Last errand to Mas

I ran to the store this morning to pick up pancake mix.  This routine errand felt special as this would be the last time I'd see the everyday sights of our village.

I was deputized to scooter to a deli in the nearby village of Mas to pick up a box of pancake mix because we were faced with a breakfast crisis.  Four hungry girls - including two friends of Charlotte's who had spent the night on a sleep over - wanting pancakes and the pancake mix box was empty!

If you'll indulge me, here's a description of the trip.  Hop on the scooter, avoid driving over the offerings in the driveway, startle the chicken on our access road, past the young boys kicking around a soccer ball on the previously bare soccer field now overgrown with grass from the heavy downpours of the rainy season.

Wave to our neighbor and the village ladies sitting on the ground in front of the neighborhood food stall, wait at the intersection with the main road next to the village meeting hall with the disintegrating Ogoh-ogoh from the long ago Nyepi celebration.  Past the new, garishly painted and still unoccupied mystery corner store.  Out of the village now, into the rice fields stretching off into the distance, farmers bent over planting new rice shoots.

Past the guys cutting rocks, their bare hands millimeters away from the massive, whirling rotary blade; past the family weaving elephant grass into roofing panels, down the steep hill, across the bridge over the stream, and back uphill.  Quick turn left taking a back road through a sleepy village with a lovely temple, then merging onto the main road into Mas.

Stop to buy pulsa, trying to add money to my pre-paid handphone account.  The young woman who just opened the shop for the day isn't able to make the transaction go through successfully, blaming the phone company.  I give up.  As I head back to my scooter, the old man at the stall next door starts peppering me with questions.  When am I staying?  For how long?  Where am I from?  Oh, America.  From Seattle, California or Virginia?  His friend from America just came to Bali to buy handicrafts.  The old man has a son in Miami who works on the cruise ships.  I finally extricate myself.

Arrive at the deli to find that it doesn't open for twenty minutes.  Head to another little grocery shop that sells pulsa.  While waiting, peak through the back of the shop to find enormous intricately carved tree trunks sitting in a dark storage room.  Successfully buy pulsa.

Return to the deli, buy the pancake mix, return home, am mobbed by three 8-year-olds who ignore me but who are very happy to see the pancake mix.  They grab the pancake mix and rush off to the kitchen where Made makes them pancakes.

After breakfast I receive a special dispensation to take Alexa on the back of my motorbike - for the very first time to go for an extended ride - so we can take photos around the neighborhood, partially retracing my ride from this morning to record some of the sights.

I'll miss scootering around the villages absorbing the sights of everyday life here.

Opposite the access road to our villa - Dewa Putra and some village women

The neighborhood temple, just a few yards from the entrance to our access road

the village meeting hall with the gradually disintegrating Ogoh-ogoh

will we ever know what this store will be?

new rice shoots

farmers planting rice

stone cutting workshop

the temple in Abiensemal

the quiet street looking south from the temple

Ubud Property sign in Mas.  We are proud customers of Ubud Property and take great pleasure in knowing that they are 'legally competent'

counter display in the first pulsa store

wood carvings visible from the rear of the small grocery store

beside the rice fields on the way back to Silungan

a Silungan temple off by itself in the jungle

the village cemetery beside the banyan tree

back home Putu gives us a parting gift of a painting he made three years ago showing two brightly colored birds in a tree, which he says reminds him of Alexa and Charlotte

Uluwatu

As a last hurrah, we spent an overnight at a fancy hotel overlooking the beach in Uluwatu, the southernmost part of Bali.  We spent the day on the beach reached by a funicular that carried us down the steep cliffs.

Cakra and the Chocolate Factory

Alexa played the Wayan Wonka in a production of Cakra (prounced Chakra) and the Chocolate Factory, put on by our friends at the Yellow Coco kids arts center.

Charlotte was one of the oompah-loompahs.  They integrated in performances by a group of kids who are studying Aeralist movements on silks hung high from the ceiling.  The performance took place at the nearby Puppet and Mask museum (mentioned in a previous post).

The performance had a great turnout with dozens of families from Green School and the broader Ubud community in attendance.

Alexa did great under trying circumstances including a malfunctioning microphone and younger fellow cast members who didn't always remember their lines.  Charlotte had a huge grin the whole time she was on stage.  Both our girls love to perform!

the husband and wife team who run Yellow Coco.  the husband filled in as Augustus Gloop

Charlotte as a monkey

Cakra and his two grandmothers finding the golden ticket

some of the audience

aerialists perform

This post doesn't do the show justice.  But with the time constraints, doing a little something rather than nothing...

Mandala-making

The Green School primary curriculum includes two-hour units each morning centered around a theme.  These thematic units feature singing, poetry, visual and dramatic arts, movement, and academic study.  Charlotte's class is currently studying symmetry.  As part of this unit and an end-of-term celebration, her teacher Ibu Mona gathered the children and parents last week to make a flower mandala.   Mandalas have a variety symbolic meanings in several spiritual traditions.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala 

Making the mandala with the children was a beautiful process of collaboration.  Everyone brought flowers.  Earlier in the week, the children had dyed rice in various colors.  We worked together to make the mandala symmetrical, learning from our missteps along the way.  We also learned that some people enjoy working within the confines of formal symmetry more than others.

We were all was pleased by the fruits of our work measuring, designing and creating the mandala.   After it was completed, the teachers lit candles and we had quiet time in a circle.  We shared what we enjoyed about the process.

While we were reminded that mandalas are a symbol of life's impermanence, the kids were happy they were allowed to keep in the classroom for three days! 

Our feet were colorful after walking on the rice.

Parents enjoyed taking arty photos.

Posted by Lynn.

Happy 8th Birthday Charlotte!

Selamat ulang tahun Charlotte!  On November 14, Charlotte celebrated her 8th birthday.  She has had a big year of growth in Bali and was so delighted about this milestone! 

In keeping with tradition, Charlotte's birthday planning started on November 15 last year.  She is a dedicated party planner.    When we made the decision to stay in Bali, she shifted her focus and began to consider various tropical venues and ideas.  We finally landed on a plan for a celebration at home with swimming, clay hand-building, and various games Charlotte orchestrated (with our help). 

The highlight was the scavenger hunt.  Several months before her birthday, Charlotte wrote each of her friend's names on a popsicle stick to draw randomly for teams.  Nat and Alexa developed a couple of dozen clues and hid them around the villa.  The kids zoomed around the yard and house looking for them.  Squeals of delight issued from the first-place team, who each received the prize of a giant lollipop.  (The other teams were good sports about their prizes as well.)

We were so pleased that Dewa's children, Surya and Bintang, accepted our invitation to join the festivities.  Dewa's wife, Raka, and the staff in their shop made the decorations by hand. 

As a surprise gift, Dewa commissioned a sign to welcome guests at the door.  It's made of styrofoam (to the consternation of some Green Schoolers).  You see them all over Bali at celebrations such as weddings, tooth filings, and grand openings of shops, banks and restaurants. 

Alexa and I selected the cake design.  Charlotte wanted it to be a surprise.  She loved it.  The sparkler candles I picked up in Cambodia were also a hit.

As is the tradition among the expat set here, we had parents join us for drinks, dinner and cake.  It was fun to end the party with a grown-up chat while the kids splashed around the pool.

On the 14th, we celebrated as a family with a fancy dinner at Kebun, complete with singing waiters.

We'll cap off her birthday with a final gift, a trip to Waterbom, Charlotte's "favorite place in the whole world."  It is a beautiful water park with enormous slides and pools.

Nat and I are thrilled to have created a special memory, for both Alexa and Charlotte, of a birthday in Bali.