sleepy, laid-back melting pot of Bali's diverse population to a bustling large city somewhat marred by the lack of central planning in its development (something common to all areas of Bali these days, as everyone from locals to Western expats to monied Javanese rush to get a piece of Bali while prices for land and houses continue on in a crazy spiral onwards and upwards).

A nephew drives by in his bemo and gives us a few honks and a wave, a brother-in-law pulls over to the side of the street to ask where we've been on our walk today, a neighbor corrals Rebecca to check her tummy and ask when she got back from Denpasar. We walk out onto the main road, Jalan A. Yani, and surprisingly the traffic here is less intense than on the little sidestreets. A few policemen are out controlling the traffic; one waves and I gesture to inquire if I can take his photo. He gives me a big smile and the thumbs-up sign.

Farther along A. Yani as we head for home, I notice a new bakery. I know that there's another one on Jalan Diponegoro. As I take a photo, I wonder what market forces have brought about the openings of all the bakeries that I came across while living in Denpasar and see now opening in Singaraja. Baked goods have long been a part of the Indonesian diet, but in the past they were generally sold in small shops along with a variety of other goods; now we have gleaming, Western-style bakeries specializing in cakes, donuts, and a variety of breads. I know now where to buy my wife's birthday cake this year.

Back home again, the cat that Rebecca and I rescued a few months ago in a field in Denpasar is racing through the house looking for our rabbit; the two have become somewhat unlikely friends. It's time to begin the chores for the day under the cloudy Singaraja sky.

Migrations

It’s late October and we are at the end of the dry season. Next month should bring the start of the rains – I hope so anyway. My family is due to return home tomorrow. My eldest daughter has asked them to stay in Bali for a few more days. She’s grown up in an Indonesian culture and before she moved back to our house in Bali to attend high school there, she had never slept alone and was very much the homebody. Now she’s living basically alone, and it hasn’t been the easiest thing for her, but she’s done a good job so far.

I’ve been receiving a lot of emails recently (generally I receive quite a few, but over the last few months, I’ve received even more than usual) from people wanting to move to Bali either to retire or start a business. A lot of the traffic comes from some articles that I wrote several years ago; the minority comes from my blog or the cyberbali.com website. I certainly don’t mind responding to most (I don’t respond to the ones that give a few questions with no other text, such as “how much does it cost to live in Bali,” or “How do I get a job in Bali”). Fairly rude as I see it. I do respond to the emails that start out with a hello, or a I really liked your article. I’m even more inclined to respond if they give some background information like, “I’ve vacationed in Bali six times in the last…years”

But besides the response issue, there’s this nagging question about why so many people want to move to Bali. I’ve forgotten the stats on the number of legal resident foreigners in Bali, but it was fairly significant for such a small island. (Then there’s a whole other world of illegal resident foreigners – the idiots who don’t bother to keep their visas current or abide by the national laws on immigration and residency.) Maybe I should be put up a poll on my website about immigrating to Bali.

More on Daily Life in an Indonesian Village

We’re deep in the dry season and the weather has been clear and cool lately. Last night it was 64 degrees F, and even now at 7:30 in the morning it’s only 68. As usual during the dry season, water is at a premium, but it’s something that you get used to here in Sumbawa.

Despite the lack of rain and water, we have some crops growing: our cauliflower in the back is doing well as is some green, leafy vegetable that tastes like spinach. We also have hundreds of tomatoes, which are doing well, and dozens of cucumbers that we have already started eating. Five of the banana trees and five of the papaya trees are bearing fruit. It’s not mango season yet, but it will be soon.

We continue to have baby animals arriving here on the farm. Six baby ducks hatched last week – two mysteriously disappeared, so we have four left. We had to use one of our hens to hatch the duck eggs because the mother duck destroys her eggs after she lays them – we don’t know why she does this, but she always does. So, this time we placed her eggs with one of the chickens who sat on the eggs until they hatched. They follow her around (was it Lorenz who did that experiment with the baby ducks?) like she is their mother which she is in a way. She in turn protects them, but our two geese have entered the picture. They have adopted the baby ducks for some reason – they don’t adopt the baby chicks so somehow they sense some affinity with the ducklings. Having the geese protect them gives the ducklings a lot of security because all of the other animals are afraid of them including Dave the dog. Whenever Dave or the puppies get close to the ducklings, the geese attack. It’s quite humorous to watch.

On other local events:

Little League baseball started again yesterday. This will be my last time coaching a team after 30 years or so of doing this. Hmm…a part of retirement that I won’t particularly enjoy. We lost 19 -15. Not too bad. We had two innings of sloppy fielding, but otherwise did well. Anyway, it was fun to be out there.

Four more weeks until vacation and a chance to see my eldest daughter in Bali.

Family life in Kampung Bugis

So before I fell down the stairs, I had spent the entire day tearing apart the storeroom which was filled with rusty tools, broken toys, old newspapers, love letters from before Su and I were married, and assorted other junk. I enlisted all the little kids and they dragged all the detritus of 18 years in Indonesia and deposited them in the living room of the beach house (which badly needs repairs). Then I started on the library which was full of broken toys, 80 Asmat carvings, and a thousand books. I sprayed all of the statues and put them in the empty storeroom for later during retirement when I hope to sell a few on Ebay.

I cleaned all of the bookcase, put the books back in order, and then we started the hard work. We had to take the statue cases and get them down from the second floor library to the second floor of the beach house. A brother-in-law came by to see what I was doing and got involved. He called his son over, and another of my brothers-in-law and a neighbor. We put a rope around the bookcases that held the statues and lowered them down to the ground floor, then carried them around the block to the beach house entrance, and finally stored them outside the beach house until the second floor is cleared of junk so that we can stick them up there for Su to use next year when she opens another baking business.

It was after all this that I slipped on some oil and fell down the third floor stairs. So I have two badly swollen, cut and bruised feet. Why is it always my feet? Actually I’m fortunate that I wasn’t more seriously hurt; I could just as easily have broken my neck so I guess that it just isn’t time to go yet.

More later on family in Asia stuff.