Sorry for the lull between posts. I've mostly been focusing on my ISP, so there's not all that much to report from the last few weeks. There is, however, a big festival going on at Pura Samuan Tiga, not far from my host family's house (really only a few blocks). My ibu has been spending all of her free time putting together offerings for it, and this morning she went to the market around 5 in the morning (or so she told me last night; I wasn't awake to confirm her departure) to buy fruit for offerings. The volleyball field (court?) near the temple, down the street from our program center, has been converted to sort of a tent city of warungs. Since people come from all over the area for the temple festival (which goes on for something like two weeks), locals set up food stalls to make a little extra profit. Perhaps later some pictures -- I keep forgetting to take my camera with me when I go places.
What else? I did end up switching my ISP topic just before the ISP period began. Instead of researching and writing about folktales, I've been writing stories of my own. One of them is loosely based on a popular Balinese folktale/legend, the story of Jayaprana and Layonsari. I won't recount it in full here, but Jessie has described it as a combination of King David from the Old Testament and Romeo and Juliet. (Admittedly, I remember next to nothing about King David -- is he the one from David & Goliath? -- so I can't quite vouch for the accuracy of that statement. Sorry, Dad.) My second story is based on things my ibu has told me about her life growing up and with her children, and the third is about topeng and sort of about Balinese Hinduism. All in all, I've written over 50 pages of fiction this month -- so you can understand why I haven't been up to much else.
That's about it for now, but sometime in the next couple of days I'll try to get out and take some more pictures. I'd like to get take some pictures of Bedulu, so that you all might be able to get a better sense of daily life. More later!
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I just got your postcard that you sent in March!!! Absolutely made my day, glad to see your ISP is going well. Skype again sometime? Making the most of these last 2 weeks and enjoying my work. Much love!
ReplyDeletefifty pages? rockstar! or, if you were texting from an indonesian prepaid cell phone: SOCKSTAR!
ReplyDeletei can't wait to hear it all when you get home. kinda bummed to not be the first audience of this batch, honestly, but being read to will be worth the wait!