No Time for Love, Time is Money

I love and hate this picture in the same time. It scares me on so many different levels.

Besides my work with Bali Children's Project, I'm also occasionally volunteering as an observer in one very nice clinic in Denpasar. As I'm finishing my med school in Croatia, I'm very happy to be given that opportunity.

The other day we received a call about a man who felt bad from that early morning. We went to see him to his house. His condition was very worrying. I won't go into medical explanation, but he was supposed to go to the hospital immediately.
There was a sign on the wall behind him: No time for love, time is money.
In this case, it turned out to be true.
The family signed the papers that they won't send him to hospital and my friend doctor explained me that they just can't afford it, like so many other people on Bali. We left without doing anything.

I just keep thinking and thinking about it.
I feel so blessed to live in a country where something like that doesn't happen (or if it does, it is an exception).
We live in a world with so many opportunities, a world that can resolve so many problems and do what might seem impossible. But then we made it unreachable.

People are about to break the impossible boundaries in the Olympics in London. My children (I call them all children, but some are already young adults) whom I teach, they never HEARD of neither Olympics or London. In almost 3 weeks I never met one single child that knows what are Olympics, can recognize the flag, anything. Like it doesn't even exist in their world. This trumendous achievements- and here, it is like it never happened. You broke the record? They don't even know you've tried. In this place- it's nothing.
I'm trying to imagine that, it would be like there is some country on this planet where people go to Jupiter regularly, maybe for summer holidays, and I have no idea that it is even happening. This is just such a disturbing thought for me. Knowledge is everything. One man, that used to be close to me, told me many times- they can take everything away from you, they can take your country, your money, your leg or even your dignity. But they can never as long as you live take away your knowledge.

And us, on the right side of the grass, do we forget how lucky we are to even have a chance to use these opportunities? Are we pushing ourselves to brake the boundaries and to KNOW?

If you are one of the priviledged ones, please share your knowledge. I live my whole life strongly believing in the power of knowledge. I have deep respect for modest, not selfish knowledge. It changes the world. It brakes the boundaries.

Make time for love, because it is not true- time is not money, at the end- time is love.

Long spaghetti for long life

If you are into healthy food Bali would probably be a good place to come. I'm eating my delicious (this is not a sarcasm) organic carrot and got really inspired to write this post.
 For my birthday Ketut took me for a lunch. We ate 'long spaghetti for long life'. I thought it was unbelievably sweet of him and I was so happy. I also started to think more about the approach to food in Bali.

• I eat breakfast at Teba house, it is an omelet & toast/ banana toast/ green pancake & banana + fruit. It is not something that I would regularly prefer to eat for breakfast every day, but I'm on a budget and not a complainer.

•  For lunch/ dinner I'm trying different things in different places. Usually it's a restaurant, but few times I ate with Eka on a food market, once even at a food cart (okay, once and never again).  

I would prefer to cook for myself, especially on a place like this where you can buy amazing fresh organic vegetables, fruit, very good rice, chicken that walks around you on the street every day and fresh fish for a really good price. Vegetables are especially cheap (for ex. 1kg of this organic carrots cost me 1,5 USD)

Also different foodstuff  like unrefined vegetable oils (sesame for ex.), gomashio (or just sesame if you prefer 'do it yourself' concept.), miso, different beans etc. are so easy to find here.

The best part is that there are restaurants that serve this type of food everywhere, actually the best part comes now- the prices are low (meal from 2,5 USD) and not higher then in any non-organic restaurant.
There are many good ones in Ubud (http://visitubud.com/guide/277/ubud-top-10-restaurants.html).

Part of this foodstuff is considered to be expensive in Croatia (which applies to all western world I believe) and of course, prices are better here.
Things like Spirulina (alga, nutrition supplement) are at least half price.
Bali Buda in Ubud is a great place to get all kinds of organic food and supplements.

Well, to go back on the beginning of this post.. why am I contemplating about food?

When I'm at home, the only thing that I find not easy to get rid off are sweets. In my case it is usually an ice-cream or some kind of chocolate, Nutella or piece of cake (not all in one day and not every day, of course). I just need to have something from the sweets department regularly.
But here, I have no desire for this type of food. I had one little chocolate bar, one brown rice dessert in a restaurant and one piece of berries cake, and it was mostly just to try, not because I needed to.

So I'm thinking.. why? What is different? And I come to a depressing conclusion that we really do live in a toxic food environment. In the western world our senses are constantly stimulated by numerous fast food restaurants and food commercials wherever we walk. You don't get 5 seconds free of all kinds of junk food.
Also, general mindset is unfortunately so deformed. Snacking sugary treats is accepted as a normal part of child's diet. New times and places to eat are popping out whenever you turn your head around. Quantity of pre-prepared, processed food full of conservatives, hormones, corn syrup and other additives offered to us is just breathtaking if you think about it. Supermarket? Especially in the USA.

I remember when I first entered one in Chicago, I was like woooowww. When we got to the sweets department my eyes were like tennis balls and I felt like little child. And then, all this bakery products, and fridges and fridges full of frozen pre-prepared meals.. But, I mean, come on! Who actually needs all this food? Think about it. Cause we sure as hell don't need it.
An overall intake of sugar and this food that is so accessible makes no sense if you ask me.

So, yes, of course I want to eat an ice cream or a chocolate bar every day in that environment. I don't even blame myself. It is an easy to understand psychology game.

 I feel that here my body and mind is left alone to decide what it really wants. And so, I want something sweet every 5 - 6 days maybe. I consider that to be a normal amount of wanting this type of food. I also feel so much more relaxed and not under pressure about the food in general here. I just listen to myself and it works perfectly.

One more thing that bothers me is a lack of will to know in overall population. How come that so many people just don't care about what they put in themselves? I'm aware of the fact that most of the people don't care about anything and don't take an hour a day to think about themselves and the world around them, but this is basic. You put it in your mouth every day. Few times a day.  Every single day. We have this beautiful body that nature/ God/ Jedi Knight/ whatever you believe in, gave us. And I mean it, it IS beautiful (some beautiful people: http://www.photographyam.com/gallery/portrait.html). Don't you love it? Or better, why don't you love it?


Back to Bali..
You can not drink tap water here. Some people even advised me to do everything with bottled water (brush teeth...), but I'm using tap water for hygiene and have no problem (knock knock on the wood). Bottled water is really cheap, 1500 ml is 5000 IDR (0,5 USD).
I also drink few cups of tea every day, it goes very nicely with this climate.
AND, my favorite- all kinds of freshly squeezed juices, nothing added just fruit. (1 - 3 USD)
This would be me with my juices. The best time to have one is just after you ran for an hour in the rice fields (see picture above).
And then, this would be me with my happy birthday Bintan
 beer. I was sooo tired there, so I look 'amazing', sorry for that, still I had to show the beer :)
                            


Some food market moment.

 One of the things I really adore is this cold towel they give you in some of the restaurants.

     Some of the meals I had for lunch/ dinner. 

Chicken & Vegetables, I think it was something like 33,000 IDR. 

  

Nasi Campur. This is a traditional Indonesian dish, the translation would be 'mixed rice' or 'everything on one plate'. There is no exact rule what should be inside, but from what I saw on most of the places you get rice, chicken, half of an egg, some spicy vegetable and then some random things.

This would be some kind of mixed rice, vegetables, chicken & seafood. Comes with a tea. Wasn't very good. I can't remember the exact price, but it wasn't more then 3 USD.

 
Now, this one is tricky. Looks beautiful, but can be very unpleasant. I ordered tuna, but was told that they don't have it at the moment, but they have some excellent fresh butterfish. As I never ate it before, I was looking forward to trying it. And yes, it tastes as good as it looks like. But, butterfish (escolar) causes GI problems to certain percentage of the people (different sources say 20-60% of the people can not digest it and therefore have a problem), if you are interested here is a very informative post about the issue.

 

Chicken & Vegatables with a Pineapple Milkshake. Loved it! All together 41,000 IDR. Taman Curry restaurant on the Main Road Ubud.

 Lemon chicken, very very delicious. It was around 4 USD. In the background is a carrot - apple - lemon - honey juice and it was perfect. 

 

Nasi Campur (rice, curry, carrot, ratatouille and potato & okara samosa).

 

I loved this miso soup. This whole restaurant is very good actually. They prepare everything on their own (even miso) from organic ingredients. Atmosphere there is nice and relaxed. Prices low. They have an Organic Market every Sunday morning where they sell handmade tofu, jam, coffee, sweets, soaps...

 Made of tapioca, I very much like the green one.

 One more Nasi Campur, this one is from the Food Market. And on the left is something I LOVE- JaJa Bali or Balinese traditional cake. You won't find it in the restaurants, I suggest food market, but there are also many local woman preparing it. Some of the ingredients are: black rice, tapioca, klepon and coconut. The taste is rather sweet.

 Next pictures are from the coffee plantation.

  These are samples of some of the drinks they produce on that plantation. My favorite ones are Coffee Ginseng, Pure Bali Cocoa and Bali Coffee. Ginger tea has tangy taste and I didn't really like it.

  These are special bags that people make here from leaves and then cook rice in them. These are some of the kids from my class who made it during the break.

 

This is a traditional Balinese kitchen.

And my favorite thing for the end, this is what some kids from Sukawati village have sent me today! <3

Cockfighting

Eka and I were on our way to one of the classes. It was Tuesday, I was going to meet new group of kids (I had Monday free) and was excited about it. It was also my birthday, but.. talk about that in my next post.
We entered the small street with our 'motorbike' and Eka suddenly stopped. The street was really downhill and narrow so I didn't really see why. I wanted to ask her what's going on, but I had this weird feeling, so I just peered behind her.
But, the only thing that I saw was a bunch of men at the end of the street, nothing really to worry about. Except for the way they were looking at us, cautiously?
She waved at them and shouted something on Indonesian. I felt that the tension on both sides went down and we continued downhill. She turned to me and said: Cockfighting.

 Turned out that her house (there is an improvised classroom within the house), where we are having lessons this week, is the last house in this sweet narrow street. Just after this new activity that I was introduced to.
I asked if I can stay for a while to take some photos. She obviously knew some of the men and it was okay.
I did get quite a few 'what.the.f*.are.you.doing.here' and 'didn't.your.momma.tell.you.not.to.mess.with.them.aliens?' looks, but I also got quite a few smiles and 'take.a.picture.of.me' waving. Yes Mr. Lil Wayne, my mum did tell me not to do stupid things, so
I smiled with respect to both.
But yes, I did, for the first time in Bali, felt a bit.. not welcomed. I know, who would've thought, huh?

It is a bit difficult for me to write this post, because I have some personal believes about this issue. But on the other hand, I also have a very strong believe about respecting the culture I'm visiting as a guest, so I will restrain myself from much personal comment.

 Cockfighting is one of the 'secrets' of Bali. You won't find it in your Lonely Planet, I just checked (one sentence explaining it is illegal).
The Indonesian government made all forms of gambling including cock fighting illegal in 1981.
However, Hindu religion includes many offerings for many different spirits, every day. During some of the ceremonies that require a blood sacrifice the cockfighting is allowed.
But, men sometimes get carried away..

Many Balinese men own a fighting rooster. Women are not involved in this process. These are specially bred birds and I'm seeing them all the time in rattan cages on the side of the road. That is the way to make them get used to noise.

Cocks have written in their DNA aggression toward all males of the same species. They are trained like professional athletes and fed high quality food.

Tajen, the name of the fight, is part of a very old Balinese religious tradition. This purification ritual has a purpose to expel evil spirits by offering the blood of the cock to them. The blood is spilled on the temple ground or other places that needs to be purified, so cockfighting is a part of a ceremony in every temple.
 

 The fight.. the owners need to find an opponent and then place the bet.

Razor-sharp blade is tied to the cock's leg. 
 This is done by a specialist,  who checks all the birds, starts the match.. basically, from what I saw, does more or less what a judge in a human boxing match would do.

 

Also, before the match begins, the side bets need to be placed.  But then, you also have wagers- and I saw them as lots of yelling, waving with the money and signals. They are placed when the cocks are brought into the ring.

         

Two fights that I saw lasted very shortly, but the whole process before, is quite long.

The cocks fight until ultimately one of them dies or is badly injured. All side bets are paid with money being tossed and handed around the ring.  The owner of the winning cock takes the central bet and also the body of the losing cock.