Ramayana

The sun comes up, the roosters herald the day.  As I was falling asleep, I discovered we have a large gecko in our room...the ones that say their name, (geee-koh in a baritone voice, no doubt dulcet to other geckos) over and over until they sort of fade away as if they have a sore throat.  I was a bit unsettled.  The small ones seem harmless, but the large ones are formidable.  Of course, the large ones eat more...spiders, mosquitos and other crawly things I avoid thinking about in the tropics.  Ahhhh...in the tropics....what a marvelous thought, what a marvelous place to be, where you hang out a wet t shirt and six hours later it's still wet, but warmer.

Muzzy is off on his morning walk, up the road through terraced rice paddies and jungle foliage.  He will be gone an hour.  I am sitting on our porch, sparkly clean, ready for breakfast and more adventures.

Last night we attended the Kecak performance at Ketut's local temple.  All the village families participate and it is held on the apron before the inner temple so anyone can come and you don't have to wear a sarong or scarf.  The kecak is a dance drama depicting a battle from the Ramayana between Rama and the evil Ravenna, who lusts after the beautiful Sita.  Ravenna sends his sidekick to trick Sita into leaving the protective circle where Rama has told Sita to stay.  The sidekick becomes a charming golden deer and lures her into leaving.  Ravenna captures and tries to seduce the faithful Sita.  Hanuman makes an appearance, as does a monkey army, a couple of comic relief characters, and a dragon.  It's a little complicated, so I won't go in to detail, but it is a beloved story.  The kecak refers to the "cak" sound made by the male chorus of 100+ men.  It is performed in a circle with a tall flaming light device in the middle.  The men form a 4-5 person deep circle around a tall iron structure holding many oil lamps, and the characters act out the drama dancing around it while the men chant.  One old man chants out the story, and the basic time is kept by one voice, continuously marking the beat. It was formalized in the 1930s with collaborative effort from Walter Spies, a famous artist who made his home in Bali and sort of put Bali on the map for western tourism.  This performance was done in our Ketut's village and his son was one of the performers...father and son may not participate together, it must be one or the other.  I saw this performed when we were here in '93, but this time was so special.  Sita was lovely, appropriately coy, loving, and tragic.  I love Balinese dance...its ritualized aspect appeals to my sense of creativity within structure.  In the warm Balinese night, with the candlelight flickering and the shadows playing out, it was the perfect scene of good versus evil, with good ultimately triumphing.

Yesterday I tried the pool...magnificent.  How bad can it be to tread water while tropical birds fly too and fro across the ravine?  Ketut's Place is so beautiful.  He has cages with rescued birds, rescued squirrels, pools with lazy turtles, koi, and plants that we see only in arboretums.  I found the frangipani tree, and the plumeria abound, yellow and purple, behind the ears of beautiful Balinese boys and graceful Balinese girls. This must be the place where sailors saw mermaids.  Today we may go someplace...Gunung Kawi or to the silver shop, or the water temple.  Or we may just go back down into the fray and find the shop with the Flores sarongs.  It's hard to leave our peaceful compound.

And we have our new segment for the Bellingham Bean involving kopi luwak, civet cats, Chester, cosmic Flavia and more....the possibilities are endless.