ketut

The first day I arrived at the temple in Tejakula for their yearly ceremony, which happened to fall on the same day that I arrived to the village, a very nice young man walked up to me and introduced himself, as I stood amongst a courtyard full of men and women from the village that were preparing the area for the ceremony. He made me feel at home and explained things in excellent English. His name was Ketut.

Ever since then he has appeared several times, out of the blue, just when I was happy to see a familiar face that could help me at just that moment with a question or problem. He would just suddenly be standing by me saying “hello Eileen”. And I was so grateful to see him. Whether it was at the ceremony the following day when I was debating whether to watch the older women making ceremonial baskets from palm leaves or to go into the inner court of the temple to pray, and he appears suggesting that they teach me how to make them along with them…so down I sat and had hands on experience, which I love. And another time it was when I was walking home from the internet café, wondering which house is his in the village, and he appeared next to me on his motorbike and asked if I would like to come over to see his house and family. And drove for 2 minutes and arrived at the most modern beautiful villa in the village, and I knew it had to be his, which it was..

Another time I was returning from the internet café and there was a rainstorm and so I ducked into a little kiosk and sat there for almost an hour since the rain didn’t stop and watched them gambling with dominoes, wondering why god had me sitting with them for so long, and suddenly ketut walked out of his house, which was next to the kiosk, and invited me over…and that was nice.

Then another time I was caught in the rain and was standing under a big plastic covering for a car in an orchard, wondering who put it there, and in comes ketut with his mother and sister and I asked him if he too is running under cover, and he said, no, this is his garage and his orchard and he came to pick some rambutan for his sister to take back to lovina.

And then yesterday, after I had tried for hours to figure out what happened to the laptop, and walked to the internet café to see if maybe the owner was around and could look at it, but he wasn’t and when I walked back and was glancing over to see the big float that the villagers had made, who should be standing there with his daughter, but, ketut….and I said, how he was just the person I needed, since I didn’t know what to do with the computer and to a ride to the airport in 2 days…and off we went to his house where he made a number of phone calls to technicians and friends and invited his nephew to come have a look too, and in the end, after they tried and tried to revive it, he offered to drive me the following day to a near by city (1 hour away) in his car and to fix it…I thought it would be a big imposition and said that I will just not use it for the next month and have it fixed in Israel…he asked how much a technician in Israel will take for it, and I said, about $60 minimum, and he suggested I think about it again and go with him because it will be much cheaper and I also will be able to use it for the month I am still here. He offered to drive me back to the resort, and I said, I can walk, and he said that he would like to since he would like to see the resort. I agreed, and he told me that he noticed that the owner uses energy saving LED light fixtures and he would like to speak with him about it. So I was happy to introduce him to jochan…they are both men of visions and ability to realize them and I was happy they would get a chance to meet each other.

So we left this morning at 10 and returned at 4. It was very interesting to spend a day with him…he is 40 years old and has much wisdom. For hours I questioned him about life, bali his life, business, dreams, spirituality, money, time, trust, religion, goals, risks, music, village life, investments, and choices….

He worked on a cruise ship as a waiter for 12 years. He has traveled the world. And has built a home in the capital, and in the end, sold it and came back to his little village of Tejakula, where he has is slowly bringing the luxuries of the world to his village; filtered water so the villagers do not have to boil the tap water, but rather he has a factory that filters and delivers the water to everyone, run by his father and mother, he is joining a franchise of mini markets and is buying a plot of land in a choice spot so that the younger generation that prefers to go into that kind of shop instead of the small dark little kiosks that line the streets, where they will be able to buy the powdered milk for the babies in the village and will not have to drive an hour into the city to find basics that they need. And lastly a garage that will sell spare parts for all of the motorbikes that abound here so that, again it will be close by instead of an hour away….

So the fellow is clever, has money, and likes taking risks and loves challenges and ideas. It is all done in a very low key peaceful kind and respectful way. Some of the sayings he shared with me today were: do unto others as you would have others do unto you,, and manage your time instead of your time managing you, and what will be will be, trusting that god will bring it all in its time. And last but not least his bottom line belief of don’t worry, be happy. That there is never ever a reason to worry since everything comes from god and god is good and there are always options so if plan A doesn’t work, you have plan B and if B doesn’t work you go to C and if C doesn’t work you go to D which means dead and you let it go.

When I asked him about the men and women that I hear singing in the temple 3 times a day on the loud speaker, he said that anyone can do it, and that they are singing lessons about life; how to treat your friends, how to act towards god, and to yourself, and that the Balinese learn through songs, and the jews for example learn from books, from reading.

When I asked him what they used to do 30 years ago when there wasn’t a loud speaker and he was a child, so then he wasn’t exposed to these life lessons three times a day, ringing out into the air for a half hour each time? And he said that you would be playing outside and someone would come to cut the grass to give to the animals and would tell the children : now listen I have something to tell you, and he would sing to them lessons about life.

When I asked him if he thinks people are jealous in the village since he is so rich (big villa, a truck, a van, a nanny, owns a lot of land) he looked surprised and said that not at all, they are all proud of him that from their village someone without any higher education has done such things. And when I asked if he can trust Balinese people in interactions, he said that people are people all over the world, and bali isn’t any different, and that he can feel when someone is trustworthy and when they are not, so he listens to his feelings, and that no one in the village would do something dishonest since in a minute the whole village would know about it and he would lose his name, and a mans name is very important…and that all the actions you do today are affecting your whole life, and not just today, so you must make sure they are correct actions.

When asked whether he believes in black magic, he said, no. that if one person can say one thing and another person can say the opposite, there is nothing to believe in that. The truth is the truth.

And where in the world did he most enjoy traveling? In Norway and in New Zealand. And after he had traveled around the world many times, and had lived the fast city life selling insurance and cars in the capital of bali, he was robbed one day of $100,000 and after the initial shock he realized it was his lucky day, since the family was all safe and that now is the right time to move back to his childhood village and start a new life, so he sold his villa and came home, where he bullt another villa and invited his parents to live with him and his wife and son and daughter (THE most beautiful Indonesian beauty I have ever seen, at the age of 6!)

That is a taste of Ketut....my guardian angel.