in the meanwhile i was stopped by a villager and asked if i could speak english with his 13 year old and i agreed. we set a time and date and his
2 daughters met me at my resort on the beach. the 8 year old quickly took my hand, out of respect, to accompany me along the way. mitha, the 13 year old is shy but clever and a very talented balinese dancer too. we spoke along the way to their house and it was comfortable.once we reached their courtyard, a folding chair for me and a little table with a white lace tablecloth on it was set up for our lesson. i asked to see her english notebook so i would know what level she was on...when she brought it to me i read the first entry:
"i live with my family in a very simple house. we are very poor. but i have decided that even though we are poor that does not mean that when i grow up i will be poor too. i know i deserve the best and can make a life for myself however i want to. i want to study and have a profession and i will do it...."
it went on in this vein...i was impressed! the "extra activity" for the lesson was: take a photograph of your house and write about it....if you do not have a camera, you can draw a picture.
so i suggested we do just that, sit in her courtyard and describe her house to me. she looked at me, a bit surprised since what we saw was what there was; a bamboo hut....but i began to ask her questions;
where do you eat?
how do you cook the food?
where is your bathroom?
where do you wash your clothes?
do you have pets?
what do you have in your garden?
and slowly she answered and began to show me all around and i kept telling them that they already live in a mansion! everything was so simple and orderly and served their needs, and even though the land they are living on is "on loan" from a cousin until he decides one day to sell it and then they will have nothing... but meanwhile there is a cow, some pigs, some chickens, a tree where a little metal bowl is placed among the lower branches and that is their "altar" for offerings. when i asked about water, they laughed and said that they have a hose that brings some from the neighbor, and a shower??? they laughed again, no...
when we sat there they served me a boiled root from a plant in the garden that they dip in some white sugar...that is breakfast. when they served this to me, with a cup of sweet tea, i said my usual blessing before i eat something and also "shechecheyanu" since it was the first time i would be tasting this fruit they gave me. i say it silently, but i saw they were a bit surprised that i had not taken a bite yet, so i explained to them afterwards that i say a blessing first and another one for the miracle that i am alive and can taste this fruit for the very first time. her father than spilled a few drops of the tea from his cup, (an action i had seen an older man on the street do the day before) and he said that they believe that everyone has an invisible twin brother or sister and that you give them a bit of the food before you eat it, and that way they are always there taking care of you, and if something falls or something happens, you know it is your invisible twin doing what needs to be done. but if there is any kind of disharmony among the children or in the household, then you must look within yourself if you have been remembering to give all the offerings because the natural state would then be harmonious and not discord. as he spoke about this his little 5 year old daughter was going around the grounds i with a little tray with small pieces of banana leaf and a few grains of cooked rice, and placing them as offerings in each of the relevant spots: the tree altar, on the road in front of the house, on the fire, on the water, in their bedroom entrance, for the animals.... morning and evening this is done.after that, then they can also eat.
and at 10 they eat lunch, some rice, which was already cooking on a wood burning fire m
ade in a separate hut which is pitch black inside other than the red coals of the fire. and when she goes to school from 12-5 (some kids study in the morning and some in the afternoon if there are too many kids for the school all at once) then she takes some rice too. and when she comes home...if her father managed to catch a fish with his little can that has fishing wire wrapped around it with a hook and weight at the end of it that he slings into the water at dusk as he walks along the shore with other fathers, hoping to catch a fish or two for their family...i am not romanticizing...it is their reality. and mitha, when we later walked home together, told me that she would like to be an english teacher in elementary school or an english tour guide when she grows up.i encouraged her. she is very good with english and whenever i correct her she remembers the word.i asked if she studies balinese dance since i want to watch them learning it, and she said yes, so yesterday i met her in the afternoon again, to walk together to the class...but in the end it was postponed and i ended up just sitting in the courtyard with all the neighbor wom
en (3) and her mother sitting there sewing on sequins and beads to little straw boxes, for commission from a shop that sells them to balinese women to put their jewelry in. she does about 3 a day, (and gave me one as a present...i felt bad but accepted, knowing that she has lost out on her commission and is also paying for the box!). the 3,000 rupias she earns from that is enough to buy each of her kids a cup of water and a snack of junk food in a little bag.which all the kids are constantly eating.the women enjoyed the opportunity for mitha to ask me all of their questions in english and then to interpret the answers, since they did not know english themselves. and we just sat there either in silence or with questions every now and then for about an hour....and then mitha said we can go, so off we went, with her younger sister again grabbing my hand to accompany me through the village, proud that she was walking with me, the foreigner, and i noticed that the giggles and comments of the villagers and kids did not budge her from her proud stance.
we arrived at a courtyard of her elementary school, where there were a bunch of kids playing around and a group of 6 girls dancing to an old tape recording that you could barely hear, of gamelon music.. the teacher was an older woman, former dancer, with a smile and a air of royalty about her...so lovely and happy and danced to beautifully...we were there for one and a half hours, of which an hour was spent trying to find the right cassette and playing and rewind and fast (ha-ha) forward and meanwhile the girls all played together...neither the teacher nor the kids seemed to care that most of the lesson was just spent playing.
when the cassette was finally found and played the right tune (they are rehearsing for nyepi, the new years ceremony at the temple on march 6th) most of the girls, wearing their sarongs and girdles that hold them up and give them a very seductive profile of their "bottoms" sticking out with a svelte waist and flat stomach, stood in rows according to their height. and then began the dance that i have come to recognize already, since everyone dances the same dance on nyepi, which is one of the tales from the ramayana. it is so interesting watching each of them, with their own beauty and unique way of doing the same movements. the littler kids copying as many of the movements as they could follow...just like playing on the gamelon...you just follow and repeat and copy what ever you can year after year...and the teacher is doing it along with them, rarely correcting anyone...
as i watched these girls dancing i tried to understand what this style of dancing is all about. their torso remains erect and centered at all times, and the rest of their body; hands, legs, shoulders, heads fingers, eyes, hips, toes, are all busy doing very very subtle movements, usually sudden, of surprise, of fear, of suspicion, of joy, of on guard, of lightness, of relief, of coquettishness, of curiosity, of discovery of changes...all the time things are changing slightly from right to left and left to right and up and down and around and sideways, but the dancer herself looks almost like the shadow play puppets, with strings attached to the parts i mentioned, and the torso remains erect and centered. this is all my interpretation but this is how i see it...it is the journey of the soul in its search between good and evil that is coming every moment from all sides in every situation, and all i have to do is stay centered and respond, choosing the "light"(the good) each time...so no matter what they are doing; masks, puppets, dancing, gamelons, they are all repeating the same path of life over and over of the soul. the women, whether carrying something on their heads (which they are always doing at all ages!) or dancing or just sitting, have an air of beauty and respect of themselves.
for me it all connects and is a very physical expression of the wisdom of kabbalah that i listen and study everyday with rav laitman.
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