padangbai, indonesia
i spend the afternoon lazing around the homestay. there doesn’t seem to be anything more to do. i’ve sort of painted myself into the corner. or been painted into the corner. my mind rubberbands back and forth between congratulating myself that i’ve just cut the cost of my 3rd act property acquisition dream in half by becoming partners with the town’s village chief, and — castigating myself for my totally blind trust in people and a situation that i have little understanding of, and absolutely no control over. i mean, what am i doing here all by myself, buying a half-built property in the middle of a banana and coconut field 13,000 miles from “home”? what exactly will i be doing all day, and all night, sitting in the middle of “my” banana and coconut field? there certainly won’t be any museums, concerts, restaurants, or shows to see 24/7 like in LA. it’ll take me an hour just to get to ubud to see a local barong ballet or kecak monkey chant. do i actually think i’ll be sitting there writing all day long? becoming “the writer” i’ve always wanted an d expected myself to be? highly unlikely.
the hours pass slowly as i wait for my “contract” signing appointment at pak putu’s. i keep thinking that someone must have placed a “contract” on me. i call a few more bule friends back home for advice and support, even though i already know that none will give me any. no one picks up. i leave voice messages, then e-mail and wait.
about 6 in the evening, made picks me up again on his motor bike. pak putu and dani live just a few blocks down the waterfront, but down a very private, narrow alley way. their “home” is the only one on the whole street. i can see why as soon as we roll up, even before getting off the bike. it’s like we’ve just approached a getty-sized museum with a lineup of gigantic hindu-bali statues displayed in front of a 7 foot high wall.
six foot tall, teeth-gnashing, fire-breathing characters from the ramayana, the epic mythological story of hindu gods and humans with names such as krishna, rama, sita, and hanuman, the monkey king, especially popular here in bali, are animatedly gnashing their teeth and breathing invisible fire at me. i can’t tell if it’s a welcome or a warning.
dani is waiting out front for us. she brings us inside, where i notice pak putu is feeding some orange coy fish in a rock pond. he looks up and smiles. i return his smile, but there are so many things to see that my eyes start immediately dancing around the complex like a ten year old’s in a candy shop. there are ornate wooden and stone carvings everywhere i turn, along with giant earth-made ceramic ware, and several vine-drenched indoor bales, traditional wooden balinese pagodas for relaxation and spiritual rejuvenation. and look over there. and there! there are carved wooden and stone murals of pak putu himself.
with his silver pony tail, brown skin, and eternally white t-shirt. this man, putu, has had himself built a shrine in his own image, while somehow still maintaining his own humble modesty and village elder integrity. his “home” is as big as 5 hindu-bali temples combined, with enough room for perhaps 10 overnight guests, yet there he is, sitting alone, feeding the coy, and now the birds who have flown to his roosts for night feeding.
dani asks me if i want a tour and of course i say yes. so we climb the stairs up to the 2nd floor, from where we get an impressive view of the entire padang bai (glass bay) and the skyline of the small, traditional town spilling into the hillside beyond. and here on the rooftop’s seaside corner is the formal, ceremonial home for the spirits of all of putu’s ancestors.
their ashes are stored in an ornamental display case of metal urns that no doubt contain the sum total of all the stories and all the travails of his family’s predecessors. apparently, putu has come to his position of authority and respect through inheritance. he is the current ceremonial bearer of both his family’s lineage and his village’s safety and security. i can only imagine the sense of weight and responsibility that go with his title of “head of the culture”. and here i am, chosen to be his “partner”.
i have this strange feeling, as i’m walking down the wooden steps, to the bale where i presume we will all sit and sign the “contract” – that – i have been unknowingly waiting for this moment my entire life. and at the same moment, it simultaneously feels as if i have “been waited for” by putu and the village for an equally long time. i remember back to the moment when i was leaving gili island just over a week ago, before my immobilizing gout attack that has purposefully stranded me in padangbai. i had just purchased these beautiful strands of ocean pearls from the bali sea on lombok island, where i didn’t have the money on hand to pay for them. so now here i was standing inside another beachfront ATM (in front of which i had met my wife 10 years ago in kuta beach), here on gili island, famous for offering travelers mind-altering “tickets to the moon”… standing with a young boy, bakti, who had been our spirit guide to the lombok pearl factory.
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i had just withdrawn the several million rupiah that i owed the pearl factory owner and had given it all to bakti – when he very strangely takes a wooden amulet on a leather string, up over his head, and places it over mine. he says very warmly but purposefully, “this is for protection, pak. it is animal guide from our island.” i look at the hand-carved wooden animal figure now hanging from my neck, and i feel strange. i not only feel “protected”, but it feel somehow like i had been “chosen”. like bakti was the carefully-placed messenger along my path, and i was someone like neo from “the matrix”, “the one”, or like in my tribe, the “chosen one.” that i was on some kind of unspoken “mission” that i didn’t really understand, or even know about, but that others did. and that i needed spirit guides – like bakti and made and maybe even my divorce-threatening wife – to get me to the designated place at the right time.
that i had been receiving “signs” all along the way of this possibly life-changing trip to bali: like the death-defying dengue fever “sign” from my wife in denpasar that steeled my devotion and loyalty.
like my 2nd death-defying motor bike collision “sign” from babba, my “messenger” in amed, which reminded me that life was neither long nor guaranteed. and then the amulet-hanging sign from bakti in gili… that seemed to show me that i was “protected” and even, ahem… “chosen”. not to mention the gout “sign” which had stranded me here in padangbai – plus the threatened-with-divorce “sign” from da wife which was telling me that i was wholly reliant on myself and the “kindness of strangers”. plus the no-western-lawyer “sign” which keeps telling me that some other kind of “logic” or dare i say, “magic” is ruling the day. merely a series of coincidences, you say? and i say yes, maybe. but “coincidences with consequences”, along with messengers and signs… they all… seem to have led me… here…
…to pak putu’s home in padangbai… where i am standing – for some reason – almost 65 years young – not only about to “sign” a contract that could very well begin my “3rd act” and change the entire direction of my life, but also for – some other reason – where i have been “chosen”, not by myself, but by putu, padangbai’s village chief. for a reason unknown even to myself.
we all sit down on one of the many bales spread out around the home. it seems that each must have its own purpose. this one seems like a “living room” or “business” bale. the one over there looks more ceremonial, like perhaps it’s where the village’s formal and religious affairs are carried out. there’s one just across from us that looks the most private; there are only 2 chairs and a chaise lounge there. maybe it’s a bale just for putu and dani. ok, not my business. i take a seat across from my 2 new partners, and across from one of the “messengers” who got me here.
putu speaks to made, who translates for me. “pak putu say, you write contract.” “me?” “yah, you write in english so you understand. dey sign.” “but they won’t even understand what i write. and i’m not a lawyer.” “no, problem. i explain to dem. you write, trrrules.” he hands me a 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper. and a pen.
“date: may 24, 2012. agreement on mimba village villa. between pak trules from los angeles, california and ni ketut dani yulianti from padangbai, bali.” that’s ketut’s full name and i’m to sign the agreement with her, putu’s wife, because…. that’s the way he wants it. he really doesn’t like getting involved in details and specifics. he doesn’t like to carry through on conception and execution. he just decides whether to give his permission, or not, and the rest is carried out for him. he can go on to the next task at hand, catch another fly with his chopsticks, or walk off towards (the) infinity (pool).
“we agree to buy ‘mimba villa’ with land, 2 unfinished concrete homes, well, kitchen, & bathroom for 400,000,000 rupiah. we are 50-50 partners, 200,000,000 rupiah each.” i’m just making this up. what next? ok, sure, i was supposed to be my jewish parents’ “son, the doctuh”, or if i couldn’t get into medical school, at least my parents’ son “the lawyuh”. but i had taken the road less traveled and ended up some kind of artist-professor-shaman-clown. now here i am being the best lawyer i can be, writing down what i think it is i/we are doing. it’s such a far cry from anything legal, or rational, or “prudent”, or anything close to what i’ve been educated and brainwashed to do my whole life, that it just boggles my mind, not to mention makes me feel entirely awkward and strange… sitting here… writing a “contract” on my own balinese real estate life. “trules will pay 100,000,000 rupiah for renovation and 80,000,000 for pool construction, and yulianti will pay 180,000,000 for furniture and garden, making a total of 380,000,000 rupiah total above the purchase price for the land and homes.” this is really crazy. like the bule blind leading the familiar balinese. the number of zeros are astounding to me. will what i’m writing have any weight, any legality to it? will anything i’m writing be enforceable here in 3rd world indonesia where “bules can’t own property”?
“if and when trules or yulianti decide to sell their half of the ownership of the property, they will guarantee the other blah blah blah… etc. etc… signed pak trules, may 25, 2012 and ni ketut dani yulianti, may 25, 2012.” i even have the idea to have made, and pak putu himself, sign the document as “witnesses.” they do without hesitation, we shake hands, and i am the doubtful owner of 2 half-built houses in the middle of a banana and coconut field in a small fishing village on the east coast of bali.
now to pay for it…………