Besides having the roof almost done, moving back to the third floor has been the highlight of the past six weeks. Indonesians have a great tolerance for noise; they love making noise and they can put up with an amazingly diverse array of pops, bangs, shouts, screams, roars, and tinny calls to prayer. As an old Westerner, I’m happy with a relatively quiet environment. During my six weeks in exile from the third floor, I lived in the family room on the second floor. I found that sitting out on the second floor balcony having a cigarette was almost the same as sitting out in front of the house in terms of noise pollution. I became familiar with life on the street. This kampung is full of kids of all ages. Now that mine are almost all teens and wired, they spend a lot of their time online with friends, but when they were younger they lived on the street in front of the house playing with friends until I’d call them in for bed. Not unlike my behavior many decades earlier in Chicago. They learned to be able to tolerate loud noises for long periods of time. My kids, just like every other Indonesian that I know, can fall asleep in the noisiest of places: at family gatherings, in the middle of crowded ferries, sitting in airport departure lounges. For them, as for my wife, they have a difficult time understanding my need for quiet. So now that I am back on the third floor, there is enough distance between me and the street to dampen a lot of the noise, and the fourth floor is positively peaceful.

The issue of noise and foreigners arose partly because of my temporary life above the street but also because this is the month of Ramadan and prayer calls, Qur’an readings and kids messing around blast out of the loudspeakers of mosques around the archipelago. One of the latest stories on this issue is the saga surrounding an old foreigner living in Lombok who has been accused of entering a mosque and turning off the loudspeakers. He denies this action and the police and allegedly the villagers claim that he did this and is thus responsible for the bedlam that followed when the villagers went on a rampage and destroyed the contents of his house. This story will continue to play out for a while, but things don’t look good for the American regardless of his guilt or innocence.

This incident has brought out the usual idiotic remarks by some foreigners and Indonesians. Foreigners love parading their fantasies of shooting out mosque loudspeakers and complaining bitterly about the intolerance of Muslims, Indonesians or Islam. Indonesians love using the “if you don’t like it go home, this is our country” card. As far as I’m concerned the five prayer calls a day and the use of the mosque loudspeakers for community announcements is fine (I’d like the mosque elders to turn down the volume, but the uselessness of that goes back to Indonesian’s love of noise), but the protracted readings of the Qur’an and the use of the loudspeakers by kids is far beyond reasonable. As far as going home, that’s just such a lame argument that no one with any sense pays attention to it anymore.

The result most likely to come out of all this fuss is a continuation of the status quo. The American will either have some cash and buy his way back into grace or he will be deported. The mosques will continue to blast prayers and messages throughout the day and foreigners will continue to whine and complain. That’s Indonesia.

Last week passed by without me realizing that the 21st anniversary of my move to Indonesia had arrived. Most of the time it seems that I have lived here far longer than 21 years. Occasionally, now, I get these little flashes where I’m in another place and another time. The other place and other time being a place and time where I’ve been before. But, that’s a whole other issue probably related to the three strokes last year. So, 21 years in Indonesia. I’ve lived on three islands during that time, held a number of different teaching/administrative jobs, and produced four kids with my wife. I’d probably be more serene and satisfied with all this if I hadn’t been living in a construction zone for the last five weeks.

Construction continues to go on daily with a crew appearing precisely at 8 am and leaving sometime around 5, although occasionally some of them stay until nightfall. Everything on three floors is coated with a fine layer of dust and banging, drilling, shouting, buzzing invade my consciousness continuously. The concrete roof has been completed, a bale bengong now sits in the middle of the roof (my wife’s idea not mine), the stairs have been finished that lead from the third floor to the roof, and most of the work on repairing my room on the third floor has been completed although, apparently, it could take another ten days or so to complete all this. I have this overwhelming desire to get back to the third floor which is cooler than the family room on the second floor and where I feel comfortable and can write. However, the problems that I have been having with concentration and writing may be related as much to Ramadan as to issues related to construction.

We’re halfway through Ramadan now. Lebaran is about two weeks away now. I’m looking forward to the end of Ramadan not so much because of food (well not at all because of food) but because it creates havoc with sleeping and transportation schedules. Some of the schools here have students coming in to start at 6:00 am which is fairly ridiculous as kids here tend to stay up late watching tv with the family or are out in the kampung or desa with their friends. I’m not sure how these really early times got started but they are about as much in tune with the reality of the modern world as is the U.S. School schedules that revolve around planting and harvest. It’s time schools got in tune with the 21st century. People have electricity and stay up late watching tv and hanging out with friends. The school day does not need to start at 6.

In our kampung, roofs are the biggest problem that people have with their houses. People use two basic roofing materials: metal sheeting or terra cotta tiles. We’ve used the tiles along with wood, plastic and assorted materials on the borders, ceilings and gutters. Over the past few years, we’ve regularly had to repair our roof and ceilings after each rainy season ended. Besides the cost involved, we could count on having a leaky roof by the time we were midway through the rainy season. For someone like me who has a bedroom/office filled with electronic equipment, these leaks also meant worrying about wet floors and shorted out computers, scanners, printers and televisions. Then, too, there was the worry of parts of our roof flying off into space during a particularly bad storm and ended up on top of one of our neighbors. So, we finally decided on tearing the whole roof down and building a flat, concrete roof similar to the style common in India and Pakistan.

As I’ve been struggling over the past six weeks with recovering from dengue fever, it seemed like an ideal time to begin the construction of a new roof in order to forget about being ill. Life over the past few weeks has become an uninterrupted stream of workers trodding up and down the stairs to reach the third floor, building materials being hauled up and down via pulleys, cement dust floating through the air and settling on furniture, food and residents, and an ungodly din every day from 8 am until 5 pm.

The old roof is now gone and the cement has been laid. We still have a way to go before things are finished, but we’re getting there. The workers have all disappeared for a three-day break for ceremonies back in their village, so I took the opportunity to see what everything looks like from the top of the house. It hasn’t been cheap (it should pay for itself by 2020), but the new roof is going to be a pleasant place to get away from everything and enjoy the view of the city, the mountains and the sea.

Dengue fever is here in Bali. This year has seen more cases than ever before. I’ve been unfortunate enough to pick up dengue hemorrhagic fever, the worst form of the illness. DHF can be fatal and a number of Balinese have died including at least two here in Singaraja. I’ve been sick for almost a month now. It’s been unpleasant, but interesting, to say the least. The interesting part was having my skin turn bright red, something like a bad sunburn. I ended up spending four days in a local hospital

According to the Center for Disease Control, “With more than one-third of the world’s population living in areas at risk for transmission, dengue infection is a leading cause of illness and death in the tropics and subtropics. As many as 100 million people are infected yearly. Dengue is caused by any one of four related viruses transmitted by mosquitoes. There are not yet any vaccines to prevent infection with dengue virus (DENV) and the most effective protective measures are those that avoid mosquito bites. When infected, early recognition and prompt supportive treatment can substantially lower the risk of developing severe disease. Dengue has emerged as a worldwide problem only since the 1950s. Although dengue rarely occurs in the continental United States, it is endemic in Puerto Rico, and in many popular tourist destinations in Latin America and Southeast Asia; periodic outbreaks occur in Samoa and Guam.”

Indonesian Hospital Customs

When a person is admitted to a hospital in Bali, it’s not just one person that enters the hospital, the whole family often moves in. Depending on the hospital and the class of the room, family members may alternate watches, or the whole family may just move in and camp out in public areas around the hospital grounds or in the room itself if it is large enough. During my recent stay in the hospital, my wife and kids took alternate watches although most of the time it was my wife who stayed with me. Other family members and neighbors visited over the four days that I was stuck in the hospital. It was a busy four days, especially since DHF is a debilitating illness. I happen to be one of those folks who aren’t particularly social when I’m not at the top of my game, so visits from anyone, including family, aren’t really something that I look forward to. It’s a bit of cultural adaptation to gracefully receive visitors when I would prefer to sleep, but Indonesians expect patients to make some effort to communicate and make some small talk so I do, as I appreciate the effort visitors make to trek over to the hospital, find the room, and then chit-chat for a while with the sick guy. These visits also serve as a great way to get the local news. I discovered during my four-days that I was the only foreigner hospitalized with dengue, that the hospitals were full of dengue patients, and that the supply of anti-rabies vaccines had run out and were only available in pharmacies. Hopefully, I won’t be sampling hospital culture again for a long time to come.

In a lot of ways, this trip was similar to the school excursions that I’ve been on over the past twenty years. Keeping track of visas, filling out forms, keeping everyone together until we made it to the departure gate.

Arriving in Singapore was something that I wanted to experience through the eyes of my children. The kids haven’t been to Singapore in years and Changi has evolved since then. The kids took it all in and breezed through immigration and customs. We grabbed two taxis to the hotel. This offered me the opportunity to see what I had been waiting to see: the kids’ first impressions of Singapore. Not surprisingly, it was the cleanliness of the city and the size of the buildings that drew their first comments. “No trash anywhere.” “Everything is so big.” “How are they so rich and we’re so poor.”

Over four days, we did as many tourist things as we could: the Merlion, the Flyer, the Singapore Zoo, the Night Safari, shopping on Orchard Road, the Aquarium. Off time in the pool at the hotel. Lots of walking. The kids picked up the rhythm of Singaporean English which they mimicked on the plane flight home. They had the opportunity to see some of the richest parts of the city and some of the working neighborhoods although we didn’t have time to make it to Chinatown or Little India.

Lots of questions and the inevitable comparisons with Bali, Indonesia and Singapore. It was a reality check that I wanted them to have. They’ve adopted this unfortunate view of the United States as being the land of milk and honey. Easy living if you get there. Why would I live in Indonesia? Can they move there and be rich? My teacher says everyone has a Mercedes.

My anthropological perspective colors everything that I see, how I think, what I do. The kids respond in the way that they were trained. Unfortunately part of that is blaming Indonesia’s situation on everyone else: the Dutch, the Chinese, the Christians, the foreigners. It’s an easy out for a country that has an educational system that doesn’t encourage critical thinking. As a teacher, I know that I can lecture, preach and teach but students only really get the lesson when they experience it for themselves, whether it’s solving quadratic equations or comparing social systems.

Questions: Why are all those women Indonesians (about maids out on Orchard Road on a Sunday?), Why don’t people just walk across the street (without waiting for the light to change)? How do they make buildings so big? Why is that woman’s skirt so short? Why does everyone speak English?

So, we’re back. I’m still processing the information from the trip. The kids remember the zoo, the shopping, the restaurants. We’ll see if they remember the other stuff.

Six months of a social budaya passed quickly and with problems converting it to a KITAS (and with an upcoming family trip to Singapore), I decided to leave for a day, return on a tourist visa for a week and then apply for a new social visa when I return next week. I managed to score a relatively low-cost flight and did the trip was just over $100. Just to get an idea of how low that fare is, I used to pay $250 to fly the seaplane from Sumbawa to Bali. I decided to pass on the hotel in Chinatown that I like and took a slightly less expensive place on Bencoolen Street. Still not cheap in comparison with Indonesian hotels, but my move was a test of options. I think that next time, I’ll go with the cheaper places in the red-light district of Singapore.

As I was cooling my heels at an airport cafe with a scotch on the way out, I kept thinking of a blog that I read just before I left the house about problems with Bali. It’s hardly the first that I’ve read over the past year as expats especially get frustrated with dealing with immigration, infrastructure problems, the high costs of imported goods and a seemingly endless series of changes or reinterpretations to existing rules and regulations regarding foreigners. Upon arrival in Singapore, a minute at the immigration counter rewarded me with a free 90-day visa. No hassles, no questions, no sly smiles and requests for gifts or presents. No $25 for a 30-day visa. And Singapore? I’m always amazed by the cleanliness and the appearance of order. You can smoke here, not there. You can use your car in this district, but you have to pay a fee if it’s during a certain time of the day.

I drove down to the airport with Daughter #2 and the ride was the usual death-defying experience of dodging trucks, lunatic teenagers without helmets, and government employees convinced that their special plates give them the right to drive like idiots. So, yes when faced with this reality, Singapore seems like a respite from reality.

All these issues – immigration, driving, corruption, sliding versions of the law – bounced around in my head for my 24 hours in the Lion City. Then back to reality once again. The friendly neighborhood immigration folks grabbed a kid in front of me because he didn’t have a ticket out. Expecting the worst, I received my tourist visa without comment in 170 seconds for my $25. OK, pricey for Asia, but quick and competent. I was impressed.

The whole family leaves in a few days for what will probably be our last big family trip. While, I’m looking forward to the trip as a whole, I keep worrying about any issues that may come up with immigration either on the way out or the way in. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live somewhere where there were actually laws that everyone followed?

Traveling
We had to drive down to Denpasar yesterday for Consulate business. Bali is still not in tourist season and the roads were full of tourist buses. Added, of course, to the usual mass of motorcycles and cars, as well as the huge black vehicles that expats seem to favor these days. Why anyone would want to drive one of these monsters in Bali is beyond my understanding, but they are apparently in vogue this season. So we slowly made our way up the mountain to Bedugal where the buses were all heading. Then down to Denpasar to take care of business. On the way back home, we came across a new Ace store – well new for us, they told us they have been in business for a year- so we stopped there to gaze at the expensive wonders. I’ve been down to the stores in the tourist area, which are always full of foreigners. This one was empty – just me and a lot of Indonesians with some spare change to spend on shiny imported gadgets. Nice to know though that there is an Ace closer to the house than driving all the way down to the congested mess that Kuta has become.

And on that drive, besides the bus brigades, what did we see? Tourists driving beaten up motorbikes wearing only shorts and singlets – flayings waiting to happen. I’ve unfortunately come across this before – tourists thinking that they can drive in Bali and making trips across the island without covering themselves. True, Indonesians can get cold if a warm breeze happens to blow by, but they dress on motorbikes for other reasons as well. Check on your friends and see how many have scars on their legs from falls. So, tourists, stay off the roads or dress properly or hire a driver. If you don’t care about your body, think about the rest of us.

Restaurants
Traveling up and down to Denpasar usually means stopping midway to eat. I can easily go for a day without food, but my Indonesian wife and kids are starving if they haven’t eaten for two hours. So, we usually have something to eat down in Denpasar and then have to stop up somewhere around Bedugal, which is actually a collection of villages that are generally referred to as Bedugal. Over the past twenty years we’ve eaten at a variety of restaurants in the area. Our main places years ago were in Pacung, just outside Baturiti. A restaurant named Pacung was open late and as we often made it back across the island late, this was one of the only places we could eat. Add to that, they had this large aquarium which would keep the kids (they were all small then) amused, and we loved the place. Oh yeah, they had scotch. And if we called my brother-in-law our driver, he would get a kick-back from the restaurant. Well, the food deteriorated there and we started coming back earlier, so we looked for other places to eat. I tried an expat-owned place in the Bedugal market a few years ago that advertises its clean bathrooms as one of its defining qualities. Well, the bathrooms are spotless, but the food is expensive and has fallen off in quality over the past few years. The last time that we were there, my wife was charged 5,000 rupiah for a glass of hot water. Wrong thing to do to an Indonesian.

This trip we stopped at a simple restaurant across the street from the market. Inexpensive, good food, friendly service, and quick. At the expat-owned restaurant we waited almost an hour for our food. We had our meal at the Rumah Makan Anda in 15 minutes. Hot, spicy, with a well-chilled beer and free hot water. I’ll be recommending this restaurant to my friends visiting Bali from now on. Why pay double the price for half the service and a mediocre meal?

Weather
Dare I say it? Three days without rain.

Live Long and Prosper

Another Day of Sunshine – Back to Fun.

Another sunny day – count that two in a row. With calm, clear waters on the Bali Sea this morning, I decided that it was time to get back to snorkeling, something I’ve sorely missed over the past five months of rain.

It’s been a lovely day. No rain, sunshine, a cool breeze from the east. What more could anyone want?

More days without rain.

School Vacations

School vacations are just around the corner. Daughter No. 1 has been finished for over a month now that she has graduated from high school. The rest of the kids are taking their local exams and will be finished by the middle of next week. That means that they’ll waste a few weeks in school doing nothing other than hanging around before vacation starts. So far, everyone says that they are doing well on their exams, but we’ll see when the report cards come out.

Tourists
I was out in front of the beach house yesterday with my wife giving our baby monkey some sun after her bath when a group of tourists came strolling by. With a guide as usual. He was updating them on fishing practices here. I never know what to say to folks that come through here. So, I just smiled and let them look at SiSi. She’s young and cute so they thought it would be nice to have one back home. They don’t know that she hates baths and has a nasty bite when you try to give her one. I came across a group of other tourists at the local Hardy’s. They were stocking up on snacks and booze. I’d like to be a tourist again. The rain was fun back then, now it just means cleaning the house after every storm. Whine, whine.

So, when I received word this week that immigration was not going to grant me a wife-sponsored visa because our marriage papers weren’t in order (her identity card lists her as Muslim, our marriage papers list the ceremony as Christian), I should have seen it coming and been prepared. But, I wasn’t. I have to leave the country to renew my social visa and start over again on the KITAS. Stressor No. 1.

Daughter No. 1′s quest for finding the right university continues on. This phase will entail three trips to Surabaya over the next three weeks. My wife will be taking all three trips, leaving me with the three kids (one of whom hates my cooking and kindly forces some down although based on the look on her face she’d rather be eating worms). So, who’s paying for the three trips? Me, of course, and I hadn’t bothered to budget all these extra costs into Daughter No. 1′s education fund. Stressor No. 2.

Rain, rain, rain. Last week we went through what I rate as the third-worst storm in my 20 years here. Two sections of the third story roof blew off. Fortunately, no one below was injured, but I’ve had to rip down part of the roof because it’s become structurally unsafe. We’re going to have to replace the whole thing whenever the rainy season actually comes to an end. Stressor No. 3.

What happened to the reasons I love Bali cheers? They were put temporarily on hold as I ranted endlessly about life here. My doctor said get rid of the stress. The fourth stroke could be the last. Hmm. How to do that in the face of these problems causing havoc with my carefully planned budget?

Road trip!

I searched back to my early days in Bali. What was it that initially attracted me to Bali? It wasn’t my first week in Kuta; it was the trip from Denpasar to Kalibukbuk on the bus that traveled up through Pupuan with the most incredible scenery. I fell in love with this island right then on the bus while chatting in my limited Indonesian with an old Balinese grandmother.

So, road trip to Pupuan. I took off a few days ago and just drove through one small village after the next on my way up the mountain range by Seririt. I’d hit a crossroads, think about where to turn, decide that it didn’t matter as I could go anywhere, do anything, be anybody. I spent four hours driving around taking photographs, chatting with folks, and being enveloped in the sensualness of the island. I stopped by an old favorite restaurant in the tourist area of Lovina for a few beers on the way home. The staff was polite, friendly and totally non-intrusive. It was a revitalizing trip. I need more of them to keep in touch with why I came here, what I love about the place, and how I can stay relatively stress-free in Paradise.

Spaghetti seems to be the favorite birthday food – maybe because it’s somewhat similar to Indonesian meals, but with an exotic (for Indonesians) touch. I took a count of family members at the party and came up with 19. That’s 19 family members that live within a block of our house. This is a large family.

So things went off well: everyone had a good meal, and I saved a little money. Next birthday is my wife’s in a few weeks. I’m not sure what we’ll do for that, but I’d better figure it out quick.