I just had to post something after the very long conversation I have just had with a Balinese family. My reason for wanting to post this is that it may help some forum readers that are new and one or more points may enlighten some that are not so new.
I have been sitting on the road for hours chatting, as you do in the remoter villages as its the only none dirt/grass area in the village, having a conversation with a very happy older couple (about 60-65 years old) who have just adopted a 6 year old girl from a Bali orphanage.
I have so much to say about this conversation that my post would be very lengthy instead I will just list some key messages I got from the very frank (as the Balinese are) conversation I have just had with my intermediate Bahasa Indonesian and their basic English. Excuse that they are not all related we kept getting on to new topics. I was really amazed how insightful they were and ashamed that I was amazed at that.
1. This family have adopted this little girl (they wanted a boy) so that they can be looked after until they die and their family temple and ancestors can be looked after once they have passed, this will be her role in life. They have lost 3 children, 2 girls on motorcycle accidents and their son from what I can tell died when a small child. They don't seem to have other family apart from his sister who now belongs to her husbands family.
2. They said that at the orphanage the people that run it don't like it when tourists want to come and see the place, they said they should just give money and not treat it as an amusement park and the children as monkeys in a zoo. They said it takes time to show them around and it is only for the tourist to feel something, there is no benefit for the children apart from disruption.
3. They said that all countries should adopt Nyepi as it saves the planet and we only have one.
4. They said that they have been sitting on that road all their life and before cars could come that way they had no problem, it was dirt and smaller before and no one made a fuss but now cars beep at them and once a tourist stopped to tell them it was dangerous to sit on the road.
5. They told me that they believe we waste so much money on a holiday which is only a short time and not enough on our spirits which are forever, that one 2 week cruise on a ship costs them about the same amount as one year of ceremonies.
6. That what we call 'hassling' is what they call business, that Balinese would not go to a shop or market unless they intended to buy something so if you do not want to buy then why are you there and that the tourist invented 'just looking' so that is what the Balinese think you want to hear and the Balinese think it is strange that you would waste your time 'just looking' there are many other things to spend your time with, they think we spend a lot of time doing nothing useful.
7. They said that many tourists want to donate money to poorer families to make themselves feel good but then if they stop the money to family suffers more as they are used to receiving it and they never think about this, they mentioned a family in their village who received a letter saying that since the global financial crisis they would not longer be able to send money for their child. This family have now pulled their child out of high school. They said better to not give any money than to stop after 2 years.
8. They said tourists complain about so many things then why do they come here? They complain about traffic jams yet they are in a car, they complain that religious events close shops yet this is Bali not somewhere else and religion is more important than anything so why come here if you don't like it.
It was a long conversation and it is very late now so I have probably missed some things but just wanted to get a few key points of their opinion (not mine)of how things are. Also English is not my first language so please do not correct my grammar.