working together

By coincidence a lot of building is going on around my house; a year old dirt road is being paved, and a self standing porch, kind of like a gazebo, is being built in our garden. So, lots of workers around. A lot of my day is spent sitting on the porch looking out at the forest, and doing whatever it is I am doing; drawing, eating, meditating, playing, making offerings, working on my laptop, playing the gamelon….and the workers were right there in front of me, so I was watching them most of the days they worked. I was also curious to see how craftsmen work, and also how Balinese work.

 A tall 30ish thin man had been hired to build the foundation for the bale.. He is called "the craftsman". All men who are craftsmen (and there are only men) are called "tucan" (craftsman).  That is their name. Period. He came on his motorbike along with an older man (70) who was his uncle and assistant. He was the craftsman for building the cement raised foundation for the carpenter who was making the bale. He was shown a very very simple sketch of the planned bale, and the measurements of the two steps. Period.  The local hardware store had brought the truckloads of sand, bags of cement, and cement blocks needed. The person who shoveled all of the sand into and out of the truck was an older woman. The owner and driver of the truck sat and smoked a cigarette while she worked vigorously and professionally. She probably receives about $3 for an 8 hour day of hard physical labor….and is probably in her 50's.

These were local people, called a day or two beforehand and asked to do the work. This is how the people live here…from day to day. Happily they were available and began to work. The week the two of them spent in the front yard working from 7-11 (at which point they go home to eat and rest) and return again from 12 -5, was typical of the Balinese work ethic. On arrival they are served a glass of instant coffee, at 10 they are given a second glass along with something sweet (the kids and I made them crepes everyday), and then another glass of coffee in the afternoon, for another 5 minute break. At 11 and at 5 they just leave, no matter how much work is left to do. Period. A metal teapot is filled with water and a glass covering the spout, and is at their disposal during their work day.

What was especially interesting was that they worked in silence. At first a few people tried to speak with the older man, but he just continued doing whatever he was doing, regardless of their comments to him to turn off the water, or where the shovel was or whatever. Within a few minutes it became clear to me that he was deaf. It was so interesting watching him work long hours carrying heavy buckets of cement back and forth, or bricks to the site, at a steady pace regardless of his age. The tucan and him worked in perfect harmony, with a few hand movements between them to instruct the deaf man what was needed next. The tucan worked in a squatted position for almost all of the 9 hours of work, as did the older man when he wasn't busy carrying.

It was lovely to see the quiet efficient and thoughtful attitude they had as they worked together in harmony. It was especially nice to see the seventy year old, still feeling worthwhile in society and with what to do each day, and able to earn $4 a day too. The tucan received $10 since he is the craftsman.

The final stages of their work included stepping stones and a sidewalk connecting the site to the already existing paths on the grounds. I had collected glass shards and sea shells at the sea over the past year and would use them to create mandalas on the front porch everyday with the kids. At the end of the evening we would put them all back in our shard/shell box in order to create new mandalas the following day. I had envisioned finding a way to make some of the creations permanent works of art for someone that would want them in their house. And now came the opportunity to use them as the stepping stones and path! I was happy to be part of the creative process.

The kids and I planned out a few designs, and I was happy that the grandmother, in her own silent way, also started to play with the shards on the day before we were going to place them in the cement stepping stones. I was so excited that she would be part of our creation. She had seen me doing the mandalas for months, but was never interested in them. I asked her to create something that we could make a stepping stone from. As I watched her mulling through the bamboo box full of shards and shells, I wondered what she would make. She worked in silence and no matter how hard I tried, I could find no rhyme or reason or pattern to what she was doing. The kids and I were much more conservative, doing symmetrical designs in circles or squares with color combinations, etc. Hers' was an amorphous shape with random colored glass shards. Only after she placed some ceramic shards totally beyond the 40 x 40 square tile of the porch floor that we would make our designs on, did I realize that she had made a magnificent tree, with roots and all! Of course! She was mother earth! Her life was the trees in the forest. She tended them like children, made the brooms from their leaves, built her fire from their wood and sold their fruits to support them. She had not been feeling well for over a month now and it was sad to see how the light in her eyes was fading as she could no longer walk through the trees in the forest everyday because of the pain in her leg. And now, even though she was still weak and resting, it was the tree that was her expression of creativity.

When it came time for the tucan to make the stepping stones, he diligently placed each and every shell and shard just the way we had planned them. My fingers were "itching" to create more and more of my own creations that would be permanent pathways. It was hard to let go of my ego and allow the others a fair share of stepping stones and to accept their reality and style of creativity. I wondered how the tucan was able to be totally at our service without a suggestion or personal expression of his own.

The day they finished the foundation, along came the 15 men building the 2 kilometer road, in front of our house. They had now reached our area. It was wonderful seeing all these men from the forest working together. The government was paying 2 salaries to the tucans that were paving the cement path, and another $5 a day to some of the resident workers, along with the cement, and a cement mixer that looked like it was from the 60's. But beggars can't be choosers. Having a paved road through the forest would enable the residents to have easier access to sell their produce and would enable a smoother ride on their motorbikes instead of the rugged path they had been using till now.

The men were between 25- 70 years old in all shapes and sizes. A schedule had been made for all the male residents in the area to help them pave the road. volunteering at least once a week;, shoveling, carrying, mixing and pouring the cement. They laughed a lot. They worked in harmony like a dance troupe, efficiently and enthusiastically. I imagined that if a needed road was being built in my community in Israel, it would probably resemble this style of male activity too.

What touched me most was the day after they had paved the path in front of our house, I was placing the morning offerings at the entrance to our property, and noticed a small flower offering and incense placed at the edge of the completed part of the new road! I was so surprised. Who had put it there? I asked my friend and he said that the tucan placed it there and also on the cement mixer each day before they start work in order to show gratitude for the safe building each day of the additional paved section and for the cement mixer that worked each day and served them in their goal. This typical and natural gesture of recognizing a Higher Force, beyond my own personal agenda of work, life, activity, that was "running the show" here, and that nothing was taken for granted, summed up for me the essence of the Balinese.

There also seems to be a very real and natural flow with the trilogy of creation, preservation and transformation (birth,life, death). As I traveled on the main road to the nearby city the other day I marveled at the constant state of construction going on. There are no slums or wealthy neighborhoods…everything is just torn down and rebuilt again whenever it falls apart or there is enough money to improve it. No big deal…just a sledge hammer and down comes everything, and they build it up again, bigger and better; temples, homes, businesses, schools, offices. I think it is also part of not taking life too seriously. That all of life is in a constant state of passing from creation to preservation to transformation….and it is no big deal. There isn't even the preconceived idea that something is going to be permanent. Even the road being paved in front of the house! My friend said that it will probably need to be paved a few times over the next five years until it will be a good road. I laughed! "Why?!"  "Because the government gave funds, but the amount that actually reached the village, after all of the beauracracy, is much less than needed, so the road will not be built well and will not last long and will need to be repaired several times. But in the end it will be a good road." So there isn't even an expectation that things will be perfect and last….it is just accepting life on lifes' terms and enjoying it. It reminded me of an astrological overview of my sign that said that I take things very seriously and life becomes a drama, and that I can change it into a comedy instead. It seems like that is what they do here…They accept that this is the way things are, so we may as well accept them and laugh about them instead of worry and be angry and disappointed. And this is how they all seem to work together, smiling, laughing and not taking things too seriously….including all the dog footprints on the newly paved road.