beauracracy

"Guru?" asked the government official of the municipality when he read my vocation on the form i had filled out in order to register as a resident of the village. "guru pensioner" i responded ...a retired teacher....when i had gone to the police station to register, he asked me my profession. i said i am retired. okay, but what were you? "a potter". hmmm....here in bali that is a mans job...not a womans profession...so he tried to find a way around it....maybe you are a teacher? "Yes, i used to teach pottery." good....so down went "guru" on my form.

when we got to the part about where i am from it got a little tricky. since indonesia does not recognize israel...and bali is part of indonesia...so where am i from. we wrote down america...since that is the passport i enter on. then came what religion i am. uh....are you muslim? no. are you chrisitan? no. are you hindu? Yes! he looked at me....i told him that my religion is like hindu, that there is only One God, and here i am hindu. good. when the bank manager was registering me at the bank, he wanted to verify all of the details....when he got to "religion" he hesitated, and then asked me if maybe there is a mistake here, because it says "hindu". i smiled and told him i am hindu. he smiled and said "fine".

the entire thing was quite a cultural experience...first, walking into the municipality, mistakenly from the back door, so it gave everyone a laugh. it was a large room with about 8 desks in a U shape with one person behind each one, two in uniforms, the rest casual, 2 of them women. not alot of balinese speak english, so the one that does, takes the stage whenever needed, and it happened to be the one that laughed the loudest. and then he said "wait". and gestured for me to sit down. i had memorized the name of the man i had to give my papers to. i had met him the day before at his house, since the office was closed and he is a friend of my landlord, so he explained the procedure in indonesian and told me to come this morning at 9. i asked for "gede asi" (the name i had memorized). no response. "gedeaasi",,,still none,"gedeassie". still none..."gede ahsy" still none...hmm...what am i saying wrong? and then the man laughed and pointed to the man who was standing with his back to me the whole time one foot away, working on the computer. "ah, gede asi!" i couldn't believe that the man i needed was right there, heard it all, and didn't say a word. i assumed he must have been preoccupied, or just had a lot of patience and would eventually turn around and receive me.

when he did, with his ironed government uniform,barbered haircut, long fingernails, and big stone rings on two fingers, he smiled and continued where we left off yesterday, but this time in perfect english, spoken so quietly. he gestured for me to sit down "pleez" (please )....and the loud man again laughed and imitated his english "pleeezzzee". they all smiled and we continued. i have noticed that when you give the balinese something that is written; a note, a document, passport, anything, they look at it, and look at it and look at it....in silence, slowly reading each letter, no matter what language it is written in ,,,,even in indonesian...so that is what he did with the papers i gave him....i wondered what was going through his head while he was reading each word....they don't seem to respond quickly or impulsively or automatically....everything is well thought through, slow, exact, peaceful, and low key. when i was at the bank a little later, sitting there for an hour, i was surprised to realize that you don't hear a word....everyone speaks quietly and with a minimum of words...and here, unlike the modern banks, everyone is together at one desk and in one small room, with no dividers giving privacy or allowing acoustics. everyone knows everyone elses business....so they all knew i just deposited 30 million rupias....a small fortune for them.

back at the municipality, while waiting for my document to be prepared, i started to look around at the employees, and what they were doing. they were all just sitting around, with each other, chatting and watching the television that was playing "the godfather" in barely audible english with chinese subtitles. i wondered what they were doing? guessing what the actors were saying? or just passing the time? one of them eventually changed the channel to a bikini fashion show with 2 meter tall skinny blonde women that were barely wearing anything. it looked a bit like a porn show and i couldn't believe that this was going on in a government office in bali. when i looked around at the men to see what their reaction was, i realized that none of them were even looking at it after 1 minute, since they do not find tall thin blonde almost naked women at all attractive! after a few minutes one of the women employees turned off the television. having a television turned on seems to be the backdrop everywhere, including in the bank....so there i watched how an indonesian man was having a facial and recommending it to the viewers. the volume is off, and so i think a lot is understood just by facial expressions....

suddenly one of the uniformed men came and sat on the chair next to me and started speaking to me in indonesian. this happens all the time. what i usually do is just sit there, listening to them, without understanding anything, and then suddenly i understand what they are talking about. i have no idea how, and i am sure i miss about 90%, but still it makes sense and i either remember that we once met, or as in this case, he is the husband of one of the women from the orchestra i play in, and on a rainy night he volunteered to drive me on his motorbike back to my resort so i wouldn't walk back at night in the rain alone. it had been pitch dark and all i had done was jump on the back of his bike, and he spoke to me in indonesian the whole way, so i never actually saw him, but here he was, reminding me of it. we laughed.

this kind of synchronicity happens here everyday with me. no matter where i go or what i do, suddenly, in a village of 11,000 people, i am standing next to just the person that i happened to meet in some other circumstances and it is always quite enlightening. after the municipality i went to the bank, and suddenly turned my head to the left and saw that the manager of the neighboring resort to my villa was standing right there. i had wanted to see her on this trip, but hadn't had the chance yet. so here we were, happy to see each other after 4 months. she had been very helpful to me and i was grateful to her for that and was happy to have the opportunity to express it. as we sat next to each other speaking a bit, she suddenly said " we face the challenges that come our way and we learn from our mistakes". where did that come from?! i stuttered and tried to repeat her words of wisdom to make sure i understood her correctly. she repeated it again. this happens all of the time with the balinese. out of the blue they just tell you some universal truth about life that makes you feel like we are all "on the path" together. i told her that this was exactly my latest understanding in life and i have been looking at the events that happen to me in that light. she smiled and said "it does not matter what age we are. at all ages this is the work we have to do in life." thank you widi. i told here that every time i meet balinese people i feel like they are a guru for me. that it is so different than small talk in the western world, for me. she said that they are still connected to the East and that they are connected to the ground. she offered her assistance if i ever need it and we parted.

i was grateful that everything went smoothly and simply today. before i left for these bureaucratic meetings i suddenly understood how my mother feels, living in a foreign country and having to do this kind of stuff in a foreign language and not understanding anything and needing to ask people for help and to translate. i asked myself how do i feel at this moment. and i saw that for me it was simply an adventure that i was going on. i could have asked my balinese friends to assist me and translate or explain how everything works and what to expect. but there was a certain faith inside of me that just knew that whatever is supposed to happen, will happen...if they don't know english, so i won't understand....so what...and in the end, we all managed just fine, with lots of smiles, and patience and peace and simplicity. let's see what happens when i try and take out some of those 30 million rupias i just deposited! i opted NOT to have an ATM card....i don't even remember the code for my israeli or american ones, and am overwhelmed by the machines...i prefer just to stand in line with a slip of paper and speak with a teller in order to take out money, even if it means waiting in the bank for an hour. just another way to spend my time observing these people that for some reason fascinate me.