Groton Bali 2013: 08-10-13 My First Performamce on Saraswati Day

DAY7 8.10

Today is a pretty packed day, as usual.

After waking at 6 o’clock, all the kids who were going to perform with me together had already started to put their makeup on. In Balinese dancing, they use exaggerative makeup on performers including men. I wore everything a Balinese dancer would wear: a huge head piece decorated with flowers, many layers of wrappings, and a ribbon to dance with.

Cadek only taught me dancing for two days. In the performance, I must have been really clumsy but I enjoyed this experience a lot. I even earned 10,000 Rupiah (about 1$) from the host! This a unique chance one would never get unless they live with a dancers family like Pak Catra and Bu Desak. It also shows the hospitality of Balinese – no other culture in the world that I know of would invite foreigners or non-believers to become one part of their religious ceremony.

In the afternoon we set out to their city house in Denpasar. Because today is Saraswati Day, the day to celebrate the Goddess of knowledge, students all had to go to their own school temple to pray, and people gather in temples to make offerings. When we arrived at the temple in Denpasar with pak, the scene surprised us – the entire square was filled with people in their traditional clothing waiting to enter the temple to make offerings and pray and it was around 9 o’clock at night. Pak said there were even way more people during the earlier part of the day. Instead of waiting with the crowd, we drove to a small temple in Bali Art University which Pak Catra is a teacher. Only a few people were there and the quietness reminded me the time when I was up on the mountain in Batukau temple. I heard nothing but some dogs barking. Pak taught me 5 steps of praying and I prayed with him. The shrine was filled with offerings from daytime. No priest was present and pak sprayed me with holy water and offered me rice. In Bali Hinduism, believers could also lead prayers like the priests. Sometimes stray dogs would eat the rice and flowers they put in the offerings; and after people pray they believe that the Gods take the “essence” of the food they put in the offerings. after the ceremony, , people would share the food together… everything is natural.

Finished with the prayer, we went to visit ibu Ibu Desak's shadow puppet show. Around 11 o’clock and before going back home, we stopped at Pasar Badung to see what the market is like in midnight. Lights were blazing on the streets and trucks kept coming in, loading and unloading. It looked even busier than daytime. Owners stayed at their own shops, looking exhausted. Pak said a new day of selling starts at around 2 or 3 in the morning, when the trucks finish sending in fresh seafood. The only time some owners get to sleep is short breaks during the day. I saw some people simply slept on a wood board near the street. People say there is nothing called “sleep” in Bali, one is because of the never-ending ceremony, I guess also because of the struggle to make a living.

We went home, exhausted and fell into sleep quickly. I felt lucky to have a soft bed and a sweet dream.