todays' walk found me at exactly 12:00, approaching a village school, and suddenly all the kids came pouring out of the small entrance to go home. so of course there are the brave one that wave and say "ha-low" and i answer them back, a few ask "what is your name?" and when i answer and then ask them theirs, they giggle. they all wear uniforms, as i walked behind them on the road, i saw how some of the girls put their backpacks on their heads and walk home like that; not sure if it is because it weighs less, or they are practicing how to carry things without their hands, or if it is just hot at 12 in the afternoon, so cover your head with something!
as i passed by another school i had seen in one of the classrooms a 10 year old with her hands on her head that had to stand straight and bend her knees up and down many times. the other children just standing there waiting. i asked my balinese woman about this and she said it is a form of punishment if you didn't do your homework.and that it is forbidden to do it any more in schools, but apparently here in the village it still continues, and that when she was a child you sometimes had to do push ups in front of the class or other military exercises as punishment. from this we began to speak about physical punishments like hitting. she said that the balinese do not hit their children, unless their child hits another child, then they get hit. i told her that it is a bit absurd, no, to hit a child as punishment because they hit!? and she said that you do it once, and after that the child does not hit anymore. i asked about marital violence...and she said it exists just like in the rest of the world, women by men, men by women, and also rape and incest and all the other ills of the world. she said that her friends will stay in an abusive relationship because of the stigma of being divorced.
i asked her about modesty and nudity, and how they were educated as children in regards to this. she said that in the river, a man and woman can be naked and bathing, and there is no feeling of sexuality or promiscuity, but the same people out of the river, are modest. when i wondered why i see some women always with sarongs on and others without and if this reflects their degree of devotion, she said that the traditional clothing is the sarong, and that only because of the westernization are women going around with shorts and pants etc. and that until 1939 women only wore sarongs and went topless. but with the dutch entering bali, they began to put on blouses! and the woman wearing her bra and some shorts that just walked past me with the slop for the pig? is she embarrassed to suddenly find me on the road when she is not completely dressed? no...here in the village i can walk by a house after a ceremony and the whole family is sitting outside and the wife just starts undressing in front of everyone, which is also what i saw when i went with madie to visit friends or relatives that were undressed when i came, and it was no big deal....
i asked her about the "sweeping"...and she said there is no deeper meaning in it, and never liked to do it, and as kids a few of them had to come 1/2 hour before everyone else when it was their turn, and sweep at school...her husband actually does think it is a means of one pointed meditation that they do habitually, as their nanny does every morning for half an hour when she starts her day.
i asked her if she, as a balinese, also does not trust the balinese...correct. when i tried to get to the source of this, it also seems a matter of the west invading bali...she said that as a child she had "stolen" fruit from a tree...which is forbidden (good thing i haven't picked one of those ramubtan that are ripening on the trees along the path!) and that no one ever had money, so there was not a problem of trust, maybe just stealing a fruit as a child, but nothing was ever taken at school from each other...her husband believes that again, in the last 15 years the country has taken a quantum leap unlike how it was gradual in the western world, and it has caused everyone to just go berserk. a fisherman can go out and catch fish for an entire day and earn $3 and someone else can rip off a tourist and make $30....so everything is insane now.
it was also interesting speaking with another one of the guests that have gathered together her for the 40th birthday celebration of the owner(ess)...as we spoke about the coral reefs in the world, he said that over the past 15 years the coral has also gone through major destruction and with global warming and the temperature of the ocean changing by 2 degrees meaning that all of the microscopic food that was eaten in order to create the corals, no longer exists, so the corals are disappearing and what is left is faded and small, even though the fish still are there. he is pessimistic that anything can be done now, since it had to be done 30 years ago when it was first realized. i asked him, since he is a declared buddhist, if he can just look at it all and see it as perfect just the way it is? he agreed that that is the buddhist way, but that he cannot.
it turns out that the common thread among all the guests that have gathered to celebrate is that they are all german and they all dive and they met each other around the world and are now here. i laughed how when i was a potter and i would meet other potters, we would immediately feel such a common bond and enjoy each others company, and here realizing the same thing goes on with the divers. and they are just as addicted as we potters are (and i WAS!)
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