The end of our first month
9 February 2025
A time for some celebrations
8 March 2025
It has certainly been WILD since our last blog. We have had a crazy storm pass through the Island, which closed the school down for the first time since it opened (I find this hard to believe because of the very nature of the school but there you go). The storms caused 2 power cuts in our area in one day, one of which lasted three hours, but the locals are very quick to respond as these are recurring issues. Not the best timing for Suleiman who was in a meeting during the second outage, but he made it back in time.
Our school run, with young construction workers going to work. They camp onsite as most come in from Java and the number of workers seems to be increasing with work happening at ungodly hours. We are on the receiving end of this and accept this as part of the current situation around the school. I have no idea how the local residents feel about this and hope to find out.
There is a real dilemma here. There are over 500 children at the Green School in Bali (other sites include South Africa & New Zealand, with a new site opening in Mexico). The figures are higher with the families who join. All for the right reasons – an alternative approach to learning for all our children for NOW. But on the flip side as more people join, the need for roofs over their heads increases. This is an opportunity for the locals to experience economic growth, and expat families are building too. But where is the line drawn and by who?
How much responsibility does the school have to ensure the natural environment is protected and preserved, and does a limited number of students support this (they claim there is a limit)? Some families live a drive or a school bus ride away. The latter was a Green Stone (final year) project created by one of the students. The buses are fuelled by used vegetable oil from the school and travel mainly to the outskirts of Ubud, or the Eco or Green Village. Where there is demand, the supply needs to be met. But how is balance achieved? Can the indigenous community impose a limit? Do they want to? Do we as guests simply have to be more conscious about our choices? While being part of a resistance, are we contributing to a less than desirable outcome?
Alternatively, can every community on our planet have a natural not-for-profit schooling environment for the local children, so no one has to move for an alternative option?
The Dream!
I attended my first school talk on Thursday. This is Yeni Aspini, a Balinese farmer’s daughter. She spoke emotionally about her hatred of being a farmer’s daughter as it was associated with poverty, and how her life was about feeding the cattle and family from the age of 6. No questions asked – it was just what the girls did.
She left the village when she was 16 and began work as a property manager soon after, earning a lot of money and spending it quickly. She then found work at Bali airport in corporate strategy and began a successful career, travelling extensively (which opened her eyes). She left that job and now runs a a successful business in import/export of coffee and spices from Bali to other parts of the world. I found it fascinating that the farmers didn’t even know that some of their local Balinese spices were used by top French chefs, and they didn’t even use it themselves.
She then moved to Melbourne and started a family. Here she realised through visiting farmers markets just how important the role of farmers is in all our lives. Food poverty is real in Bali and she wants to change the perception of farming.
Within 10 years, Balinese farming could be a thing of the past. Farmers are getting old and the land is increasingly being neglected. Traditional farming knowledge is not being passed down as the younger generation have other opportunities available to them in the bigger cities. Her mission is bring back the farming legacy and educate the local community about what is possible for them so that farmers don’t sell their lands to property developers.
Following her calling – What a legend!
If you would like to support her, you can find her details here.
I had the most beautiful experience visiting, Ratih, the teacher of one of my teachers (Thank you, Judy Delozier). They met on a local retreat in 1990 and Ratih taught Balinese dance. She was incredibly hospitable, fed and watered me and welcomed me into her beautiful home. Her garden is akin to a large temple, and is a place where married couples come for a photo shoot after their wedding ceremony which is typically held at home to include the ancestral spirits. We spoke about creating something in Bali, and it made me wonder about bringing my teachers, their teachers and learners to Bali for a retreat later in the year (possibly around August?). It would be an incredible community gathering where we could all learn from each other and who knows what we could create? Anyone up for this?
I am also conscious of carbon footprints as I write this, and the impact an invitation from me would create. Not for the planet – but for people – especially in the Global South.
I have a film recommendation, which was shared by a lovely parent, Siobhan at a “Making Sanctuary” meeting with parents. A classic Australian film from 1972 called Picnic at Hanging Rock. Deeply significant in terms of our relationship with sacred land on our planet. I recently found out that it is being re-released in British cinemas to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Beautiful to watch as it skimmed the surface of the water
We went to a new beach (Seminyak) over the weekend for Anisa’s surf class trial to see if she would like it (read more below). While there I chanced on a beach club (Potato Head) where we could watch the sunset. Entry was the cost of a drink each and we had access to the beach and pool. The best part for me, just watching the remains of the sunset by the sea as another day moved to night. Time does seem to be moving faster here, although the days are slow. The Art installations in this eco conscious hotel are just incredible!
Tech Update
I am off Social Media (and am keeping WhatsApp usage to a bare minimum) and feel LIBERATED!!!
I have my time back – especially in my head.
I miss Umey, and feel her with me every day. But the reminders are constant and unexpected- even seeing her favourite vegetable at the local shop.
Lucy & David – If you’re reading this – you won’t believe what one of Anisa’s teachers name is – Oliver Bourdon! Haha!!!
Anisa’s Experience
I was sick 5 times in a day with Bali belly and couldn’t go to school which was sad because i had the best lunch that day: doughnut, cookie, mangosteen, chicken rice balls, passionfruit juice. However when i got better i went surfing and it was SO HARD.The board was sooo heavy and twice the size of me which made it really hard to carry with the strong current. Also i got bruises EVERYWHERE because the board kept on hitting me in the face and on the hip when there was a big wave.There was also one time when the board flew at me and fell onto me so i was in the water stuck under the board trying so hard to push it up with the sand going in my nose and mouth. It was so scary.
However after the “lesson” i went really deep into the ocean with my dad and started swimming under the waves and being pushed all the way to the shore when a realllyyyy big one came. I stayed in there for like 4 hours and my dad got very sunburnt. It was very beautiful when the sun set and we all went to a beach club to see it.
I switched electives from band to creative writing. I would have stayed in band but i can’t practise and have no access to a piano so i just thought that it would be easier to switch and not embarrass myself. In creative writing we are writing for a newspaper for the school and we all have to write a short story or an article or just SOMETHING. I decided to start writing a murder mystery or horror story because it just sounds fun.
Also i just started reading a new book series called Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens which i would highly recommend as it is so fantastic and there are plot twists. It has been a month since we have been here and i have read around 6-7 books. I will list them and rate them out of ten because well yeah:
Murder most unladylike-10/10
Arsenic for tea-9.5/10
First class murder-9/10
yellowface-6.9/10
It – I read the first bit where pennywise kills georgie but i got bored after that.
Tom gates- Spectacular school trip-7/10..
Diary of a wimpy kid-8/10
Jolly foul play-still reading
i also got a whole pile of samples on my dads kindle.
bye
Anisa
Suleiman’s Literary Corner
My official working hours in Bali are 3pm-8:30pm local time (7am-12:30pm in the UK). I generally do an additional couple of hours work most lunchtimes, and this allows me some slack to go and pick up Anisa when school finishes. It also means I can attend some after-school activities such as Spirit Friday and – as we did today – Anisa’s after-school club (today was badminton).
This schedule means I get some free time in the mornings after school drop-off. Sometimes that means a Bahasa or wild fitness class, but other times I’ll just go to the juice bar opposite the school and read (OK, let’s be honest, there may be 15, 20, 30 minutes of phone-scrolling first).
These are the books I have read so far this year; all are highly recommended.
1 – Melancholy Undercover by Jan Gradvall
This is the story of Abba, written by a Swedish music journalist who was (and remains) good friends with the band.
What resonated with me most was how fleeting their enjoyment of the big time turned out to be, and how lonely Agentha felt for most of it.
After winning Eurovision in 1974, they struggled to shake off the one-hit wonder tag. It took 18 months before SOS became a top 10 hit (John Lennon was blown away by it, calling it the perfect pop song). Then Mamma Mia went to number one, Fernando did the same, and they were off and running.
However, within 2 years, Agnetha was disillusioned, partly as she and Bjorn were having difficulties, but she also hated being away from her young children. Meanwhile, Benny and Bjorn were feeling the pressure of being on the treadmill with touring, promotion and having to come up with the hits.
By 1981, both couples’ romantic relationships had come to an end. Although there was no formal dissolution of the band, they just stopped recording after The Visitors, their final (and best) album:
2 – The Amateurs by John Niven
I was looking for a genuinely comic piece of fiction and I was hooked after reading a sample. It’s the story of a hopeless Glaswegian weekend golfer who gets hit on the head by a stray ball and miraculously develops a perfect golf swing, good enough to compete with the professionals. The language is a bit Irvine Welsh-ish, but at its core it is warm-hearted and properly funny.
If you have any recommendations for fiction that genuinely makes you laugh out loud, please let me know.
3 – Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
In 1995, the legendary American travel writer was about to take his family back to the US after being in Britain for 20 years. He was a real Anglophile who lived in the Yorkshire Dales, and decided to go for one last ramble across the UK. I’d started it ages back and found it a little irritating as he was being a bit performative and always playing up the idiosyncrasies of the British. But reading it afresh – and from the other side of the world – it reads very differently to me now, a real love letter to the UK and to the British people.
His penultimate paragraph contains this perceptive observation:
“Here is a country that fought and won a noble war, dismantled a mighty empire in a generally benign and enlightened way, created a far-seeing welfare state – in short, did nearly everything right – and then spent the rest of the century looking on itself as a chronic failure.”
4 – Living the Beatles Legend by Kenneth Womack
Mal Evans was the Beatles’ driver, road manager and gopher, but he was so much more than that.
He toured with the band in America, Japan, Australia and all points in between; he holidayed with them as individuals and with their families; he travelled with them to Rishikesh to meditate with the Maharishi; he was in the studio for all their albums, including Sgt Pepper (you can hear him counting down on A Day in The Life between 2:17-2:20); later, he even went on to help manage the Apple record label.
His diaries were due to form the basis of an autobiography, but his bizarre death in 1974 meant they were held in storage at a New York publishing house, and only discovered by chance recently. This biography is based on those diaries and lays bare how much Mal adored the boys, and how he struggled to reconcile his love for his wife and children with the temptations he encountered being part of the Beatles’ entourage. It was this guilt that appears to have played a key part in his untimely death.
Incidentally, Mark Lewisohn (the pre-eminent authority on the Fab Four) is currently writing the definitive three-part biography of the band. I say “currently” in the loosest sense of the word as volume 1 was published in 2013! It is called Tune-In, weighs in at 1700 pages (I have the abridged 800-page version) and takes us through to December 1962, just before they hit the big time. It is so well-written and researched with lots of new detail, and is so evocative of post-war Liverpool and Sixties Hamburg. An essential book for any Beatles fans. The poor chap has committed the rest of his life to completing the trilogy, but this excellent Mal Evans book helps to fill the gap while we wait for volumes 2 and 3.
5 – Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll
Anisa got me the paperback for Father’s Day last year. This was at my request, by the way: she wasn’t making one of her regular visits to the ‘Irish History‘ section at Waterstones! This award-winning book serves as a very readable primer on the history of The Troubles, with a focus on the events that led up to the IRA trying to assassinate the Prime Minister at the Grand Hotel in Brighton in 1984.
It reads like the most gripping thriller, even though it recounts a story whose ultimate outcome we know (spoiler: they failed). And re-reading it on the Kindle was just as engrossing second time around.
6 and 7 – Get It On by Jon Spurling and On Days Like These by Martin O’Neill: both provide entertaining journeys through English football in the 1970s. Biggest takeaways: kids, don’t take cortisone or any regular pain-killing injections, you won’t be able to walk in thirty years. And Brian Clough was an absolute madman. Or genius. Or both.
It is perhaps revealing that five of these seven books are set in the short period of history around my childhood and adolescence, and the other two are humorous books. A psychologist may surmise (correctly) that I am using the cloak of nostalgia and whimsy to seek refuge from something darker (in my case, despair at events in the US, and the seemingly doomed future of our planet).
This is why I need humorous book recommendations (especially fiction) please!
Moment of the week: A bald man getting a haircut.
I had two Balinese barber experiences in my first month here:
- At a fashionable shop in fashionable Ubud. Now, when I have a head shave and beard trim it is usually good for 7 days. On Day 8, I age 20 years overnight, transforming from a benevolent 1970s Open University lecturer into someone who scares small children and animals. It’s really quite impressive. This was Day THIRTEEN, hence the desperation! I tried to style it out as if I was just strolling past and popping in on the off-chance, but I’m sure they saw me coming. Cost: 250,000 IDR (£12.50)
- At home. A chap came recommended on his scooter from his barbershop an hour away (a pretty routine journey in Bali). He set up in our garden with a mirror on a long stand. Cost: 200,000 IDR (£10)
But I wanted a local barber who I could walk to, and our community WhatsApp group mentioned a barbershop around the corner from the school. It was helmed by a young chap called Jefferson who – despite the name – spoke no English.
The lack of lingua franca was not an issue, though, and the cost of the head shave and beard trim was … precisely 25,000 IDR (£1.25).
In shock (and gratitude) at the price reveal, I handed over a tip of 100%, which my English sensibilities will now force me to repeat on every future visit! Luckily, the fee for the haircut – PLUS extravagant tip – still only amounts to £2.50.
Word of the week: Lusa – meaning the ‘day after tomorrow’. Isn’t it lovely, that Bahasa has a word specifically for this day? So useful.
(And let’s not point out that calling it ‘Thursday’ or ‘Saturday’, for example, would be just as effective …)
Date : 21/02/2025
15 Comments
Love reading you😘especially in a time where I feel so tired of London and its weather!
Thank you, Carmela. I hear the daffodils are starting to sprout! Spring is on it’s way xx
I enjoy reading the blogs. I’m pretty sure the butterfly thing isn’t a butterfly at all but in fact a dragonfly or damselfly. It so sad 😞 how farmers don’t get appreciated despite the fact that their products are used worldwide. Uncle suleiman, I’m glad you are improving your balinese skills at the baja deli and you’ve found an apppropriate barber in the end. I hope anisa has improved her surfing skills. Goodbye.
Thanks, Zakariya. I will bow to your knowledge of all things nature, I’m sure you’re right!
We’re at the beach right now and Anisa has just finished her next surfing lesson (with a different instructor at a different location). I’m sure she’ll write about it in a future blog, but it was much better than last week.
Thank you, for commenting Zik, and for sharing your knowledge. It is sad and we need more young people who love nature (like you!) thinking of ideas on how we can change our trajectory. This is probably not just a Bali problem, I’m sure it’s relevant in a lot of countries in the Global South.
Love these updates so much, Anisa I love that you’re into creative writing, I bet you have a brilliant imagination for stories and wow the surfing sounds painful and scary, but also think it would be so cool to learn to surf! Suleiman, you’ve reminded me of Bill Bryson, I read one book of his years a go and loved it, can’t remember which one though, but I might relook at some of his books!
Mahnaz I love how connected to the community you are getting and as always using your instinctive curiosity to look for answers to the quandaries you have, it’s so lovely to learn about Bali through your eyes.
The weather is finally turning warmer here after a freezing few weeks, snow drops and croci are coming out and next weekend I go to Alnwick Story Fest to deliver a workshop on using nature for creative inspiration. We are also announcing the winner of the Allyson Kent fearless writer award which will be emotional, but there have been some amazing entries, tc all of you out there and hoping for less bruises and tummy bugs! Juliet xxx
Bill Bryson travel books are great, aren’t they, Juliet?
I would strongly recommend his book about America in 1927 called One Summer.
Loads of incredibly things happened that year apparently and he brings them together brilliantly.
Thank you, Juliet. I can just imagine you out on your walks in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside with the pup. Lovely to hear you’ll be delivering a workshop too! Lucky people! Keep me posted on how it goes. I am sure the winner will be so deserving xx
Love these adventures and inspirations 🙂
Thank you, Ella 🙂
Love reading your updates x
Wow, what a month! I can’t believe there is a teacher in Anisa’s school with the same name as Oli! What an amazing coincidence! Might mean we just have to come see you!!! Xx
The world is smaller than we think! It’s a sign! 🙂
Spent my Sunday morning with a cuppa and catching up on your news, musings and book reviews – loved it
So glad you your enjoying your experience out there.
Nat x
Lovely to hear from you Nat. Thank you! Hope you’re all doing well xx