We're back from the village!

This past week has been awesome.  The big event before we left for the village was the Full Moon festival which happens about once a month.  Each time a group of villages come together for the celebration.  They don't celebrate it at the same temple every time; it is cycled through the group of villages.  It started on Wednesday evening, and I didn't really know what to expect except that we were supposed to wear pakaian adat because we were going to temple.  My family didn't go that day because my host-sister-in-law was sick, so my friend Melissa (whose family also wasn't going) decided we would show up by ourselves and wing it, thinking it would be similar to Kuningan.  Oh were we wrong!  We showed up at the center of Bedulu, next to our program center, and there were heards of men in white clothing and women in their nicest traditional clothing.  There were way more people there than lived in Bedulu, which was initially a little confunsing (we didn't know anything about the festial except that it was for the full moon at the time.)  In addition, no one was going to temple; they were just waiting on the side of the road for ... something.  So, Melissa and I being the the go-getters that we are, decided to walk past the crowds to temple by ourselves.  About halfway there we saw a large  procession of people, being led by men carrying large golden chairs, umbrellas, and an array of other traditional aesthetics.  As they passed the crowds, people joined in the parade.   We didn't know where they were walking to, so after a slight hestation we excitedly jumped in, just in front of the band.  There had to be at least a thousand people walking with us, and it was so fun!  Along the way we ran into some of our mahasiswa friends who invited us to join their families, which was really nice.  After about half an hour of slow walking, we finally reached the temple, which was in the villlage just north of us.  The whole walk was sort of eerie because of the music and the fact that it was at night, but it was really fun because you just chatted with whoever was walking next to you, whether they were American or Balinese.  Just outside of the temple, everyone suddenly sat down on the ground as the band continued to play.  Women near the front gate, all uniformly dressed, performed a choreographed dance, and as we watched Melissa and I had a man explain to us the details of the celebration. Each night the procession grows until the final walk back to Bedulu on Saturday afternoon.  After the dance ceased, we made our way into the temple.  It was extremely ornate with piles and piles of offerings in each of the temple's pavilions.  We followed another friend, Eliza's, family and watched as they prayed.  After the ceremony was over we stayed for a few minutes to take pictures, but in the midst of it it started to rain, which happens pretty often here.   Melissa and I just waited it out at a warung, or little shop, and walked back once it cleared up.  

The next two night I wasn't able to go because I recently started Balinese dance lessons, yeah!!  I am doing it with my friends Alex, Melanie, and Misra.  We have only had two lessons so far, but we've already run through the whole dance.  There are a few parts that are pretty hard to memorize, especially the hand movements, but it seems to be coming together faster than I imagined.  Balinese dance is a lot more fast-paced than what we did in Java, so our dance is considerably shorter (it was 15 minutes in Java!)  The whole thing is pretty funny, and just goes to show how much we still have to learn about Balinese culture.  Balinese dancers are known especially for their facial expressions, particularly their eyes.  At certain points in the dance we dart our eyes to the side and then give a piercing (and perhaps a little creepy) stare towards the audience.   Our teacher, who is around our age (and just gorgeous!) was explaining this to us, and that after that we were supposed to give a smile to the audience for a couple of counts.  Another piece of information we didn't know, or at least I didn't, is that Balinese dancers never smile with their mouth open, so when she asked us to do this I, being a goofball, flashed her the biggest smile I could do.  She laughed so hard she cried.  Whoops! It was really funny though, and she still chuckles everytime we get to that part.  

Saturday my family also wasn't able to go to temple, so I decided to grab my camera and walk by myself.  Sara and I are both doing wayang puppet making, but hadn't been able to go but once because she was sick, so I originally was going to go just for a few minutes and then walk back to change and go to our lessons.  I ended up staying for a little over and hour thinking that the parade would start at any time, which ended up not happening, but I did get to see a lot of Balinese dance, which I just loved!  I also finally got to see a gegong dance, which is a large Chinese-style dragon costume that is worn by two people.  After that I hurriedly walked back to Bedulu to meet up with Sara, but by the time I got back it was too hard to find a ride to the lesson, so we jalan-jalaned, or went for a walk.  We didn't really know where to go, but ended up in a rice field.  There I tried to pet a cow and failed, watched some ducks, and walked barefoot through the muddy field, which all made for a really good time.  Incidentally, this rice field was right by the road that parade was marching on, so when we finished we jumped in.  It was a little hilarious because there Sara and I were, barefoot, muddy, and in our regular clothes, in the middle of nicely dressed Balinese parade.  Hehehe.  We got a few chuckles and questions, but it's really no more attention than we get for just being white/Hispanic/psuedo-Indian, just a different kind of attention.  

The next day we left for Bu Ari's village!  This was definitely the highlight of my week.  It was quite different from Bedulu because in that it is extremely rural, and it reminded me of an interesting mix of Bedulu, Icandi (a Kuna village in Panama), and Kellyville.  Most of the people who lived there were rice farmers, and it was small enough that everyone knew everyone else.  (Bu Ari said that there were about 80 families living there.)  We didn't have many activies, and most of the activities that were planned were optional.  It was especially fun because we had local students from Udayana University and Warmadewa University in Denpasar (as well as one more graduated volunteer), and they were all really fun to be around.  With the acception of the only girl student, Anita, I didn't get to know them very well until the last night, which I kind of regret, but I suppose these things happen.   During the few days we tried out a lot of the local cultural activities.  We played gamelan the first two nights, which Bu Ari admittedly said we weren't very good at (and then immediately apologized, haha.)   We also made coconut bowls... it was surprising how much work they required!  The first full day we were there we helped Bu Ari's mom collect items from around for making traditional medicine, which we helped make as well.  I don't remember what all of it was for, but there was something I ate that was very spicy and made my nose run a lot!   I think I may be building up a tolerance for spicy foods (finally!) but it's been a somewhat painful process.  The second full day we worked in a rice field in the morning; we cleared a patch of land so that it could be prepared for the next round of rice, which they plant 2-3 times a year.  It was immediately followed by a mud fight, coconut drinks, and a river mandi (bath!!)    River mandis were always really fun, just as they were in Icandi, and I know I'll miss getting to do it now that we're back in Bedulu.  One of the more interesting points of the excursion was the Balinese flirtation dance.  They invited professional traditional Balinese dancers to the village for it, and it was pretty surprising.  I expected it to be pretty low key, but we were required to wear pakaian adat, and they invited all of us, one at a time, to join the dancer on stage!  I was really embarrrassed at the time, and some of the dances were kind of awkward, but it was a lot of fun.  At the end the gamelan band played and everyone got up on the little stage to dance, which I liked the best.  One day (I don't remember which) we walked about 20 minutes to Pak Yudi's village to a balian, or traditional healers.  They are very mystic in nature, and he explained how he became a balian, as well as some of his methods for treatment.  It was very interesting.  After that we walked a little further to see Pak Yudi's new baby!  She is a little over a month old and she is sooo cute!

Isn't she precious?  I got to hold her, and everyone nicknamed me Malia "Baby Magic" Castillo because she was wailing when I got her, but was able to make her stop.  I guess that is what happens when you work in a daycare and have two baby brothers ;)  It did make me miss Jackson and Jaythan a lot though, but a couple of days later I got to Skype and see them, as well as the rest of my family, which made me super happy!  

The last night of the village was pretty bittersweet, only because it was super fun and we knew we had to leave in the morning.  We all had a big sleepover at Bu Ari's house (local students included), where we stayed up and played games, watches movies, and got to know each other a lot better.  In the morning we got up really early to catch the sunrise, but it was cloudy.  That was actually the third time I had gotten up at 5:30 to see it (hard to believe from me, I know) but wasn't able to because of the clouds.  I guess it just wasn't meant to be... :(  Then we left the village for a town called Lovina in north Bali, which was sad for me .  I was a little apprehensive when we first arrived because it was so without modern luxury, which I was accostomed to because of the Kuna village, but once I jumped into the culture it was great!  To give you and idea of how rural this place is, they didn't get electricity until the early nineties!  Even with the lack of the usual commodities, like western toilets (and toilet paper for that matter ;) ) it was a blast, and gave me an even greater appreciation for Balinese culture.  

The drive to Lovina was about 2 hours.  There we stayed at a hotel instead of a homestay (which we had done in the villlage like in Bedulu and Yogyakarta.)  In Lovina we did several fun activites.  One was attending a lecture at a local university where we discussed religious relations in northern Bali, which was really interesting.  We also prayed at a Chinese temple, explored the area, and saw a Buddhist temple. We saw a lot of diversity!   At night we got to eat American delicacies, like pizza (!) and see live music, both of which I love!  After two nights we traveled another couple of hours into the mountains to a small fishing village.  We arrived there yesterday afternoon and planned on climbing Mt. Batur pagi-pagi, very early this morning, but the weather wasn't too friendly so we were forced to reschedule.  We ended up leaving just before lunch, and have been hanging out in Ubud/Bedulu since we got back. I have a great week, but I am excited to get back into the swing of things tomorrow.  I apologize for the lack of pictures in this update, but it's rather long and my internet is pretty slow. Maaf! I'm also sorry if there are misspellings because I didn't proofread :)

Sampai nanti!