Tasty bits. Flirty wits.: Simple Pleasures of Balinese Life

FROG SONG AND MORE

Each morning greets with melodic bird songs, a very vocal and funny sounding cow, a zillion “cock-a-doodle do” roosters, often a light rainfall, the “uh-oh” gecko, all against the loud din of crickets and frogs. The morning smelled fresh along with burning incense of morning rituals throughout the neighborhood. The sounds of drums, a Balinese sounding xylophone and cymbals travel across the valley. That is gamelan, a daily and nightly occurrence.

is this a beetle or a bee?

The lush surroundings seem to never change though as with everything in life, there is change. One of the coconut trees seems lighter in coconuts today, the papayas are ripening, as are the bananas and even a young tree is sprouting a stalk of fruit.

there are six or more papaya trees at Frog Song

bananas coming on fast

and new ones sprouting

Offerings are placed on the property: in front of the pool, at the feet of a statue, at the shrines back and front.

blessing the offering

placing an offer at the front shrine

They are small young palm leaf trays or more elaborate flower shaped ones that hold five colors of flowers, an offering of food, usually rice. The person making the offering blesses the tray while reciting a prayer, sprinkles with sacred water and places a stick of incense to complete the ritual.

Yesterday, four children came with the oldest doing the blessing and each boy had a stick of lit incense; taking turns at the various offering sites on the property. Today, a neighbor made the offerings.

The sweeper, Wayan Tirta comes each morning to literally SWEEP. He does more than that but he spends every day sweeping and mopping the walkways, stairs and floors in addition to sweeping the fallen palm fronds, leaves and flowers. He also makes the flower arrangements:

~ BTW something men do more often than women. For wedding ceremonies, the men decorate the entrance gates with fanciful palms, colorful ribbons and flowers. Like most of the Balinese, Wayan is more than willing to offer his help smiling willingly.

In the evenings, “Papa” and one of his grandsons come to stand guard over the villa. They spend the night in the little guard shack and take their work very seriously.

Papa and younger grandson

with Topo

Topo the five year old was at first, very shy. Now with the power of the iPad, I’ve won him over with Talking Carl and Duet Piano so he comes and plays for a few minutes along with Papa who apparently is a musician.

Papa is the father of Wayan Suana, who is our main guy ~ property manager, gamelan lead drummer, banana pancake maker, fabulous cook bringing his Balinese chicken every couple of days.

Wayan and Karya

Karya is my main driver ~ I prefer and trust him to a couple of others when Karya was not available. A taxi driver in Ubud whose primary business is countryside cycling treks was a bit too creepy for even this tough savvy traveler which is a pity since his bike tours and bikes looked pretty good. Jody, the villa owner would ride into Ubud everyday with Wayan Suana on the back of his motorbike ~ a much braver woman than I.

When leaving the villa in the morning, we pass droves of school children in their uniforms who are gawking to catch a glimpse of the “westerner” in town then have a confused look since I’ve mistaken for Indonesian! Hey, in Turkey many people thought I was Turkish, and in Egypt, an Egyptian. My appearance certainly doesn’t scream American but I didn’t realize my features were so global!

The morning drive is always eventful with motorbikes, cars, trucks, villagers raking their rice laid out on tarps partly on the street..

harvesting the rice fields,

dodging fallen hillsides from the rains, women carrying laundry, offerings, palm fronds, harvested vegetables, soup pots, and array of just about anything in daily life.