balinese bohemian: Deeper Indo

The days to follow on Lombok comprised of riding along in the Kijang to new surf spots and unchartered territory on the island. The boys were on the hunt for good waves and Sandra and I were up for the adventure. We'd drive along for what seemed like hours on unpaved, dirt roads to finally end up on beautiful, desolate beaches. At a spot called Mawi, we joined in on a local jam session. At another spot, Air Guling, I made friends with Maya, a four-year old who I attempted to speak Indonesian with. She was perfectly at my comprehension level.

I felt like I was finally falling into the rhythms of the island and it's people...

When we arrived back at the hotel, there Sedi was, holding Dadi, waiting for us to return. She wanted to know if she could do our laundry, sew our clothes or get us anything from her warung. She really wanted to have us over for dinner and insisted that she cook gado-gado for us. We obliged as to be polite and made arrangements for the next evening.

The following night Sedi arrived to escort us to her house, walking through thick overgrowth into undeveloped lots of land. As we walked, she explained that she was the third wife of a man, the father of her two sons, but that he didn't give her much to live on. He owned the warung that she ran and he took a majority of the earnings for his other and apparently more favorable wives. As we finally came upon a small, run-down, wooden shack, Sedi's home, I couldn't help but feel really sad for this woman. I sucked up my reservations about the situation and went inside to at least be this woman's company for the night.

There was no furniture in the two-room shack, just some woven mats on the floor. She invited us to sit down as she went to the other room, the kitchen, to finish the food. We sat down and surveyed the place- a combination living room and bedroom. Her two young boys were already in bed, next to us on the floor covered in a thin blanket. This was the first time I had been to a home with very little, and "very little" is an understatement. I don't even think parts of the walls were solid wood.

Sedi brought us all bowls of rice and sat the rest of the dishes in the middle for all of us to share. She made a fish, curried vegetables and squid gado-gado. We ate with our hands for lack of utensils and enough to be polite. I was really nervous because the home lacked running water, and I imagined us all fighting for the toilet upon our return to the hotel room. Ky and Dom took it for the team and ate up the majority of dinner. I prayed not only for our health but for this woman. At the end of the night, we each gave her some money for her hospitality and went on our way.

Somehow we made it home in the darkness by ourselves. We were all a little quieter on the way back, maybe humbled by what we just experienced or maybe we were just processing that we ate some dangerously prepared food. I was at that moment so grateful for what I was born into, a life that enabled me freedom, comfort and the ability to travel and see and exchange with other people of varied backgrounds.

Not one of us got sick from the dinner.