Our Balinese dance and gamelan performance

June 23, Sunday

Yesterday was a packed day, filled with many events. We began the day by going to our performance center and being dressed up by our teachers in a simplified version of the traditional dance dress for our performance in front of a handful of Balinese students, the teachers’ families, and the Australian family that had a driver bring them all the way from the beach to see us perform. Although our gamelan performance and dance performance were a pitiful version of what the real performers do, we were proud that we had learned so much in a short time.  After the performance, the teachers fed us lunch in their beautiful home. 

Back on main street in Ubud. Jarring transition from the beach

Our Balinese dance performance, kids in front, OGs in back

Yours truly demonstrating one of the hand positions to the Australian family

Gamelan performance

Our kids and OGs doing Warrior dance performance

Marina, Cochiti Pueblo and Johnny, San Juan, perform their traditional corn dance with their traditional music in the background for the Balinese audience.

In the afternoon, we were invited to Nonick’s family compound for a birthday celebration for her three year old nephew. It was not like any birthday celebration you can imagine. It was more a spiritual celebration with the high priest who came to the family temple inside their compound and did a blessing ceremony followed by a big feast with roasted pig with lots of guests of the family, including the director of the Green School which I have heard about in Santa Fe and want to visit, along with several interesting ex-pats who have made Bali their home.

Nonick comes from a Brahmin family, although in Bali, it’s difficult to recognize any caste system here, unlike India where it is more obvious. The little boy who was having the birthday celebration turned three by the Balinese calendar. By the western calendar he was two and a half years old.

Nonick’s family compound was full of handsome buildings for the various parts of the extended family. Much of life in the compound goes on outdoors, or in buildings with just a beautiful roof and no walls. It looks like such a pleasant way to live.

Family compound

Anom, puppet and mask maker, and me

My shadow puppet, the dragon

The kids arrived back from their home stays full of excitement and stories to tell of their adventures in cross cultural living with rice farming families, one student per family, in a rural area. They looked visibly more self-confident and mature. How will they ever be able to convey all these extraordinary experiences to their friends and family back home whose world does not extend much beyond New Mexico? It reminds me of when I was in the Peace Corps in Ecuador. People talked to us volunteers about culture shock when going to a new country. But my culture shock occurred when I came home to my own country. I felt disoriented seeing the familiar with new eyes, and no one to share my emotions with who would really get what I was talking about.

Gaylon and Zinnia have arranged for post trip gatherings for the students so they can share what their re-entry was like. Gaylon and Zinnia say that many students’ lives change dramatically, their goals, their direction, along with the friends they choose to be with. Many come back and break up with their former boyfriends or girlfriends, realizing that the relationship is not supporting them in the direction they want to go.

Today the kids go to the beach for three days while the OGs have time off to do whatever we want. Four of us OGs will go to the country to spend our three days of no schedule, while the other OG’s will be doing something else. While driving around in the country last week, we found two beautiful villas to rent for $60 a night for each. One was built by a Canadian and the other by an American, right in the most lush, tropical vegetation, far from the chaos and noise and congestion of main street Ubud. So, today we’ll hire a driver to take us there and pick us up in three days. We suspect there is no wireless connection, so this might be my last post for a few days.

While it’s been frustrating having such weak internet connection, it’s had a big benefit for me physiologically. No muscle cramps, twitching, spasms. No ringing in the ears. No sensation of my nervous system pulsing and vibrating.

Well, that’s all for now.

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