over there:
Late last year I was contacted by a balinese friend, she does alot of humanitarian work there and had become involved with umbrellas of the organisation looking after the 2002 bomb widows. She contacted me and some other australian friends of hers to ask if we could help a particular individual. This is the story.
Nyoman's husband was a 'Bali Garden Restaurant' driver who got killed in front of the 'Sari Club'. She is 35, now left with a 13, 8 and 6 year old. They live in an extremely poor, bamboo-shack, no flooring, no furniture and, from what I could see, completely unhygenic house in Sanur of a size of about 2 x 4m. She also shared this place with her two brother in laws, who werent able to help her anymore than she could help herself.
She only graduated from junior hight school. Also she has no family relatives who can help her financially, which made things worse because her late husband had left her with a Rp2,5 million debt which she hasn't managed to pay because she simply is not capable of being employed in a good decent occupation other than being paid daily Rp15,000 as a labourer (carrying bricks) around a construction project.
When I heard about this woman, for some reason, it struck a chord with me. I mean we hear stories every day of people that need help in Bali and of course we want to help them all, but we cant. Anyway I vowed to get some money together for her. So I contacted some friends both here on the forum and elsewhere.
Gwenda, Tina and Sue (dromomaniac) all chipped in to help, thank you once again for your generous and kind hearted gesture!!! But of course there still wasnt enough money to cover her debt AND pay her rent, so I decided I would put the rest in, didnt matter at the time cause I had spare cash, only wish I had it now!!!!
Anyway to cut a long story short we got enough money together to pay off her debt, pay her years rent on her "house" (her landlord should be shot) and also had enough money left over for her to quit her job and concentrate on doing something she really wanted to do, early in the peace it was a sewing course, so she could be a tailor, but I think that proved to hard for her, without a sewing machine.
Of course when I was in Bali I was always going to visit her and when the day finally came, I arrived with some extra stuff from Makro, cooking utensils, knives, chopping boards, rice, oil and any other thing I could grab, it was so much fun, had to slow myself down at times when running through those aisles!!!
She came running down the path and just grabbed me, she kept smoothing her hair down on the back of her neck and I found out later, she was embarrassed because it had all fallen out from stress and she was hoping it was going to grow back quickly, she was ALSO hoping that I didnt notice (but my interpreter friend kept telling me everything). Anyway we both laughed and sat and held hands and swapped letters (thank you thomas, off the forum also, for translating, she was most impressed)!! I took photos, but alas I have left my camera in Bali, so will at some stage, download them!!
One thing I was most impressed about was with the extra money, Nyoman had opened up a small warung. She had had to cut her living area in 1/2 to do it, so with almost no room now in their little shack, they were eking out an existence from this tiny little warung that was supplying the toxic waste dump that they lived on, with everything from soap powder to some very interesting little snacky things, only thing was, everyone seemed to just come and take stuff and go, she told me through my friend, that there was a credit system of some sorts, but I didnt think that was a very good idea and told her, not that it was going to make any difference cause im sure they would still do it.
She said that it carved out a little bit each day for them, enough for her to feed her daughters MOST days, not every day, but most, so I left her with the promise I would be back and off I went trying to work out how I could solve her, mine and anyone elses problems in the world!!!!
Most depressing thing, about three weeks after I visited her, I got a phone call from her, she had borrowed a handphone to call me cause she really needed to ask me if I could do something for her....buy her daughter a scooter.....15 million rups was all she wanted.....I was GOBSMACKED!!!! She was talking indo and I had grabbed a friend of mine who was taking the call and interpreting for me, I just started crying cause all of a sudden I got the picture, she thought I was a god and a rich one at that and what was wrong with asking me for a motorbike. Told my friend to tell her I couldnt help her and lost all faith in humanity for a few days!!!! Didnt want to see her again after that, but I will when I get back to Bali, cause I feel I need to explain to her why I couldnt help her, but you know what, I dont think she will understand, because if there was one thing I gathered from this trip, it was that and please, please correct me if Im wrong, the majority of balinese people think us bules are just made of money!!! Ive had a hard time convincing them otherwise. I dont think they will ever understand unless they can come to Australia themselves and see how it is for us here!
I remember one night sitting down the beach with some of my stallholder friends, just having a drink together and this woman, aussie, came out of nowhere and started handing out 5,000 rup notes to all the balinese around us, I was so embarrassed for this woman!! I thought it was so arrogant of her, sure she thought she was doing a good deed, but the looks on some of the balinese's faces spoke volumes to me. Honestly I couldve crawled into a hole. The aussie woman then came and sat down beside me and said how sorry she felt for all of the balinese and how hard they had to work and how she just liked coming out and giving them all money. No bloody wonder they think we are all rich, when you get people doing that.
Anyways.....another balinese friend of mine invited me to her temple for a huge 10 year celebration. It was at Pettetinget Temple which Ive always been interested to go into but had never had the opportunity until now. Anyway I thought I would do the right thing and dress up in their traditional ceremonial clothing. Well dont know if I will ever be brave enough to do that again, EVERYBODY and I mean everybody was looking at me. The guards in the hotel were greeting me with their traditional greeting of "Om Swastiastu" and smiling and saying how balinese I looked!!! hahaha.
Then once I got to the temple well that was another story again, it was like I was royalty, funny thing is, I cant work out how, when praying to their gods on a really holy occasion the women can be all done up in their costume and its SEE THROUGH, I mean my bloo@@dy bra corset thing was on show for everyone to see, but then the rest of the time when they go about their day to day business, they cover up!! Sometimes I will never understand!!
Anyway I was able to enter the very inner circle of this huge ceremony and boy wasnt that interesting. People falling down left, right and centre as the spirit touched them. Pigs, chickens and ducks being sacrificed and of course I kept looking all at the wrong time. Men everywhere with kris's pretending to stab themselves so the spirit can enter them, what a cacaphony of sound and a feast of sights, something I will never, never forget and only hope to do again, not to oggle, but to feel a part of something so special to these people and to be accepted so easily (well at least I think I was) and to gain a greater understanding of their passion for their religion, truly fascinating and actually at the end of it all, I was pleasantly at peace with the world, only hope I get invited to participate in another one.