while visiting my balinese family today i sensed a different energy around their compound. i was hoola hooping in the shade of their banana and mango trees on the swept earth, while their 14 year old was checking out her facebook on my laptop, and i kept looking around me trying to figure out what is different? i figured i just never paid enough attention before, and continued to look at the 2 cows in their little palm leaf shed, and the big pig tied up eating his slop, and the forest around me. they live off a little side path, which is a cul d 'sac, so when men kept coming to the palm leaf entrance of their area, and then disappearing into the woods, i was surprised. what is that? ..next i heard a lot more motorbikes on the nearby road, and thought it was strange, since until now it used to be quite quiet all the time. then while we were sitting around and talking, the forest air was filled with tons of roosters crowing non stop. that was new....what was going on today that would make them all screech out at 11 in the morning suddenly?
after a few minutes of riotous noise i asked them why suddenly the roosters are crowing so loudly. they told me that it is from the cock fighting. "cock fighting?!" yes, some 20 meters from their house, a part of the forest had turned into a cock fighting arena. i was surprised. how did that happen? they said that the neighbors needed money to send their children to school, so they agreed to rent out their land to an "entrepreneur" who started a cock fighting arena for the villagers.
after the fuss of the roosters it became quieter, and then a kind of "chanting" began....it was the men egging (ooo...bad play on words...) the cocks on as 2 of the many had been chosen to fight in the roped off arena, with a blade attached to one heel and whoever wounds the other cock, is the winner. after that sound came the cheering of tens of men. the deal was over. those that gambled well, won, those that didn't ....
i looked at the father of the family and asked him how he felt with this new enterprise right next to his home? he shared his regret about all of the motorbikes on the road coming and going twice a day, and about the people that cut through his garden and so he had to put up a palm leaf wall all around ( that's why it had looked so different to me all of a sudden!) and that he prefers the quiet life they had, but he is powerless over this since he himself does not own any land and cannot complain to the neighbors. he and the others choose to remain silent and hope that somehow the situation will change if they act from a place of harmony and not from complaining and confrontation. maybe the police will come one day and close it down, since it is illegal. i laughed. if i know about this new cock fighting arena, for sure the police do! but the bribes they get are worth looking in the other direction.
as we sat there speaking i thought about the options and why i am disappointed that from a peaceful forest environment, it has turned into a center for gambling and violence (yes, it is very violent seeing the cocks fight). there was again silence, as the next round of "players" were being chosen. and then suddenly there was the loud chanting, a choir of mens' voices coaxing and cheering in unison like a heart beat. i suddenly remembered a blog my friend had written about a man that traveled around the world recording sounds of natives and relating to it as "music" that is disappearing as our world becomes more techno. here we were in the forest, with the rhythmic choir of men chanting. taken out of context, it really was like music! i laughed and told the father, "listen, its music!" he himself is a kecak singer, which is a kind of orchestra made up of 50-100 men swaying together as they sit on the ground and in multiple harmony of amazingly fast sounds and rhythms that they produce by speaking put on a musical performance. he said "ah, like kecak!" and laughed. i laughed too, and said "yes, just imagine that they are saying "thank you , thank you, thank you" to god, and not "kill him, kill him, kill him" in order to win the cock fight!"
i remembered how the last time i had visited another friends parents compound in another forest, the peace and serenity were sublime. you can just feel the trees and earth beating like a heart beat and the chickens scratching away at all the leaves, and the cows mooing at meal time, and the pigs letting out a cry when they were hungry, and the guard dogs yelping when a stranger is approaching, and other than that, silence...a coconut drops, the scythe of someone cutting the long grasses for his cows, the rhythmic chopping of wood. all embraced in a lovely silence.
and a few weeks ago i returned to visit them after a 4 month reprieve, and as i walked around their compound, indonesian rock music was blaring out from huge speakers 50 meters away. i asked what that was?! he said an entrepreneur invested in a big soccer field that has a roof over it and he rents it out for the men to play there. they pay per game, and the music is for free! i couldn't believe it. someone invested money to let the men have a year round place to kick their ball around, and now all the farmers in the area have to listen to hip hop and rock and adele all day and evening? again, the response was one of acceptance on their part. this is how the man will earn back the money he invested, as he built such a nice soccer field for the young men of the village.
i thought about the old women that quietly had worked their whole lives, tending the trees in the garden, feeding the animals, living life outside all year long, other than sleeping at night. how suddenly, overnight, what had once been such a pastoral place was now a mammoth disco in the forest. i laughed. "your children are probably happy, they always had the television going on the music channel, mimicking the latest pop stars, and now they will have it right in their backyard all day long once your house is finished next month." "yes, we like music."
they had offered that i rent out a room by them. it is a perfect set up, they need the money, i need the room, it is on the farm and i could help and see traditional methods of working and be near the sea....but not at the price of hearing this music in the background all day long....
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