Bag brigade: Part of the rubbish cull at the inaugural clean-up in Tundun Penyu, Ungasan. (See DIY Clean-Up, below)
Water
of Half-Life
It has not yet been raining on the Bukit
this official wet season, in any appreciable way at least, up to deadline time
for this edition. It has been hot and humid instead. We southern hill-dwellers
have seen the clouds over places apparently more favoured by whichever committee
of gods it is that controls precipitation. That this is more scientifically
seen as a seasonal phenomenon – a variable one as all of them are – has been
dismissed in the minds of some who prefer to believe that a laser being
operated on the new Kuta-Nusa Dua highway construction is to blame. The theory
goes that the contractors are using the laser to deter rain since getting wet
would upset their work schedule.
It’s a lovely story. It might even be worth believing, since all manner of
people here seem to believe in all sorts of things.
There’s an acute water shortage on the Bukit too. That is also a
perennial issue. It might be solved – one day – if anyone here believed in
practical things, like planning, or building efficient infrastructure. Or maybe
they should look at laser-enhanced public water pipes? That might help get the
stuff pumped up the tiny rusted and corroded pipes and if effective would
certainly advance science, since it would prove the Indonesian theory that
water runs uphill.
On the other hand, there may now be a glimmer of hope that the
authorities will notice there is a problem. The village chief of Pecatu, I Made
Sumarta, has got into the act, complaining that local people are also being
forced into buying expensive tanker water.
When it’s only “rich Bules” (hah!) and five-star hotels that quibble,
well, frankly, no one gives a Rhett Butler.
DIY
Clean-Up
Neighbouring Ungasan, where the village
authorities have a proud record of ignoring essentials, presents a problem for
people who really would like to live without rat, snake, dog and
mosquito-attracting rubbish. They’re into you for general levy fees – which we
have avoided here at The Cage, preferring instead to pay the local Banjar,
since it does useful social welfare work – but outside Ungasan village itself,
little activity has ever been detected.
So it’s interesting to learn that in another part of Tundun Penyu Dipal
– the top ridge, from where there are fine views of the litter-strewn Balangan
road – the local staff from 27 villas have got together and formed an association
to provide mutual self-help and security. They meet monthly (refreshments
provided), have a New Year’s party planned, and are benefiting from having
friends around them. Many domestic workers do not have the local family support
base available to Balinese who work in their home areas.
Backed by one foreign resident, owner of one of the villas in the
project, the association is now also conducting monthly clean-ups in the area.
At the first, on Nov. 5, 22 of the available 27 people turned out. A contractor
has been appointed to take the rubbish to the refuse disposal centre at Suwung,
whose operators will hopefully dispose of it properly.
Since Ungasan village provides no rubbish collection in the area and
there is as yet no appreciable decline in the cultural practice of just tossing
your garbage over the fence – or dropping it on the road as you meander along
on your motorbike – this is a significant measure to reduce the litter
overburden. It’s an idea that is already practised elsewhere and should be
copied in many other places.
It’s self-help at its local best. Pity it puts the village authorities
to shame, but there you go.
Five-Oh
Jennifer Bee, who among other things
markets Grand Komodo Tours & Diving and believes – so she tells us on her
Facebook – that a glass is neither half empty for pessimists nor half full for
optimists, but simply has room for vodka in it, alerts us to another
astonishment. This year December has five Saturdays, five Sundays and five
Mondays. Apparently this happens only once every 824 years and the Chinese have
a term for it (well, they would). It’s the Money Bag.
Bee, a Jakarta native who would look very fetching in a big red hat if
only one were still in her possession (she gave it away), is also an aficionada
of art. She might possibly be seen distant from her Sanur domain on Nov. 16, at
the opening of the Bali Sumba Timor Photography Exhibition, featuring the work
of Ari Saaski. The exhibition, which runs through to January, is at Cafe des
Artistes in Jl Bisma, Ubud.
The photos on show include landscape, nature and portraiture and
probably should not be missed by The Diary, either.
Pumpkin
Heads
It was Halloween on Oct. 31, as no one
should need reminding since it occurs on that date every year. It’s the eve of
All Saints’ Day, a Christian festival, and is traditionally a night when the
spirits are abroad; rather like the night before Nyepi, really.
But it’s chiefly an American thing, dating from when the fun-loving
Pilgrim Fathers landed at the Kennedy Compound in Massachusetts and wondered
what they could do with all those pumpkins, since it was plain they could do absolutely
nothing with the Kennedys.
Ever since, whimsy has been the American way. And we’re indebted to
American Prospect’s daily news brief (of Nov. 1) for giving us a break from
election year politics – that’s all over now too – and instead informing us
that according to a leading polling outfit, PPP, 62 percent of US voters polled
said chocolate was their Halloween poison of choice, and that if forced to turn
into a monster, 22 percent would prefer being a vampire against 12 percent who’d
like to be a werewolf.
It seems that the Democrats are the Party Party. Thirty-three percent of
registered Democratic respondents told the pollsters they would be dressing up for
Halloween, against only 23 percent of Republicans.
Peaced
Off
Perhaps Nick Way, of the Bali Peace Park
Association, will have more time to devote to matters of importance now that
he’s left Network Ten in Perth. We learned of his departure from the
broadcaster, which is having a bit of a commercial struggle these days, through
The Australian newspaper’s Strewth diary column.
It reported that at this year’s West Australian Media Ball, held recently
and like all such events an annual bash renowned for feats of alcoholic misadventure,
job security was the talk of the tables among the lads and the frocked-up
lassies. This was apparently given extra piquancy by the departure of veteran
sound-recordist Way and The West Australian’s so-called super sleuth Sean Cowan
from the benefits of paid employment.
Way should now be able to Google bananas (hint: they’re a plant, not a
tree) to avoid further horticultural and arboreal embarrassment at the former
Sari club site, as well as look for practical ways to progress his
association’s long-running sequel to Mission Impossible.
Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday, and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz. Hector tweets @scratchings and is on Facebook (Hector McSquawky).
