A Day in the Life of Alexa (Part I) - by Alexa

Green School

Green School is a wonderful place.  The school has been around for only three years and is already a great school.  It goes up to 12th grade.  There are more then 10 bamboo structures on our huge campus.  There are also many animals on campus including goats, pigs and chickens! My class is in charge of the pigs (our class calls it "pig duty").  Our class room is the size 45 steps long and 15 steps wide.  My teacher is Pak Shaun.  He is from Australia.  He is very funny and friendly.  I like to imitate his Australian accent.  Charlotte's teacher is Pak Jerry.  Pak Jerry is from America.  Pak Jerry is funny, calm, and friendly.

First day of Green School

A Day in the life of Alexa

I wake-up to the sound of roosters & geckos .  I quickly dress and go out of Charlotte's and my
shared room across the bridge  and into the main room for breakfast . After I complete my morning routine, and put my sunscreen and bug spray on, I get my backpack and go outside to meet Dewa, our driver.  On the drive to school, we see people planting rice and making "penjor" for the upcoming Galungan.  Galungan is a ceremony every six-months.  Penjors are big bamboo poles that have palm leaves, rice, and other decorations on them. Occasionally we see ceremonies along the streets.  Once we get to school and through the bamboo entrance, to our right is the bathrooms.  The bathrooms in Green School are different from other bathrooms, because there are two toilets in every stall.  One toilet is for your pee.  The other is for your poo.  Instead of flushing the toilet, your pee goes down the drain, and in the other toilet, which doesn't have a drain, you put sawdust over your poo so over time it gets composted. 

If you walk further you go to the Mepantigan.   The Mepantigan is a place where we have assemblies every Friday.  In the assemblies we show dances, songs, awards, and events that have happened in Green School. Mepantigan is the name of the mud wrestling sport.  It is the bamboo building where we have assemblies, which is right next to the mud wresting pit.

                     The Green School Marimba band performs in the Mepantigan at the end of Friday afternoon assembly

On your left is the Warung.  A warung is a small restaurant.  After school we eat snacks there and grown-ups eat there while school is going on.

Next to the warung is a big field we use for playing soccer and ultimate frisbee mostly. 

To your right, now, is the mud wrestling pit that high schoolers use for mud wrestling.  It is also used by Pre-K Prep up to 4th grade who play in there during school.

Down the path is the Heart of School.  The Heart-of-school is about 3-4 stories high.  The art room, library, most high school classrooms and cafeteria are in the Heart-of-school.

The center of the Heart of School - looking up

Mom surveying the Heart of School for the first time

Another photo of Heart of School

A serpent made out of paper mache and fabric in the Heart of School

I run across the field just as I hear the gong ring.  The gong rings when it is time for school to start, time for snack, the end of snack, time for lunch, time for recess, the end of recess, and the end of the day.

Once I get across the field, I quickly walk on the gravel path towards Charlotte's classroom.  Once I drop her off and say hello to her teacher, Pak Jerry, ("Pak" means "Mister" in Indonesian), then I run to my own classroom hut and take off my shoes and put down my backpack.  Then I run towards the meeting area for Thematic Time that happens every day at the start of school. 

Our theme for Thematic Time is Indonesian Hero Legends, and we have learned about many of them so far, including Kebo Iwa, Rai, Song Wanita, and Song Kadru, and many others.  We have two Indonesian Hero Songs about going into battle, and two Indonesian hero poems about two Indonesian here stories that we are working on at the time.  After we sing our song and recite our poem, we grab a bamboo pole and start our battle dance. 

My partner for the dance is Rae, one of my friends.  After we practice the dance, we go towards our desks, and write about another chapter of the story that we heard the day before.  After that, we sit down and we listen to more of the story.  My class is very good about laughing at the funny parts, but the thing is that it is very entertaining and people shout out at the exciting parts.  We are very emotional at the sad parts also.

After that we are starving out of our minds.  We are relieved just as much as the pigs are when they get their food when we hear the gong ring for snack time.  We run and grab our snack and head towards the Heart of School.  While eating our snack we read and chat until sadly the gong rings again.

At this time, we could have many activities depending on the day of the week, including music, library, green studies, art and sometimes numeracy and literacy.  After one or two of these, the gong rings for lunch. 

I run to the Heart of School and give the woman at the start of the food line my ticket, and grab a basket with a banana leaf.  Then I help myself to the food and sit down with my friends.  We have a choice between International and Indonesian food, but I usually get International because sometimes they have pasta and hamburgers. 

Once the gong rings for the start of recess, I dump out all the leftover food from my basket into a bucket, the banana leaf into another bucket, my silverware into another bucket, and then my tissue (aka napkin) into another bucket.  Then I remind myself that I have pig duty this week.  I run and get Rae, who is from North Carolina, Vega, who is from Mauritius that is near Madagascar (she only speaks French),  and Naomi, who is from the Netherlands.  We get the pig bucket and we pick up the food bucket and dump all of its contents into the pig bucket.  Then we put on our gloves, and pick up the pig bucket and hoist it all the way to the pig pen (aka pig palace).  Then we dump the food into the trough and the pigs eat the food, as pigs do.

After we finish pig duty, we have recess.  During recess we have the choice of drawing in the art room, playing on the play set (of course all made out of bamboo), or you can play in your classroom.
After recess, we either have literacy, numeracy, bahasa indonesian, or emotional life skills.  Emotional life skills includes learning how to be a good friend, how to avoid bullying, and things like that.

When the gong finally rings for the end of the day, I meet Mom and she buys me some snacks at the Warung such as mango slushy, pumpkin bread or muffins.  Then we go to the parking lot and meet Dewa to go home.

After we come home we have a snack, relax, and occasionally go to the pool until dinner.  We either go out or have dinner at home.  After dinner we take an outdoor shower and go to bed.  Ready for another fun day at Green School.


 Video credits: Lynn

Wheels

I finally have wheels.

Last Wednesday I rented a scooter.  It is a Honda Vario, one of the most popular models.

For the first time in nearly a month I was able to go where I wanted without needing someone to drive me there.  It is a freeing feeling.

For my first trip, I wanted to visit Goa Gajah, also known as the Elephant Cave, an eleventh century royal temple located a couple of miles outside of Ubud.  My plan was to drive very cautiously, staying behind the cars, and avoiding any risky maneuvers.  Immediately I got stuck in a traffic jam.  I sat there as dozens of scooters whizzed past by driving into the oncoming traffic lane.  I felt overly timid sitting there while every other scooter zoomed past.  I finally followed suit, which wasn't as scary as it seemed, and which saved a nice chunk of time otherwise spent sitting in traffic breathing exhaust fumes.

Soon enough, I was stuck in a worse traffic jam.  Two oversize tourist buses were trying without much success to fit past each other on the narrow side street I was driving on.  There was no option to pass by driving in the oncoming lane, as the two buses were completely blocking the entire road.  Giving up any vestiges of my resolution to be cautious and obey Western road rules, I followed the other scooters onto the sidewalk, and quickly passed the buses, narrowly avoiding some gaping holes in the sidewalk. 

The intersections are fun.  Cars, trucks and scooters all drive into the intersection at the same time from multiple directions and then somehow come out the other side.   The technique is to make your way to the center of the intersection and then insert yourself into any tiny gap in the traffic flow of the direction you want to go.

At last, feeling somewhat strung out, I reached Goa Gajah.

The entrance to the Elephant Cave

View of the entrance from inside the cave

Offerings inside the cave

Fountains with holy water

A large block from elsewhere in the complex that had broken off in an earthquake and was resting in a shallow pool

The 'guide' hanging around the pool area who showed me the locations of the inscriptions on the large fallen blocks of the temple.

I soon became less impressed by my scooter adventure when a couple of days later we were visited by another Green School family with two little kids.  I assumed they had driven over in their car.  But when the time came for them to leave, they all put on helmets and each parent hopped onto a scooter.  Then both kids climbed onto their mom's scooter - the little one in front of her, and the eight year-old in back - and they all sped off into town.

A typical scene - four on a scooter, no one wearing a helmet, mom with only one hand free

Hiring a Driver

It is somewhat disorienting to be living in a society where the wage rates are so different than in the U.S.

The wage for a day laborer in a rice paddy, according to Dewa, is 50,000 rupiahs, or around $6 per day.  Housekeepers, gardeners and night security are paid around the same rate. 

The other day I splurged on a package of imported British potato chips.  They cost around $8.  Then came the realization that I spent more on that bag of potato chips than a typical Balinese makes from a day of hard manual labor.

We pay our driver, Dewa, 400,000 rupiahs a day, or around $45/day, which is on the high side for a driver.  He speaks fairly good English and is a non-smoker.  He provides the vehicle- a newer small minivan, and covers all repairs, gas, and parking fees.  He says he is available '24/7'.  He doesn't work set hours but is 'on call' as needed.  He is at our place at 7:30 am for the drive to school, and is often driving us home from dinner out at a restaurant at 8 pm or later. 

Dewa with the girls

We are very happy with Dewa.  Dewa is friendly, helpful and professional.  He is our main guide to all things Bali.  As we drive, he explains what we see around us.  He also tries to educate us about the many and complex ceremonial practices and spiritual beliefs of the Balinese.  We now trust Dewa to drive the girls the 20 minutes to school in the morning without one of us coming along.

The housekeeper and the gardener come with the rental property.  They are paid by our landlords.  We hired Dewa directly.

We have an instinct to be egalitarian and not to hire people to do things for us that we could do ourselves. Do we need a driver?  No, it is not essential, but it is certainly extremely helpful.  Some, but not many, expat families drive themselves.

There are many benefits to having a driver.  Driving conditions in Bali are chaotic and stressful.  Few intersections have traffic lights, and you have to push your way through.  Tailgating is the only driving style, yet cars and scooters randomly merge in and out of traffic or abruptly slow down to veer off into a side street.  Two lane roads are in practice three-lanes, as cars veer into oncoming lanes to pass scooters or slow-moving trucks, while scooters coming from the other direction hug the edge of the road so they aren't run over by the oncoming car.  There are swarms of scooters weaving in and out of slow-moving traffic, passing on either side of you, zooming into the oncoming lanes to pass and then wanting to abruptly merge back in the split-second before they are mowed down by a car coming from the other direction.

The patchwork of twisting roads is confusing to navigate, there are few road signs, and roads change their name every few intersections.  There are few places to park in downtown Ubud, so the best option is to be dropped off and picked up later.  The police are worse than useless in any fender bender, as their main role is to solicit bribes.  Compensation for any accident is usually negotiated on the spot, which would be difficult to do as a non-Indonesian speaker.  In addition, expats are always considered at fault.  Driving often means spending hours inching through very congested traffic.

It may be self-serving to say this, but one thing we can offer coming to Bali as an expat is employment.  As a Green School administrator put it, when Balinese see expats driving themselves their reaction is that the expat needn't be so cheap, and should cough it up and hire someone.

Our back-up driver is the husband of one of the nearby inn's staff members.  He mentioned some of the jobs he had before-  construction work and wood carving.  These were hard jobs for low pay.  He said he felt very grateful to now be able to work as a driver.

Thanks to the tourism industry, many Balinese now are able to have less grueling work for better pay.  Dewa says that it is now difficult to find Balinese willing to do the hardest jobs - road construction and some farm labor.  Javanese are often brought over for these jobs.

Maybe if I became more confident about my ability to drive in Bali, I would consider driving myself.  But then I would realize that the consequence would be to deprive Dewa of a steady, well-paying job- one he tells us he is very happy to have. 

I learned from my days at the Commerce Department visiting overseas clothing factories that sweatshops where imported workers spent 10 hours a day, six days a week, bent over sewing machines were not an  unmitigated evil, but in many ways a good thing.  The fact that the workers chose this work meant that this work was better than any available for them back home.

By choosing to live in a developing country, rather than in Barcelona or London for example, we chose a place where our circumstances are far different from the average local population.  Unlike in a Western European city, we cannot blend in and live as a local.  Even if we tried to live as a local, we certainly couldn't fit into the intricate web of Balinese familial and village social relationships.  Nor would we want to give up the Western comforts we've become dependent on.

Given the reality of that situation- and certainly we benefit from it too- hiring help can benefit all involved.  I hope I am not deluding myself, but I don't sense resentment or envy by the Balinese of the relative wealth of the expats.  Perhaps it makes it easier to swallow that we are so clearly alien, and not someone from within their own society.  Perhaps a somewhat fatalistic worldview leads them to be more accepting - but I haven't been here long enough to speculate with any accuracy.  I expect from the Balinese perspective that they are willing to tolerate the expats who are constantly coming and going, as long as a generous amount of their money stays behind.

Prelude to a Cremation - with Balloons and Ice Cream

Today the high priest was cremated.

He was the high priest for the Banyar, or district, within Ubud where Dewa's in-laws lived.  He had died a month or two ago.  The time since had been spent preparing for the cremation ceremony.

It costs a lot of money to be a high priest.  Only the wealthiest families can afford it.  One of the reasons is that the cremation ceremony for a high priest is so expensive.

The whole neighborhood turns out.  It has a festive feeling, with vendors selling ice cream and balloons.  The high priest isn't gone for good.  He'll be back in a reincarnated form.

We didn't stay for the fiery conclusion.  After a couple of hours in the hot noonday sun, with school pickup looming, and the end of the ceremony still far off, we left.

The neighborhood gathers in ceremonial dress outside of the high priest's house

Preparing one of the floats

Some of the musicians

more musicians

The floats showing the bamboo scaffolding used to carry them

One of the floats

more musicians - they were quite loud

a ramp, used to reach the top of the high floats

the processions starts to move

figurine in front of the priest's house

the procession turned onto the main thoroughfare in Ubud, creating a huge traffic jam

the White Bull moves into position

a large mixed crowd of locals and tourists watched

the balloon vendor was part of the scene

the White Bull in position

detail of the back of the 'ogoh-ogoh' float

a frequent visitor to Bali from Holland, in appropriate garb.  He was attending his fifth cremation in less than a month.

sarong vendors swarm tourists, taking advantage of the tourists' desire not to be inappropriately dressed for the ceremony

ice cream and balloon vendors

the coffin of the high priest is carried toward the White Bull

the top of the White Bull is cut off, so that the coffin can be placed inside

detail of the front of the 'ogoh-ogoh' float

the top of the White Bull is removed

the coffin is ready to be paced inside the White Bull. The While Bull will serve as the funeral pyre, and later will be set aflame

the ceremony viewed from the vendors' stalls

A ridge walk along the Campuhan

The Campuhan River (pronounced Cham-poo-an) is the major river in Ubud.  On Saturday we followed a trail that started at the bridge over the Campuhan in Ubud and led northward along a high ridge and past rice fields to a small village just north of Ubud.  It was our first chance to go for a nature stroll.

Yellow and white are holy colors.  A shrine in a home bordering the steps down to the Campuhan.

Certain trees have spirits residing in them.  The spirit could be a good spirit or an evil spirit.  The black and white checked fabric addresses this unknown - including both white for if it is a good spirit, and black for if it is an evil spirit.

Stream flowing into the Campuhan

Elephant grass growing along the ridge

Lynn and Alexa walking along the crest

Ducks enjoying a flooded rice paddie

New rice shoots ready for planting

Rice paddies with Mt. Agung in the background

Modern farm equipment, taking the place of oxen

Terraced rice paddies

A view of the ridge we walked along, taken from the opposite side of the river from the restaurant where we had lunch.