Think before buying

think before buying


that is the advice i received from budi today, after having shared my story about going with madie into town to the bazaar a few days ago in order to buy a sarong, and how she always gets right in there arguing in balinese with the salespeople and demanding a discount and always after 5 minutes she sadly tells me that the lowest price she could get was such and such....and i always just shrug and accept it, since i know she, who is balinese, did her best for me, ...but several times it turned out that when the villagers that work at the resort here would hear how much i paid for something they were surprised! and i started getting an uncomfortable feeling that maybe what i think is going on, isn't....and today madie invited me to go again to the hot springs, and when we got there i decided to ask the price of the sarong that i had just purchased in the marketplace...madie saw what was coming and quickly started speaking in balinese, leaving the salesgirl a bit confused and so she told me the same high price that madie had "bargained" for me....but already a shop or two down she couldn't keep telling them to fool me, and the real price was a third of that...even without bargaining! and i realized that she has been making money off of me and acting as if she was on my side...and it just clarified for me that i need to keep very clear borders with her...no more money interactions or asking for her help...if she invites me to go somewhere, it is usually interesting and helps me see a bit of bali from an insiders viewpoint;

riding on the back of her motorbike i get to see so much of the lifestyle of the people....how they sell watermelon by hanging up a slice in the shape of a circle with a sting thru the middle so you can see how red it is, or how the companies that carve the temple statues of dieties seem to like to have a token naked woman from the 21st century, right at the entrance (these guys know that that's what sells anything!) or seeing how all the shops have teeny size bottles and bags of laundry detergent, or shampoo.... and it seems so ridiculous...to buy every couple of days a little bottle, and i thought; either its because people don't have money, or they don't have room in their houses, or there isn't room in the teeny tiny kiosks or even maybe, they believe in living in the here and now...so just buy what you need for today...(not like me that when i go to a grocery store i buy 2 big ones of everything i need!)

and think before buying is also what i should have done in regards to the gamelon chimes i bought too...not having asked the farmer how much it would cost me, and not comparing prices with other people that might be able to make me one, or what the going rate is...and in the end just having to pay him whatever he requested, since i respect the fact that he is a musician and a craftsman, and this the price he told me and i guess that is what he thinks he deserves...but it is hard here, since a daily wage is $4....so to pay almost a months wages for an instrument he made in a few hours...i wasn't sure we were on the same wavelength! and also to have it all covered in shellac and with sticks that weren't as cute as the bamb0o ones he had for himself...and i saw that i would have to dare and state my needs...

and only after starting to play it did i develop an ear for the kinds of tones i like and realized that some of them were "dead" and needed to be fixed...so afraid to insult him, i hesitated, but in the end i decided that i have to learn how to ask for what i need...whether it is more walnuts, or fresh tofu and not sour, or a better price, or a gamelon without shellac on it and with nice bamboo sticks like he was using, and tones that are "alive:

so, off i went, almost knee deep into the mud of the rice paddy this morning, carrying my gamelon and in sign language was able to tell him that things are not right....we went to his little bamboo stand where usually sits and plays and there i showed him the difference between his and mine...and what a difference it was...totally different notes! and he explained to me the entire bible of gamelons; including which are used for dancing and which are used for funerals (mine! oooooo, no! but then i remembered that last time i was here and heard the gamelon it was during the funeral and it really sounded like the notes were just lifting that soul right up to the heavens and they were opening up to receive her....so why not?!) and which are for temple ceremonies..etc...and all in balinese, of course...but with all the antics etc...and in the end, he took mine back, loaned me his (cleaning all off so it would be nice and new looking ) so i could continue practicing until he finished fixing mine...which he did and has returned, with a new set of lovely bamboo sticks and he also removed all the fancy shellac that he had painted all over it...and now i have a the lovely gamelon that i wanted...so ....think before buying! what is important to me? how much am i willing to spend on it ? what is the going rate? who should i buy it from? and then...buy....

what lessons!

and now i am off for another evening with the womens village gamelon orchestra!! loving it.