My first night at the Eco Lodge was spent in Richard's house chatting and hearing all the news. Jay moved from the US to Australia almost 10 years ago and is now an Australian citizen. He's on the edge of quitting that country too and so is Richard. We discussed the reasons for that and one word that kept coming up was 'community'. One of the best points about Bali is the strength of the local community and some of the major political events that go on around the world (Hurricane Katrina etc.) point to the fact that in many places there is community breakdown and the governments actually don't care. You can choose any country you like, people are losing the social skills to relate to each other and communities go down hill.
That night around 9pm we had a massive downpour. Jay and Richard wanted to visit some Balinese friends down the road so we climbed the slippery hillside in pitch darkness and drove about half a km to the house of one 40 year old guy, Pak Gede. As we pulled up Pak Gede was standing there with an umbrella, he had heard us coming and immediately invited us in. His family compound was a basic cement structure and his wife and kids all sat and smiled with us. His 60 year old mother sat next to me and we chatted a bit. Jay is a real stud with the Bahasa Indonesia. He doesn't have a lot of grammar, but dives into conversations and really makes an effort. In the village you have to speak Indonesia, and sometimes older people only understand Balinese. Receiving a cup of black coffee I responded "Matur suksma" (thank you) and this brought laughter to the family, a geeky white guy speaking Balinese. Pak Gede's wife was a chunky, smiley lady who disappeared for a moment and then reappeared with a tray of sponge cake. "Don't you love it?" said Jay, "Here in the village you can drop in on anyone, in western culture we are so busy that this idea has largely been lost." Pak Gede invited us stay till midnight but we went to the house next door to visit another married couple.
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