when we arrived at the new resort yesterday i suggested to dewah, the driver that took us (and who works at my resort and is my spiritual teacher of hinduism in bali whenever we are on a long journey or even when i need an answer for something...) if it is okay if we go in and have a drink before he and i start the return journey....
mistake number one! i am the master...he is the servant....why am i ASKING him if we can have a drink, instead of TELLING him that I am having a drink...
mistake number two: I Asked him if I can invite him for a drink and he said " I do not want to make it heavy for your purse, thank you." meaning that it will cost me money to treat him and he does not want me to be pressured by money....
mistake number three: i motioned to the table where my 2 friends and i were sitting down...as we all sat down my friend quickly suggested to let eileen sit looking opposite the sea since i will be leaving the place and they will be able to see the view everyday...so he immediately left our table and sat himself down at the table next to ours! we laughed and she said..."you too want a view of the sea?! come sit with us!!" he laughed and said no....but she insisted that he sit with us...and he HAD to obey, so he got up to sit with us.
I saw how he gave a quick look around to see if other drivers of visitors were looking at him sitting with us, uncomfortably.
driving in, the air conditioner was on full blast and it was such a lovely day, and i couldn't figure out why he does that...but the women were pleased....after they left the car and it was just he and i returning home, he set the air just on air and not cold, since he knows i don't like it...never a word said, just recognizing what the master likes and doing it, regardless of what he prefers...i want to open up the window. fine...but he warns me that there will be pollution ( a truck is up ahead of us) a few minutes later he announces "now no pollution" having overtaken the truck, and wanting me to have the open window i wanted...
shoes are left outside the entrance to the house....he always leaves his 2 steps further back then the owners shoes, when he goes there...out of respect....
every question or request is meticulously answered in full
but....when the cats away the mice will play.... since i am the only guest here at the moment, and the owners have gone away for 4 days then when no one is around or when no one is looking ....the kitchen staff (who are young kids in their early 20"s from the village working as chefs, cooks, waiters,) are all hanging out in the restaurant where there are pillows on the ground, and a huge pile of international fashion magazine, giggling and teasing and flirting and looking thru the magazines, sprawled out and having fun or inviting their friends to come down to the beach and juggle, or just take a stretch and look out at the sea from the sand,, BUT.............as soon as they see me returnign from a day out or headed in their direction from my place at the beach or from my room, oops....they all scuttle about and quickly rush to return everything to its place and go back into the back of the kitchen where they must spend all of their hours when they are not busy serving, cooking..(which since i am the only guest here, they are not too busy!!).
and when the owners are headed for the restaurant after having returned from a day in the city somewhere or even a few days(!) while they have just seen some nice looking coconuts to eat and are busy shimmying up the tree or trying to knock down a big ripe jackfruit with a tall bamboo pole to privately enjoy among the gardening and housekeeping staff at their nearby quarters while no one is looking, they have one of the security guards at the entrance quickly notify the staff that the owners have returned and then the coconuts are shyly kept to the side of their bodies until they have managed to cross paths....or if i happen to go in their direction to take my hoola hoop which i leave by their room so they can use it, then they quickly offer me the fruit to it.
for me it is so funny and strange...and uncomfortable...i would like us all to be equal...but we aren't....i am the wealthy guest who is going to fly to singapore for a few hours and then come back all just to renew my visa....and they have often never even left the north of bali!!i am the one that wakes up in the morning and leaves my room, and they come everyday and work freshening it up for an hour while i am eating, or swimming....smiling whenever i pass by, asking where i am going whenever i walk on the path...that is their JOB....
i like being served....And what is interesting is different place within that one can serve from...the young staff in the kitchen are doing it because it is their job and they have to....with dewah...it comes from a desire to serve, to humble himself towards other creatures of god...i can feel and appreciate his sincere intention.
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