1 Camera for 1000 Smiles (TM)

Anak Alam

Couple of days ago we packed the car to go to the area of Volcano Batur.
The area of Batur is just breathtaking! It has a surten magic with Lake Batur & Volcano Batur.Scenary from a fairy tale! Defiently a must if you ever planing to come to Bali!
One of the reason why we went to Belandingan was to visit the children of the project Anal Alam (Nature of the Children)
The project started by Putu Pande, who realized one day that the Joy was to Give and not Gain.
From there it has just gradually developed & more people got involved in the project.
The Anak Alam focus on educating & inspirering the children in the poor areas of Bali.
You can read more> http://www.anakalam.org/ (right now in Bahasa Indonesia but will be translated)
We reached Belandingan. Happy and excited children came jumping up from every corner of the village. After a walk in the village we gathered all the children in the hall and we started playing with them.
Pande turned to my Dad and said- We are going to do diffrent animal!What animal do you want to be?
I saw the fear in my dad´s eyes and he looke over to me and said:
- What am I doing?????
-I do not know, you doíng some kind of animal!
My dad is not famous for standing infront of people, so I honoustly did not think that my Dad would do any kind of animal..
Suddenly Pande shout at my dad and said
-OK!! You doing the Chicken dance !!!
My dad`s big confusing eyes turned to me and he said - How do I do the Chicken???
- I do know, you just move your arms and make some sounds, right?
Pande started by doing the monkey dance and the children bent their knees, scratched the armpits, did the monkey sounds and laughing so hard that I am sure someone were peeing their pants.
After that it was my Dad´s turn & Pande shouts to the children
-Ok children..lets do the Chicken-dance!

In my life I have never seen my 75 year old Dad jumping, flapping his arms and making the sound like a chicken. Out of the blue, Mr old man took of ! and he jumped around the hall with 25 excited kids after him.

After that the kids did all kinds of animals that was combined with movements and learning the animals names in english.

Galungan

On the 12th of May the so called cermony for Galungan started and which ends with Kuningan 10 days later. Galungan and Kuningan take place every 210 days according to the so called Pawukon calendender.

The legend says that ....Long time ago the horrible King Mayadenawa reigned over Bali. He was terrible, cruel and had forbidden the balinese to celebrate their gods and ancestors.

God Indra felt pity for the balinese and decided to go down to earth with his soldier and rescue them.

King Mayadenawa had great power and managed to poison the spring and there for many Balinese fell sick. Luckily Indra found out and was able to create a new spring which also had the power to cure the Balinese. It is said to be the Tampaksiring spring. Then, King Mayadenawa, hoping to evade Indra's troops, turned into a chicken (manuk), a vegetable (timbul), a palm leaf (busung), snail (susuh) and a angel (bidadari). Every single place on the island where he changed appearance kept the name of it > Desa Manuykya, Desa Timbal, Desa Blusung, Desa Penyusuhan...Having failed to fool them he finally turned into a stone.

Indra discovered him one more time and pierced the stone with magic arrow. He managed to kill King Mayadenawa, whose blood ran down the mountain and formed the river Pekerisan.

Indra cursed the river, predicting that if it was used the irrigate the rice, the grain would grow wonderfully but once cropped the rice would be covered with blood and have a smell.

Since that time, the Balinese invite the Gods and the ancestors to come dowm and celebrate Indra's victory with us every 210 days during Galungan and Kuningan.

For us we went to Negara to celebrate Galungan with Bruce family.We all got dressed and my Dad were dressed in a traditional outfit for the first time. He got especially excited when he got the so called Udeng on his head. The two petals infront representing the positive and negative. The right one, the positive, is slightly higher as it represent the positive.Then he got the first sarong, which he wraped around his hips. After that he got another shorter sarong, which is called saput. The Saput is always made of nicer fabric than the Sarong. At the times of the kings, the Balinese used it to cover the torso in front of important people.

We started with a cermony at the family tempel.

After that we went to the village temples. There are always 3 main temples in each village; Pura Desa, Pura Dalam and Pura Puseh.

My dad sat down next to Agung, which gave him the elbow every time he did something wrong.

After that the priest called my dad and told him to come and sit with him who became best buddies...

1965

Just read this one if you want to know a little bite of Indonesia..

Yesterday we went to Negara (West Bali) to cut more wood and check the fram work of the house.

When we arrived to Negara we stoped at the "Tempel by the bride".

This is what we do every time as far as I remember. I did it 11 years ago and I do it now, but I had no idé why we did it. I never asked why and I always assumed that we just stoped at a "normal" tempel and put some offerings.

Yesterday I asked " Why".

I found out that there had been alot of people who had died in this area after the Ku De Ta 1965. Because these people had not received the hindu cremation it was important that you paid respect and attention to these souls, so they did not cause any damage. Bruce explained that it was especially imortant if you were travelling with young children.

Bruce continued talking about the 1965 Ku De Ta and the years that followed and what was behind it.

This is what Bruce explained to me...
In 1945 Indonesia claimed independence after a few years of Japanese occupancy.

The Dutch did not accept the independence and tried to get back their control of their colony.

Sukarno (First president ) and the people behind independence fought for another 4 years.

The communist party in Indonesia played a major part in Indonesia´s independence.

Suharto (The bad man and president after Sukarno) fought under KNIL, which was the army under the Dutch and who fought for continuation of Dutch power.

In 1949 17 aug, Sukarno officially announced Indonesia (again) as a independent country.

This time the Dutch did not try to fight back.

Sukarno became the first president of Indonesia and Hatta the vice president.

Suharto was one of the top generals in the army.

During these years the Cold war went on between America and Soviet union.America was affraid that countries would turn against them and become communist.And...Soviet Union vice versa.

In 1965, 7 generals of the army was killed. Everything was blaimed on the communist party.

an insider....

Alot of people belive that it was actually Suharto that killed the 7 generals and blaimed it on the communist to cause chaos in the country. Alot of people also belive that Suharto had alot if support from the FBI to create a anti-communist goverment. The truth is hard to prove, because most documents have been burned by the pro- Suharto - goverment

So, after the 7 generals got killed...

Suharto went to the president Sukarno and said:

-Give me the power to control this situation

Suharto with the help of the army took control of the country and absolutly started a man slaught of the people. Suharto was so affraid of people that would stand up to hime, so he made sure anyone with education or successful business was killed.

Thousand and thousands of people were killed. Hard to estimate the number, but some of the people died around the area of the " temple by the bridge".
For me it was hard to understand how a army could just start killing people and noone would react or try to interfear.

So Bruce turned to me and said...

Imagine this ...and than he did the broadcast version of Suharto in aug 1965

- Laaadddiieesss and Geeeeeeentlemen, 7 general of the army were killed to day by the communist.

You have the support of the National party to kill all communist around you during one week.

-You see, says Bruce, People got brainwashed and started believing every word Suharto said. Based on fear, jealosy, suspiciouness, anger people started to kill other people. Whole families was killed because they were accused of being communist.

After 1965 Suharto and the army started the so called Liquidation.

Anyone who was a threat to Suharto and his people would be accused of being communist and got killed.

Sukarno ( the first president) was taken off all his power as a president.

Bruce told me that Sukarno was forced to stay in his house & his children was not aloud to attend high school or university. All this because Suharto was affraid for future revolutions against him.

Interesting that later on it would be Megawato (Sukarnos daughter ) that would stand up against the regime of Suharto.

Suharto got more and more power and in 1968 became the " assistant president". Him, his party (Golkar) and the army ruled Indonesia for the next 31 years.

Bruce explained that during these years people were so scared. You would not trust anyone.

he explained that you would not even have a conversation like this in fear that someone would inform the army.

So back to the tempel..

From now on I know that every time we pass and stop by the tempel we stop becasue we want to honor the people that died in the 1965 Ku De Ta in Negara.

After the tempel we went to check how the framing of the house was getting along.

Bruce started giving instructions and I got alot my usually questions from the frame builders.

-Married? No Husband???

- Children ?

- Alone?? Alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After that we went to Wayans house to cut the 3 extra trees that he had given us.

I have no idé how many pieces of wood we carried on our heads, left shoulder, right shoulder...

All I know is that when Ibu Wayan came with Te I was in heaven.

After 3 trees, Wayan tells us that we can have one more tree.

So this tree was cut, felt to the ground, cut in to big pieces, processed in to long perfect wood pieces and back on my head, left shoulder and right shoulder.

It kind of felt like I was doing Shirshasana (head stand) for 6 hours.

...All I remember when I came home is that I slowly moved my sore body to the bed and put my head on the pillow I was gone...