Good morning Bali. Waking up to the roosters calling, pigs oinking, kids playing, neighbours talking, cats purring, dogs barking was quite pleasant - NOT. At least, I didn't need to set my alarm. My first sleep in Bali wasn't so great, perhaps I'm not used to the bed? It is so warm and humid today, stepping out of the bedroom I was already dripping sweat. We had little visitors - the two girls standing at our gates saying "hello, how are you?" and the other kids sitting on the steps of our courtyard. It was adorable. Julia and Christina started off their morning exercising. I really don't know how they did it in this weather - crazy. Julia cooked us rice and we ate it for breakfast with tomato sauce. I couldn't finish it, it wasn't my usual type of breakfast. In the photo you'll see a little boy, that is Jonah - Sandra's (my co-ordinator) son. Sandra is German and met a Balinese man 3 years ago, fell in love, got married and has been living in Bali since. She is now fluent in indonesian. It's amazing hearing her speak. We went over to Sandra's house, which is located a few steps away in the alleyways from our place. Bali is so different to the other asian countries I've been to, but I am very excited about exploring this little village and learning more about the Balinese culture.
I am based in a very small village called Bondalem, located in the middle of the north coast of Bali, directly at the ocean side. Bondalem lies three hours drive from Denpasar, the current capital of Bali and location of the airport. This village contains about 8000 friendly inhabitants.
Sandra advised us that we will learn how to make coconut milk with her mother in law today. We went to Sandra's mother in law's warung. Warung is a type of small family-owned business - often a casual shop. It is an essential part of daily life in Indonesia. There are many kinds of warung, ranging from selling bottled drinks (always warm in Bondalem), candy, cigarettes, snacks and other daily necessities. A typical warung in Bondalem sells local indonesian foods such as nasi goreng (fried rice), mie goreng (fried noodles), fu yung hai (a type of omelette), soto ayam (chicken & vegetable soup) and snacks.
It was a very interesting process for making coconut milk. All you need is a fresh coconut, a metal tool which has a curved tip to peel off the coconut, a grater and water. Sandra's mother in law demonstrated how to crack open the coconut and then pierce the coconut meat off the shell. She made it look so easy so we all had a go. Boy, it was definitely easier to watch. haha. The rule is to get it at the right angle to be able to scoop off the coconut from the shell, I had a few go's at it and gave up. Julia seemed to of mastered this task. The next step was to clean the coconut rinsing it through water and then using the grater, sliding the coconut in an up and down motion until the coconut turns into little long flakes. This was no ordinary grater (nothing like the graters we have back at home), this grater had spikes popping up from a plank of wood - very unusual but it did an absolute great job. The final step was to pour water into the bowl of coconut flakes (measured depending on how much coconut you used), and using your hands squeezing handfuls of coconut meat to extract as much liquid as possible - a strainer is required in this process. The coconut flakes are discarded and now we have fresh coconut milk. :) The whole process took about 30minutes, probably wouldn't of taken that long if we hadn't tried to pierce the coconut from the shell. Sandra's mum did half a coconut within a blink of an eye (many years of experience I guess). Sandra is cooking us curry tonight using the coconut milk, but now - it will have to be refrigerated for some time.
I will be teaching at a foundation called Yayasan Saraswati Mandala which was founded by a German couple - Rainer and Gisela Grenkowitz who are also the owners of the resort - Bali Mandala Resort. Seeing that we are volunteer teachers, we actually get free use of the resort which is located next door to the school (10 minutes walk from our place). The girls took me to the resort and we chilled out in the sun for a few hours. I have to admit that the asia sun does wonders to my very light skin. In 2 hours, you were able to see the horrible tan lines I inherited, but I was happy that I am now finally a shade darker. :) The resort was beautiful, I fell in love with the view I had right in front of my eyes. What more can you ask for when you have gorgeous weather, palm trees, bungalows, tanning chairs and a beautiful ocean in front of you? I was content. The three of us fell asleep in the warm beautiful weather. Sandra met us there as she took Jonah on the scooter - it was very cute seeing her rock up in her nice fancy white scooter with Jonah in a baby carrying pouch in front of her.
Every day at the Bali Mandala resort they serve a buffet lunch for just 3.50 euro at 1pm. They ring a bell and everyone goes to restaurant and sit and eat their lunch. There are a variety of balinese food and they serve different food every day. The buffet lunch was so good I went back for seconds. A COLD banana smoothie and it was amazingly delicious. Being someone who hasn't eaten a fresh banana is over 20 years, I really enjoyed this cold banana smoothie. After lunch, we continued to swim and sunbaked in the sun. It was such a lazy yet relaxing sunday afternoon.
As the sun was setting, we went back to our place and chilled out. It was very exhausting being in the sun for that long, but it was such a nice day to get a tan. :) For dinner, we headed over to Sandra's where she cooked us a vegetable curry, she made a massive pot and us girls cleaned it up. :) We're piggies. hehe. After such a satisfying and bloating meal, Sandra advised that she had bought dessert. It was a Balinese traditional spicy fruit salad. It contained umbrella fruit, cucumber, carrots and some white potato looking thing mixed with what I think is a tamarind brown paste. I've never tasted anything like this before but it was surely very tasty. Considering how stuffed I was, I managed to polished the whole plate. The way I think of it is that that I got my daily intake of fruit :).
My first day in Bali was very exciting. I had a wonderful day and I am looking forward to teaching tomorrow. I have never taught before so I am also a little nervous, but the girls informed me that it is actually not very hard and we are guided by the local Balinese teacher anyway. It's bedtime for me now.
Good night world.
XOXO
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