Tales of a Female Nomad

by Rita Golden Gelman

  An hour after we leave the airport, we turn off the main road and wind for another fifteen minutes between terraced rice fields that stretch as far as I can see in every direction. Then, finally, we enter a village.

  The driver pulls up to a group of men who are clustered in front of an open pavilion. He reads from the paper I gave him, listens to directions, then backs up and drives about a hundred yards down a side road and stops. We have arrived.

  I have no idea where we are or who it is that I’m about to meet. I leave my bags in the car and hold off paying for the cab. At least I’ll have transportation out if I need it.

  I walk through an arched gate into a grassy garden and am welcomed by the sweet perfume of a gardenia bush that is nearly as tall as I and filled with fragrant white flowers. A tiny old woman, topless, her waist-length gray hair hanging down her back, is stooped over, sweeping leaves and flowers off the grass with a three-foot-long broom. The noisy swish of the bristles, made of palm-leaf veins tied together, allows me to watch unnoticed for a few minutes. Her waiflike body is wrapped from the waist down in a faded brown-and-tan sarong. As she sweeps, she hunches over, holding her left hand behind her back. With her right hand she brushes pink petals and brown leaves into little piles.

  I step onto the stone path in front of her. She looks up, smiles toothlessly, and, feeling modest in front of a western stranger, puts her hand across her naked chest. I smile back and read the paper to her: I Gusti Ngurah Ketut Sangka, Puri Gede, Kerambitan, Tabanan.

  She nods, smiles, and rushes off. Soon, two younger women, one in her thirties, the other in her forties, approach, smiling. (There is a lot of smiling in Bali.) They are dressed in western skirts, flip-flop rubber sandals, and T-shirts. The older and heavier of the two is wearing a T-shirt that says “We are the world.”

  I show them the paper. They nod. The older one, Dayu Biang, walks me to a nearby patio, sits me down on a bamboo chair, and asks me if I want kopi. I nod, smiling. The other goes off, deeper into the compound.

  A few minutes later, two cups of coffee appear, one for me and the other for a tiny beautiful woman who looks about forty years old (I later learn that she is nearly fifty-seven). She sits in a chair across from me, dressed in an earth-colored batik sarong that is wrapped around her small body like a stocking. A yellow-and-purple flowered top sets off her shiny black hair and her wrinkle-free bronze skin. She sits straight, smiles at me, and I show her the paper. She nods. Then she places her hand on her chest.

  “Tu Biang,” she says slowly, enunciating clearly. Her name means, literally, a princess who has children.

  “Rita,” I say. “America.”

  She looks toward the old woman who is sweeping nearby.

  “Ibu saya,” she says. My mother.

  “Ibu Tu Biang,” I repeat. Tu Biang’s mother.

  “Ya, ya,” she says, laughing, with an endearing, inclusive glee. “Ibu saya.” My mother. “Tu Nini.” A princess who is a grandmother.

  When I show her the paper, she smiles. “Suami saya.” My husband. She reads his name, which is I Gusti Ngurah Ketut Sangka.

  As we sit and sip, we do not speak much, but we smile a lot. Then, after about ten minutes, a tall and distinguished-looking man approaches. He is wearing a patterned scarf tied artistically around his head in traditional Balinese fashion. His sarong is the same earth colors as his wife’s sarong, but unlike her skin-tight wrap, his is loose and tied with a roll of fabric at the waist, and a soft flow of folds in the front. He is also wearing a long-sleeved white shirt. He is in his late sixties.

  “May I help you?” he asks in English, smiling.

  “My name is Rita,” I say through my smile, my prayer hands, and my nodding head. “I have just arrived from America. I met Dr. Djelantik on the airplane and he suggested I come here.”

  The man’s smile gets even bigger and spreads to his eyes. “Welcome,” he says. “Let me show you your room.”

  I live there for four years.

  I Gusti Ngurah Ketut Sangka, Puri Gede, Kerambitan, Tabanan are the words Dr. Djelantik wrote on my paper.

  I Gusti Ngurah Ketut Sangka is the name of the man I have just met, the doctor’s friend.

  I indicates a male.

  Gusti indicates high caste.

  Ngurah means he was born in a palace.

  Ketut says he is the fourth born.

  Sangka, his personal name, means “big shell.”

  Puri Gede means “great palace.”

  Kerambitan is the village.

  And Tabanan is both a city and a country.

  The man who has invited me to stay, addressed as Tu Aji, a prince who has children, is the unofficial scholar of the Kerambitan dynasty, the son and brother of a king. Everyone in this royal family is called Tu something, usually translated as “prince” or “princess.” It’s an indicator that says this person is from a high caste.

  Dr. Djelantik, who, Tu Aji tells me, is a prince of a different dynasty, directed me to a royal palace, though this section of the palace does not look very royal. There are three traditional buildings: a pavilion—the Balinese call it a bale, with two open sides and nine columns holding up a tiled roof (the bale, which measures about ten by eighteen feet, is frequently used for ceremonies)—and two other buildings about the same size, one-room closed structures, each with a porch and columns. The other three buildings are simple one-story white stucco houses that contain bedrooms.

  There are no gilded statues royally proclaiming wealth, nor elaborate friezes broadcasting grandeur. Instead, in this part of the palace, there is a feeling of serenity conveyed by grassy stretches with flowering trees and bushes, and stone pathways that are lined with flowers of every possible color. The gentleness of this family compound is a reflection of the people who live here.

  My room is in a small house consisting of two rooms, with an open, covered patio between them that faces the garden. Behind the rooms, accessible from the patio, are a toilet and bathroom. I will be paying the family eight dollars a day for the room and three meals.

  I step into the bathroom with my towel. There is a big tiled tub nearly four feet high and two and a half feet square in the corner, filled with clean water. On the rim of the tub there’s a red plastic scoop with a handle for scooping out the water (you never climb in).

  The water is cold compared to the air, and I squeal with the first few scoops. But, like jumping into a lake, after a few minutes of splashing, the water feels refreshing.

  “Sudah segar ya?” Are you refreshed? asks Tu Nini, who is still sweeping when I come out in clean clothes and sit on the patio. “Sudah minum?” she asks. Have you had something to drink?

  “Ya, terima kasih,” I answer. Yes, thank you.

  These are the first of thousands of similar questions Tu Nini asks me over the months I am there, all of them concerned with my comfort as a guest. Sudah makan? Have you eaten? Sudah mandi? Have you bathed? This last is a common question around five o’clock in the afternoon. Everyone bathes for the second time before dinner. “Have you bathed?” is a late afternoon greeting.

  There is another open patio with a dining table and chairs about thirty feet from my room. At quarter to seven in the evening, just as it is getting dark, Dayu Biang (Dayu means she is a brahmana, from the highest, priestly caste; Biang means she has children) passes by my patio en route to the table, with a big bowl of rice. A servant in the palace and one of the women who greeted me earlier, she is a large woman, taller and rounder than the others. And more relaxed and open. Though she has said very little, I sense immediately that she and I will be friends.

  A minute later, the other woman who met me when I first arrived, Jero Made (Jero means she is of low caste married to someone “higher” than she—the title Jero raises her status; Made means she is the second born) passes my patio carrying a tray with bowls full of accompaniments to the rice: eggplant, shredded chicken with garlic, pork sate, a dark green dish of something that looks like spinach, a plate of sliced c
ucumbers, and a bowl of roasted peanuts.

  When the food and dishes are set up, Tu Aji appears and leads me to the table. There are only two places set. He sits across from me. Dinner tonight, and most nights, is just the two of us. Neither of Tu Aji’s wives ever eats with us.

  I begin our conversation by asking Tu Aji if he and Tu Biang have any children.

  “I have seven sons with Tu Biang and two sons with my other wife. Nine sons.” He laughs a round deep laugh. “When I married, I prayed that I would not have any girls. I thought that girls brought too many problems. And now I am sorry because my prayer has come true and I will never know what it is like to have a daughter.” He laughs again. “Ya, better laughing than crying.”

  Among Tu Aji’s sons are two mechanical engineers, two agronomists, one economist, one doctor, one architect, and two still in high school planning to become economists like their older brother. Only three of them are still in Kerambitan.

  “Of course, I would like them all to be nearby,” he tells me, like every other parent in the world, “but that is not to be. I have five grandchildren who live in Jakarta. They do not even speak Balinese. But,” he lifts his hands in the air, “the river must flow. You cannot stop it. My children are part of the modern world.”

  There is a quiet wisdom about this man. We talk that first night for more than three hours. He is eager to share his life stories with me.

  “You are more direct than the other westerners I have known. And not so stiff. Also,” he laughs, “you ask me many more personal questions. The others are only interested in academic things.”

  It is clear that he is not offended by this. He is pleased.

  As he tells me about his family, I feel an excitement surging through me. This is a prince, a real prince! The scholar brother of the king of the Kerambitan dynasty. And a self-proclaimed educator. What an honor.

  I ask him what it means to be a king in twentieth-century Bali.

  Today, he explains, kings do not have any political power. But the dynasties still function. Tu Aji’s brother, who has twenty-nine children, lives in another section of this six-acre compound with his five wives. As king, he is the head of 157 families in Kerambitan; and the families must do as he orders. The rest of the people in the village, the ones of lower caste, pay him homage.

  “My brother has a special spiritual power,” says Tu Aji. “We call that power, sakti. You would probably call it magic. He can use it for good and for bad. People who do not give him what he wants will suffer. Everyone in the village knows that he has this power. They are afraid of him.”

  He goes on.

  “My father was the king in the last generation. He was a very wise man, a literary man, strict but kind. As king, he honored his obligation to the people of the village and to the people who served the puri (the compound of a royal family is called a puri, which is translated as “palace”). But my brother is not the same as our father. He is demanding and vindictive. He only cares what others can do for him. He cares nothing for our family and the people of our village.”

  As Tu Aji speaks, I am smiling appropriately on the outside. But inside, I am leaping with joy. He is the teacher I have been seeking, the wise man I had hoped to find. After only a few moments, I know he will lead me to knowledge, to depths I have never known, to spirituality. Thank you, Dr. Djelantik.

  “How is it that you speak English so well?”

  “I studied. At first, with a teacher; later by myself. For many years I have been working with European and Australian scholars, helping them to know Bali; so I have had much practice. But I will speak to you in Indonesian; you must learn.”

  Tu Aji also speaks fluent Dutch and some German as well as Balinese and Indonesian. And he has a reading and praying knowledge of ancient Kawi, akin to Sanskrit.

  “Have you been to Europe?” I ask.

  He laughs. “I have been invited many times. ‘Come to Holland. I will pay.’ But, I always say no. I will not go. I am a frog in a coconut shell and I must stay in my small world, even if it is sometimes not so comfortable. A person will be bewildered if he goes in another’s road. Rich or poor, you must seek happiness in your own world. We can all reach the same happiness, but you must go in your world and I must go in mine. That is life. Three times three is not always nine. Sometimes it is four.”

  I think about my life as a nomad, always living in other worlds.

  “Tu Aji, don’t you think we can learn from visiting other worlds, from sharing experiences, from living in other places?”

  “The answer to your question is, Of course. But I am lucky. Other worlds come to me. I have to accept that my sons will leave Kerambitan. That is logic. For me, I cannot. I have adat (tradition). I will live as my family has always lived. And I will die in Kerambitan. I must. Maybe my generation is the last to have this feeling.”

  Then he laughs again. “Adoo. Rita, I am old. According to the Hindu religion, I have completed my duties and my life is finished. Ya. I have studied and learned and married. I have had children and worked to see that they are all educated. Now I am ready to die and I am not afraid. You know that we Balinese live in two worlds, the sekala, the one we can see, and the niskala, the one we cannot see. My spirit is ready to move on to the next world, the niskala.”

  I am uncomfortable with his statement. “But, Tu Aji, isn’t it possible that now that your tasks are completed, there are other duties that you can do?”

  He laughs again. It is a laughter that I can see in his eyes. It says life will continue, the world will change, and we must be open to whatever passes before us, because, well, what other choice do we have? It is a laughter of acceptance.

  I have just met this man, but I feel as though I have known him forever. His gentle manner, his innate wisdom, his soft but penetrating eyes have touched something inside of me that I cannot define. Is it possible that already, on my first day in Bali, I have tapped into my spirit?

  By ten o’clock, we are both exhausted, from talking and listening so intensely.

  “Rita,” he says, rolling the r and extending the a, “you have much to learn about Bali and our beliefs and traditions. I will be your teacher. I will show you Bali from the inside.”

  With those words my education becomes Tu Aji’s final duty in life.

  The next morning Tu Aji comes to my patio.

  “You are in good luck,” he says. “In three days there will be a cremation, and tomorrow they are washing the body. You must buy traditional clothes. Dayu Biang will help you.”

  A few minutes later, Dayu Biang and I are walking toward the market about a hundred yards away, past two barking dogs and many small white stucco houses with flowering white frangipani trees in their front yards. On the left is a wall that seals off a part of the puri that I have not seen yet.

  There is a sweet smell in the air and a curiosity in the people when they see me. I smile and nod to everyone we pass. They smile back and talk to Dayu Biang. I know they are asking about me because I hear the word Amerika in Dayu Biang’s answer. And kebaya, which is the traditional blouse we are going to have made for me. But they are talking in Balinese, which I do not understand.

  Balinese and Indonesian are not the same. I have been studying Indonesian; it is the language I began when I was in Yogya and continued in Kalimantan. It is the official language of the country, of the government, of schools, of banks, of television. It is spoken on all of the Indonesian islands. But each island also has at least one island-language, the language spoken in the homes, on the streets, at informal gatherings. Nearly every Balinese person speaks two languages. Indonesian, which is similar to the Malaysian language, was adopted in 1928.

  I have decided not to study Balinese, the language mothers use with their children, and men and women use when they meet on the street. It is a language that reinforces the caste system that has characterized Balinese society since the arrival of the India-influenced Majapahit empire from the neighboring island of Java in 1343. This Hindu e
mpire brought with it music and dance, art and religion. And a caste system based on blood.

  Brahmana are the priestly caste.

  Kesatria are the royals.

  Wesia are descended from warriors.

  Sudra are everyone else.

  Whatever a sudra may achieve in life, he or she will always be a sudra. The barriers between the castes can never be crossed. And when that sudra speaks to a brahmana (or a kesatria or a wesia) he or she must speak in high Balinese. And when my kesatria friends of the puri speak to the sudra of the village, they speak a low language.

  Often there is no similarity between the words in high and low Balinese: toyoh is the word for water if you are talking to someone of high caste. Yeh is the word if you are speaking to someone lower than you. If you use a “low” word to a high person, you can get into trouble.

  I have always been uncomfortable slotting people into hierarchies, whatever the qualifications for inclusion . . . or exclusion; so, during the years I live in Bali, I do not learn the island’s language. Instead, I continue learning Indonesian, which means I cannot talk to preschool children and elderly people who have not learned the country language. But it also means that I am not walking around insulting people. I do learn a few high phrases, like, “May I have some coffee,” “Excuse me,” and “Good-bye” (actually, “May I have permission to leave?”) that I use around the puri and at royal events.

  During my first years on the island, I am able to accept, from an anthropological, nonjudgmental perspective, the hierarchical ways of the culture. Later, years later, the caste system, the impermeable walls between the classes, and the feudalistic relationship that the wealthy have with the poor, are the reasons I leave the island. But for now, and for many years, my love affair with Bali is intense and passionate.

  Dayu Biang begins my shopping trip for traditional clothes at the seamstress’s shop where I look at kebaya fabric. A kebaya has long sleeves, a square neckline, and buttons down the front. Dayu Biang jokes that I will need a whole roll of fabric to cover my ample body and that maybe I should make a sexy strapless top instead of a kebaya. She’s funny; I like her a lot.