Day 53: Ceremony
One of my few regrets about my travels so far is how rare meaningful interactions with locals has been. I mostly spend my time with other travelers. It’s very easy to fill your days with amazing adventures from within a bubble filled with westerners.
That’s not a complaint. It is a fine bubble since travelers are fascinating people. In fact, you can choose amongst several bubbles: from the high-end packaged tour bubbles with tightly-packed activity schedules, AC minibus pickups and fancy hotels right down to the backpacker bubbles in which I’ve found homes. In all these bubbles, you spend your days with Europeans and Australians and North Americans, not with Thais or Balinese.
Invitation
Melissa, still jet lagged, got right to filling this gap. Our home exchange villa was on Bali’s north coast. Its housekeeper (high-end bubble!) Ketut and his wife Rai were waiting for us when we arrived. Ketut is outgoing and gifted with an infectious smile. We’d later learn about his relentless good humor and that he makes a superb breakfasts. Rai was much more reserved after coming off her shift at the resort next to our villa. The villa’s information packet informed us that only if she liked us we might be able to order her proper home-cooked Balinese dinner.
Melissa immediately sidled up to Rai and started making friends. The motherhood mafia. Family talk quickly elicited that Rai’s grandson was having his three month ceremony — a very important rite of passage — the day after next. An offhand request for some photos of the event quickly became an invitation to a real Balinese family ceremony. Simple as that the plan was set.
The Drive
To arrive at the ceremony on time we needed to leave early. Rai and Ketut hail from a village far away in the mountains, Gedong Sari. Fortunately I’m an early bird and Melissa’s circadian rhythms still hadn’t quite figured out where morning here is exactly. (They need this information in order tell her when to be most groggy.)
We got up, watched the sun rise over the Bali sea, had coffee, omelettes and smoothies, and got ready with only a bare minimum of rushing. Out the door just as the clock struck seven.
Our driver was Gede (think Australian; G’Day), a friend of Ketut’s. The route took us west along the north coast of Bali before heading inland and climbing aggressively into the hills. The roads narrowed and steepened. We picked Rai and her pre-teen son up along the way. Eventually the narrowing and steepening of the road culminated in a single track dirt trail at the end of which was the family compound.
Compound
The compound was less elaborate than Nevin’s friends’ on the outskirts of Ubud. The family temple was smaller. The paths between the buildings were packed mud not cement inlayed with pebbles in attractive designs. The outside wiring used safety pins as conductors to connect the lights to the power cable. That’ll get you a note from the city planning office inspector.
That’s not to say the place felt in any way impoverished. Everyone looked happy and healthy, there was plenty to go around and even some to spare for the neighborhood polio victim who sat forlornly just at the compounds’ entrance during the celebration.
But a clearer indication of the family’s comfort if not wealth was revealed later as the scale of the ceremony and the offerings it entailed became clear.
Settling In
Upon our arrival we were introduced to the extended family. Ketut’s and Rai’s daughter and son in law, their parents and friends and of course little baby Gede, the center of the celebration.
The three month ceremony (tigang odalan, a.k.a. tigang sasih a.k.a. nelubulanin) marks the child’s entry into the world and the family. Until this point he is considered more divine than human. The pure soul of an ancestor on the threshold of the mortal realm. His first contact with the earth — he’s been carried everywhere so far in his life — marks the occasion of him being recognized as a person, fully reincarnated. With it he will be allowed to wear jewelry and receive his name.
Receive his name? But didn’t I just call him Gede? In the complicated world of Balinese names, Gede simply means firstborn child. Before his three month ceremony, he didn’t have a personal name.
Think about truly believing that worldview for a moment. That’s how important the ceremony is. Consider further how wonderful it was that they made us foreign tourists feel at home, like we belonged, during such an occasion. It’s a special feeling to feel a genuine welcome from strangers. Throughout the day everyone was as friendly and sweet to us as if we’d known each other for years.
Introductions complete it was now time for a snack. Kopi Bali (Bali coffee) of course, fruit and tasty little pasties containing various combinations of rice dough, coconut and palm sugar. Politeness was the only fig leaf my sweet tooth needed rampage on these delicious treats. This included fixing on my latest fruit addiction (snake fruit) as well as conducting a thorough comparative tasting study of each kind of pastry.
For the record, the best were the small pink rice dough balls with shredded coconut soaked in Palm sugar in the center. I’m incredibly lucky I can’t find them easily.
International Communication
The tendrils of international culture penetrate even into this remote Balinese mountain home. Shortly after we arrived children of the compound saw our iPhones and knew immediately what they meant: games. I offered mine up and was a little shocked to see them hone right on in to Plants vs. Zombies 2. They jumped on and started playing as a group.
That was a lot of fun for a while. The bigger surprise was next, when they got bored and returned the phone to me at the App Store screen after attempting to buy what they really craved: Angry Birds.
Fortunately Melissa knows exactly what kids these days want and already had the game on her phone. Now the children could swap between PvZ and Angry Birds for the rest of the day.
Not only were the iPhones a hit, but Rai’s son also really enjoyed running around taking pictures with my camera. He got some great shots and it was a delight to be able to share the photos later with them both over dinner. To show him the wonderful images of his family he took. Some are even in this post.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising, but it’s still amazing to me just how much we all share in common. I bought the games because I play them myself. My nephews growing up in Ottawa and Haïti, Melissa’s son growing up in Seattle, these Balinese children. We all like playing the same games. We enjoy using the same gadgets.
Project Management
The priest arrived a little later with his wife. He was dressed completely in white and called Jero Mangku. Jero Mangku (again, not the personal name of the priest but one evidently related to his origin and status) had an open face with abundant smile lines around his bright eyes. A perfect combination of kindness and relaxed seriousness.
With his arrival the scale of the ceremony became clear as the offerings were laid out. Dozens upon dozens of tiny banana leaf trays filled with rice, flowers, incense sticks. Buckets of deep fried whole chickens. Lots of tied plastic baggies filled with what looked like betta fish but which turned out to be holy water from various temples with flowers swimming in them. An elaborate bamboo cage on a pole.
Each of these offerings were listed in a long sheet and checked with the priest. More food and definitely more meat was offered than we ended up consuming ourselves at the feast.
Acquiring all these offerings clearly takes a lot of resources and a significant amount of time and organizational effort. There was not a hint of resentment however. There was nothing but happiness expressed to be able to host this crucial ceremony in style.
Purification
The ceremony began in earnest with the purification of the family temple. Incense sticks were lit by the handful and holy water sprayed about. The priest began chanting and ringing his bell. The effect was immediately hypnotic. The priest rang the bell rhythmically in time to the chant. He’d pause every few minutes to flick some rice or some flowers onto the offerings. To spritz them with a spray bottle of holy water.
The ceremony continued and the senior Ibu (mother) — Ketut’s mother — led the women in a chant, adding to the atmosphere. We later learned that she and her brothers are well-known singers. Her love of song was evident in the chanting.
As this purification proceeded, the priest’s wife was preparing the child outside the temple with a small ceremony of their own.
Eviction
Now purified, it was time to get rid of evil spirits. Or to placate them. Anything to diminish their influence at this critical time. While the priest chanted, a large bamboo smoke fire was pit. A group of the women led my Rai snaked through the family temple with various implements to scare away any specters with malicious intent. To get rid of any witches.
We stayed, so we’re not that evil after all.
This first part of the ceremony was long and detailed, taking maybe 45 minutes or an hour. Yet it was also relaxed with people pitching in as they wished. Children wandered around and chatted but were not hushed. It was an amazing amalgam of reverence and ease. Laughter and earnest devotion.
Grounded!
The temple purified and the sacrifices all in order it was time for the baby’s entrance.
Rai and the priest’s wife huddled around the mother and child as he was placed above the ceremonial bowl with its jewelry, lotus flower and sugarcane ladder 1. The priest continued chanting but was otherwise uninvolved; he faced away most if the time and twisted to deliver benedictions as needed. The heart of the ceremony was handled by the ladies.
The rituals over the bowl compete, baby Gede was finally allowed to touch the stone-covered earth of the temple. Allowed to leave his mother’s arms for mother earth. Now he’s a real person, a child called with a real name, Gede Okta.
Bling
Gede Okta’s first task? Get some style. Silver and gold jewelry were plucked from the ceremonial bowl and the baby was glammed up. Bracelets on all four limbs. Rings and necklaces. The necklace contained a small cylinder I later learned contained a piece of his umbilical cord.
Feast
The ceremony was now complete and we headed to the covered outdoor area of the home for the feast.
The prayers and offerings must have been perfect: just as we got undercover, the skies opened and the sprinkling we brushed off during the ceremony erupted into a soaking downpour, quickly churning the packed-mud of the compound to a slippery series of tiny lakes.
Time to eat. Melissa and I were given the honor of the first plates of the traditional Balinese meal. Rice of course. A tasty chicken curry. A veg dish. Roasted duck. The essential Babi Guling (suckling pig) in little banana leaf pouches.
It was delicious, but that’s only a fraction of how meaningful it was. The meal was prepared with love, but was also obviously costly: there was very little duck and maybe enough suckling pig for everyone to have but one pouch.
I felt a deep sense of gratitude at the gift of being able to share in this perfect and unique meal. Gratitude at being so honored to attend this beautiful celebration.
Missing Ceremonies
It’s difficult not to observe this ceremony without wondering about the lack of such in our western lives. It’s easy to bemoan the lost gatherings from our history and complain about the pale shadows which remain at Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays and the like.
Could we have such beautiful ceremonies? Why don’t we have ceremonies like these Balinese? I believe it’s the same reason we don’t have the same transcendentally-delicious mangoes they have here.
Though we can import mangoes, even in winter, and pay a lot for the privilege, they’re never as good as you get in southeast Asia. It takes the whole environment to create the fruit we get here: the soil, the light, the climate and finally the short distances of travel. All these together make fruit which seems to turn to golden liquid in your mouth. No part on its own in sufficient.
Likewise the ceremony we witnessed is the fruit of an entire culture. A culture that values balance between work, family and community. A Hindu religion which seeks a balance in relationships at three levels: person to God, person to person and person to lesser creatures. A religion which therefore dictates lots of breaks for ceremonies. Ceremonies which require the resources, skills and participation of the whole community. And conversely, a religion which provides the obligation to aid with others’ ceremonies. To participate meaningfully in the most important events in others’ lives and to do so at the expense of other priorities.
Just as moving the produce across continents will not provide the same satisfying taste, merely copying the fruits of a culture won’t work.
You can however attempt to cultivate an environment capable of generating similar traditions. That sense of balance in your life and belonging to others. It makes you wonder what traditions would change and which would emerge if the west tended its own cultural environment as the Balinese do their own.
