I woke up early this morning to drive my sick friend Valentine to the taxi station on the back of my scooter. Having seen him off safely, I rode back to my hotel, meandering through the narrow road between the rice paddies glowing green in the morning light. The farmers were slowly plodding thigh deep in muddy waters while plunging long bamboo rods into the mud, tending to the rice fields. The sun rose above ashy black stone temples on street corners as the food vendors threw buckets of water on dirty street roads to start the day fresh. Locals rode in two's on scooters donning blue medical masks and zipping fearlessly in and out of traffic as stray dogs darted out of the way. Old women in produce market stalls, open since 4am, peddled spinach, carrots, galanga root, young coconut, hot peppers, and tropical fruits alongside fried cakes and meats. I debated a morning shop but remembered that Wayan would be at the villa preparing breakfast and I could not pass up the opportunity to drink my coffee while being in the presence of her warm smiling face.
I pulled into the villa, removed my helmet and flip flops and padded into the kitchen. As expected, Wayan was at the sink cleaning guest dishes and turned with her big smile when I walked in. A mother in her late 30's, Wayan was the obvious grounds keeper of the villa with a bubbly personality and always saying something to make the rest of the staff laugh while gently directing them in their duties. I liked to sit in the kitchen in the morning reading the news with my coffee while she trained her teenage daughter in the kitchen.
Seeing me, she stopped her cleaning and turned to smile. "Good morning Sarah! How are you today?"
"Im good Wayan, thank you. How are you?"
She nodded with eyes closing in emphasis, "Always good, Sarah, always good. You have breakfast today?" She asks me this everyday though I almost never do.
"No, just a coffee for now." I laugh at her expression of shock that she gives me when I say this.
"Sarah, why you don't eat?" she asks, turning around to heat up water for my coffee.
"I don't know, maybe with my friend in a bit," I lie, smiling at her guiltily. I don't have the heart to tell her I eat late because I know she'll wait around to feed me because that is the Balinese way. I can barely scoot around her to wash my own coffee mug before she playfully slaps my hand and grabs it. She nods her head and casts me a motherly look of disapproval while still smiling. I grab my seat in the kitchen and check my emails as the rest of the villa staff begins to filter in, smiling and greeting me, each of them remembering my name. Wayan tells a joke and the young ladies giggle, covering their mouth. I can't help but join in their infectious laughter as I look up and ask, "What are you saying over there Wayan?" She explains how she's teasing one of the girls about a boy she likes with that huge smile.
It is my last day here in Bali and I am a bit sad. It has been a long time since I have been in a country like this where I am reminded of how much I have and how little many in the world around me have. Yet, despite what material riches the Balinese lack, they lack for nothing when it comes to what is truly important in life. Anywhere you go in Bali, you will find a hard working person that does not complain. In fact, one of my favorite things I have noticed is how much they love to sing while they work. And they don't just sing…they SING! The other day I watched a fisherman grab a simple fishing rod and head out in his underwear in the early morning, strutting proudly, singing at the top of his lungs to the rising sun. They are content and one smile from another brings a huge smile on their face, one grateful handshake is met with a lingering hand hold that they genuinely mean in unabashed and vulnerable intimacy. They don't get angry, they just put their heads down and work hard. Balinese typically live in tiny homes with electricity that goes in and out, large mosquitos flying to and fro, rains swiping dirt everywhere. Their opportunities to ever see the kind of luxuries we could never live without are minimal to none. Their competition for tourism business is challenging in a place where there are so many taxi drivers, massage therapists, and food stands fighting for business.
Tourists from all over the world come here to exploit the luxury at cheap prices that can be afforded in such a place of poverty. Yoga studios and organic food cafes abound in places like Ubud with thrifty travelers who haggle prices for things that would be 5 times the price in their respective countries. I found myself bargaining over $2 the other day, went home, and felt shame as I looked in the mirror. What have I become that I can come to places where $1 means so much to someone and I argue over it? Where I brag that I was able to eat my meal for $3 and yet I'll buy a beer for the same price? "It is the principle of the thing," I have justified to myself in conversations with my fellow travelers. Words that are hollow as they leave my lips and I marvel that I have fallen so far from the young girl who once traveled to Africa to help the less fortunate. As I left today to the airport, I felt my eyes water as I hugged Wayan goodbye and I thanked her for everything she does out of the beauty and kindness in her heart. She will never know how much it meant to me because she doesn't take herself so seriously and it is how it is done. It has opened my heart, though, and I don't know how, but I am moved to do something about it.
When I look back on my stay in Bali I can recommend good places to stay, places to avoid, and what the cost of things are. In all honesty though, the real treasure of this beautiful land is the people that live here. To be able to be amongst them and to learn the lesson of gratefulness, humility, love, and survival is truly the gem that sits out in the open so easy to find. I encourage anyone that comes here to truly look for that and to appreciate the simplicity with which these people live their lives and the joy they find despite their lack of material riches. You will not have to look far to hear a beautiful morning song or to see one of those beautiful Balinese smiles.
Thank you Bali.
