You know you've become a "local" when folks you know from a village over an hour away stop by to invite you to attend a blessing ceremony down the lane! Yes, that was how our day ended today, when Pasek's wife Ngorman (sp?) and his sister in law walked into our yard with a tray filled with offerings. Today was the day for Julie's new reception area to receive it's blessing and so Pasek's 88 year old father (who is a holy man) along with Ngorman, her sister in law, and Jati's mom had all made the trip in from the village to perform this ceremony along with Pasek and the rest of us who were gathered there. The blessing consists of much singing/chanting by the old man who is performing the rites. There are many stages of blessed water being sprinkled on all corners of the building (inside and out). There is a square of cloth that has a special design drawn onto it hung at the entrance (and that will stay there until it falls off by natural means - even if it is up there for years and nothing but tatters are left). In the end, the ceremony lasted about 2 hours in total and the last 1/2 hour or so consisted of plates of the blessed offerings being passed around to all who were present. There were oranges, apples, bananas, a mango, peanuts, hard boiled eggs (both duck and chicken), cakes, cookies, and crackers of every variety. Everyone took whatever they wanted off the tray as it was offered around and then there was a little more time just spent visiting and chatting about the ceremony itself. Lynda and I felt very honoured to be able to be there to be a part of this special event as did Julie's two guests (from the Netherlands) who couldn't get over their good fortune to have arrived on such an auspicious day!
When Lynda and I arrived back to our place we discovered that it too had been blessed. There was an offering at the entrance to our yard on our sidewalk and then there was another one on our patio right at the steps that you come up from the sidewalk on. We will both hit the hay feeling very thankful for this experience tonight!
Now for the not so nice bit of tonight....this is where I have to come clean and admit that I might have done a really bad thing.....but....it was an accident, I swear! When we were walking home from Julie's tonight along the quite dark laneway I ACCIDENTALLY stepped on a snail. A massive snail who had been just inching along minding his own business until my big feet came out of the sky and tromped right on his back end! I don't think I broke his shell and I'm hoping he will just continue along his journey once he garners up the courage to come out of hiding again. He was kind of in the shadows and I just didn't see him and in fact I didn't even realize it was a snail until after I'd passed. I actually thought it was a rock....and a fair sized rock at that! It was Lynda who could see that it was a snail once I had propelled him into the more lighted part of the path. And on my way home from a ceremonial blessing to boot!!! Sheesh! Sorry!!
Remember when you were a kid and sometimes you just felt like having a backwards day? Well, it seems that I'm going backwards through today in this blog so I'll just continue on that train. LOL.
This afternoon we got home just in time (again) as the skies literally opened up and dumped buckets of rain starting at about 3:30 pm. It seems that might be the time that mother nature likes to get that rain out of her system as we've seen a bit of a pattern developing already. We had lunched at the little warung with vespas for seats again today and it was there that we were on our way home from when the first drops began to fall. Luckily that little warung is just around the corner from us!
We decided today would be another laundry day and so we did the hard labour of gathering it up and dropping it off. LOL. Yes....we both agree we like just dropping our laundry off and having it magically washed, dried, folded and awaiting pick up by the next morning. Today we decided to try a different laundry though and the reason for that switch is because this one is called MaeMae Laundry. I couldn't resist as my middle name is Mae and my granddaughters middle name is Mae so....we had to go to MaeMae's!
After dropping off the laundry we just continued down Monkey Forest Rd....all the way down the hill and past those little monsters that everyone comes from miles around to see. We both know we're gonna have to actually go into the forest one day during our time here but we're building up to it! Today walking past the forest was enough. Those damn little monkeys were everywhere....they don't know that they're supposed to stay in the forest! There were big old ones and little tiny baby ones....there was a lot of monkeys and that was just on the road.
It was HOT and HUMID today and so we stopped often to check out a shop window or maybe something inside and at one point we even stopped for a cucumber and mint juice which was AMAZING and refreshing. We also finally made it into Coco's (the grocery/everything store) as we were in need of shampoo and toothpaste. While there Lynda had the brilliant idea to pick up a couple of little facecloths so we could carry them with us to wipe the sweat from our eyes. Yes people it is that bad! I know I sweat more than most but really....this morning I was almost blinded by my own sweat! And do you know how much it stings when you get sweat in your eyes and when it stings then your eyes start to cry as though you were peeling an onion and that just adds to the gallon of liquid that is pouring off your face. Now that I've scared you all away from wanting to come here with my description of the humidity I also have to say that it's just when you're out walking in it that you sweat that much and it's not that bad when you're out in the morning or the evening...it just happens that we were out in the worst time of the day and we were overdue for a rain so the humidity was even higher.....and.....truth be told....it actually feels good in a weird kind of way. All this sweating has to be healthy! Don't we pay a small fortune to go into saunas and steam rooms? Yes....here we're in a steam room pretty much all of the time and its free!
Our walk finally came to an end when we located the shop we were looking for. It is called Goddess on the Go and they specialize in larger size clothing and all the material they use is made of natural wood fibres. Each of us managed to find a couple of things we couldn't do without and once that chore was behind us we hit the road in search of a taxi. Luckily we found one right across the street (they're everywhere here and it is $5 to go pretty much anywhere in town). It was that taxi that brought us back up the hill to our place where we walked to the vespa lunch spot.
So now you've had our whole day in a backwards sort of way.....welcome to Bali where "everything is as it should be".
Till next time,
L & L
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