Thursday 22 March 2012

Salamat Raya Nyepi - Yearly Day of Silence

This is not a great translation but it’s the best I have! As I said in my last Blog, I was booked to come back to Ubud, Bali for this very interesting way to welcome a new year. This is the 3rd new year celebration including the one I was here for December 31. The second was Chinese New Year and now this very special Bali New Year for those of Hindu faith and distinct for Bali only as I learned on arrival.
Meeting with Disabled Person's Organization

But as usual, a little filling in to lead up to this weekend as it has been some time since I blogged. The last part of February and start of March was a rough time for me and it turned out that on top of some emotional downs, I also had Dengue Fever, missed in my medical tests in Kupang. I continued to slide over the following week and eventually realized I needed to get myself out of Kupang and to Bali with its International Medical Centre. Tests showed I had the Dengue antibodies so was in recovery from that but also battling related emotional stuff so meds in hand and orders from the doc to take off until the end of March I headed to the welcoming arms of my friends Lori and Bob who had just moved to Adelaide Australia.

half a block from L&B's; Adelaide


Being with friends and having conversations was a great help along with lots of hours of sleep and slowly getting some exercise walking the nearby beach - exactly what I needed for 10 days. That brings me to now picking up the original plan of a long weekend in Bali then meeting a new volunteer arriving from Canada who will have my Malarone anti malarial with her. As she was leaving from Vancouver, Don was able to get my precription filled and passed on to Kelsey on his visit to Vancouver for work and Kelsey then to Margaret the new volunteer! Isn’t family great???

Now to Nyepi! Nyepi is a Balinese "Day of Silence" that is commemorated every Isakawarsa, new year. It is a day of silence, fasting, and meditation. The day following Nyepi is also celebrated as New Year. Tonight, the eve of Nyepi, effigies are paraded around Bali, some very big and scary ones by some of the more creative folks and some small but equally scary prepared and built by the kids. Loud firecrackers and some type of home made canons are being lit - all to frighten away the evil spirits. As of 6 am tomorrow, there will be no noise or signs of life on the island of Bali for 24 hours. The airport will be shut down and only essential services will be working such as hospitals but lights will be kept low. There will be security police in the streets to be sure no one is walking about, no fires are lit and as night falls, it remains dark to the next morning. As Ubud is a major tourist area, our place, the Honeymoon Cottages, will provide complimentary meals for us tomorrow, and we may move about the compound within, including using the pool, but we are to talk as little as possible, and quietly, keep our room lights low and not leave. For the Balinese people, it is 24 hours for self reflection, and a time for people to review the year behind and think about the one ahead.  Not so bad an idea for the rest of us either! The additional purpose for this day of silence  is so that the evil spirits that were frightened away the night before won’t return as it will appear there is no sign of life here on Bali.
How cool is that?? The day after Nyepi is spent visiting with friends and family and apologizing for any wrong doing over the past year. Now, this is a foreigner’s acount from what I have read, so I apologize for any misrepresentation of this lovely ceremonnial time on Bali.



So, the 28th of March I head back to Kupang after a visit with my doc in Bali and I will kick start this next phase of the adventure. I have talked about the roller coaster and it keeps going in its funny and not so funny circular pattern.

I have a couple of ideas to get things moving in the work I have been sent here to do, and an idea of how to get myself more comfortable. Time will tell as I stay open to all possibilites the universe presents.