Admittedly this is a re post from a previous blog I had...but I wanted to share this with you all. It was a favorite post of mine from my trip to Bali nearly three years ago. A memory of an enlightening dinner that I am so grateful for...
The gardener at the villa invited us over for dinner tonight. His wife cooked us a feast full of traditional Balinese food and every single bite was to die for! Their house is a very traditional in that there is a separate building for each aspect of their lives: sleeping, eating, cooking and praying. Madei is an amazing gardener and his open air courtyard was full of water lilies, orchids, frangipani trees and elk horn ferns. Beautiful stone mosaic patterns adorn the walkways and there are intricate wood carvings around all the doors.
Even better then the food and beautiful home was the conversation. Balinese people care very deeply and conversations can be much more intimate then what we are used to in the West. It is common to be asked within the first ten minutes where are you from, where do you live, who are your parents, are you married, do you have babies, why don't you have babies????? We discussed war, terrorism, politics and religion that evening and Madei wowed us all with his simple yet highly profound statements such as:
On racism:
"I do not know why racism? We all different color skin yes, but all of us have same color on our palms. All creamy white no matter if African or Chinese or Balinese. So if we all have same hands, we aren't so different you and I."
On God and race:
"God made all the flowers different colors just like us, so that we are beautiful to look at. Just like fish in an aquarium, the world would be boring is all sama sama (same same)"
On the peace of Bali compared to other parts of Indonesia:
"Indonesia has war because they put religion on top of politics. Here in Bali we have peace because we put religion on top of art and beauty"
All I wanted to do was hold out a tape recorder and forever capture his thoughts as they came out of his head....such a humble happy soul.
Family is so important here and is the basis of a persons identity. In the mornings all the mommies in the neighborhood proudly bring their babies over to the villa to say hello to Patti and girl children are as loved as boys.
Bali is pure MAGIC!
