A time for some celebrations

Happy International
Women’s Day!
Today and every day!

The food looks more wholesome in the banana leaves than the plastic, and tasted great. They were happier with the results too and will continue to offer food in this way. One small step away from plastic, and another closer to usage of compostable natural material which is accessible in their back garden. It may seem tiny, but if as a community they become more conscious through this, there will be a ripple effect.

As a Muslim community I am sure it is also one step closer to the sunnah (the way in which the blessed prophet (SAW) lived and modelled his life in society. He saw God in nature). I am also really glad we were able to support a local family to share their offerings with the wider community and I hope they grow more as a result.

While growing up we would go to my grandmother’s house most Sundays for lunch. She would cook a massive meal and feed neighbours as well as her family. Her generosity has stuck with me ever since. Perhaps Lisa’s mother reminded me of my grandmother? Either way, I am so glad as a family they were open to feeding our guests too. I am incredibly grateful.

One of our Turkish neighbours, Ozge, has been super generous with her offers for Iftar and has invited us round a few times. Last night was a real treat. I have mentioned before that she is a paediatrician. but we discovered another side to her. She is also a story teller – and a brilliant one! Which only makes her the perfect doctor for young children. She had us all captivated with the mythical story of Shahmaran.

---

Life at the School

So I recently found out through a few parents that the school was sold by John Hardy during Covid to a company called EIM (Education in Motion) in Singapore. This news was a bit of a shock to me. Our intention in coming to the Green School was to pay into a non profit environment in which the school, the kids and the community in which the school functioned would benefit. I was never a fan of private profit-making education and this was the first I had ever considered doing something like this because it was different. I was not too pleased.

A few parents of the older kids shared with me how they felt things had changed since the school took on new management. The usual conventional health and safety rules were applied with painted arrows around the school (in the jungle), nets around the higher buildings, high, middle and primary school students being physically separated into different parts of the campus, and less scholarship opportunities with the local native kids (although this has now changed thankfully). I looked online for the details of this change, and couldn’t find anything obvious via google or the GS website. There was a mention of a partnership however. But then when checking the EIM website, they mention how one of their schools had won an award. My instant reaction was – well, we’ve given it a year and that’s all it will be.

However, on the flip side the parents also shared that the introduction of management in the school meant that there was more organisation and less chaos (I personally would have loved to have experienced this chaos!). There was also a recent parent meeting about school fees increasing next year, and parents asked the very real question about how much of the profits were being given to the owners. It is still clearly a contentious area. The response was very clear. They had taken on the school as a model for a different type of education and had kept it as a non profit. They were told that Zero profits go to EIM, they are only paid what they are owed when consulting for the school. The school is a Yayasan (charity).

I was then brought back into the very real question of how our child was doing? Does this news really change her experience as a student in the school – which is why we came here in the first place. No, it doesn’t. When you read below you will see how rich the learning experience has been for us as a family. In fact, I would love to see this school replicated in every country on our planet. Especially as a grass-roots, community initiative with a creative, entrepreneurial “inside-out” feel. Where the teachers aren’t forced to focus on targets and achievement, but allow the learning to flow for kids in their own personal ways and styles. Does this need a global organisation to umbrella such an initiative? No, I don’t think it does. A common standard perhaps? It just needs people in communities working together not for the school but for the children. The school in my mind is the by-product, the shell. The children – the developing and growing amoebas who are simply held to become who they are meant to be. Not shaped to be as worker bees by governing bodies.

Tech Update

So before Ramadan began, Suleiman and I decided to try being Digital Nomads for the morning, rather than working from home and ended up going to a place recommended by Siobhan (A lovely Australian GS parent and all-round brilliant human being) for food. So we went to Rusters and it lived up to its expectations.

I was invited to be on a podcast by a young man called Jack Cooper. Jack is a climate activist and I met him on a retreat run by my friend, Kim called the Edge before coming to Bali. He told me about his history as a climate activist before starting his current venture called “The Postcode Revolution“. A call for communities to connect, learn and help develop hyper-local connections to support each other through the changes which are coming our way due to the meta-crisis. Please do follow Jack and rate him highly! His platform – especially as a young person – is imperative in our times. I hope you enjoy my contribution to his space – as well as the other conversations in his series. If you are called to be part of the Postcode revolution, he has advise available on his website.

Find me on Masterdon. I don’t do much there, but feel free to connect because, you just never know!

---

Anisa’s Experience

Hello. It was my birthday and it was brilliant! I fasted on it and then we went to the mall and when i broke my fast we had pizza. So far i have missed one fast out of 8 because after one day of fasting at school it was just too hard because it was sooo hot, so I took a day off. We also had an iftar (breaking of the fast at sunset) party thing where my friends mum bought a cake from a brand called keikpop and it was reallyyy nice. It was chocolate layered with biscuit and topped with icing. I’m drooling.

And about the Murder Most Unladylike books, I have read 5 out of i think 10? My friend Deekie showed the series to me and it’s amazing. Thank you so much Deeks and thanks for lending some to me.

I’m hungry.

School is also nice.

My favourite birthday presents were my paints and tools and my beautiful flower necklace. And my books. As well as chocolate. It was yummy.

I’m hungry.

---

Suleiman’s Corner

Ramadan Mubarak!

Whilst here, I have started to reflect a lot – and not just during Ramadan – on the theme of identity.

This is not a recent phenomenon, of course: as someone who identifies as British, European and Muslim, the events of the last 10 years in the UK especially have, at times, had me contemplating almost nothing else.

I am reading Dominic Sandbrook’s excellent histories of Britain between 1955-1974 (Never Had It So Good, White Heat, and Seasons In The Sun) and it really brings home to me how comparatively recent a phenomenon the immigration that brought my parents and Mahnaz’s parents from the Commonwealth to the UK really is. The certainties I grew up with in the 70s and 80s about my place and my long-term future in the UK seemed set in stone, but have fairly quickly turned out to be illusory.  Which is especially unsettling as I consider what lies ahead for Anisa.

Anyway, those are discussions for another time, but a couple of incidents have occurred within the Sibang area recently that has provided an interesting perspective on how different our roles and identities are now that we are part of the expat community here – the bule as it is called – compared to the local population. 

One of the few restaurants within walking distance of our house is Warung Kemulan, a traditional Balinese eatery. We have eaten here three times, and it has a nice outdoor seating area with twenty or so tables. They have a couple of stray dogs who like to get a little too familiar, but otherwise it’s fine. The food is not stellar (I’ll write another time about the food culture here) but it is cheap by British standards. We can have a filling main meal and a fresh fruit juice each for a total cost of around £6 (for the three of us). And we feel that we are supporting the local community by eating here.

Recently my Bahasa teacher advised our community WhatsApp group that this restaurant has decided to charge foreigners more for their meals than the local Balinese or Indonesian community. She is Indonesian, married to a Brit, and was approached during their most recent meal and advised that her husband would now be charged more for his food. 21% more, in fact!

She was outraged on his behalf, and asked the owners how they expected to enforce this.  Would they be able to tell the difference between a Balinese or an Indonesian versus, say, a Malay or someone else from SE Asia? Would they be asking diners to produce passports or visas?!

She won’t be eating there again, and some in our community group were equally outraged. They pointed out that in the UK and elsewhere, everyone pays the same price as a rule. We don’t explicitly charge tourists more than locals (dynamic pricing and rip-offs in touristy areas notwithstanding). One person works for an Indonesian company and pays Indonesian tax, so asked why should he be charged more than others who pay the same tax?

I understand that perspective, but I was thrilled to see many more bule come out in support of the restaurant. After all, there is a wide disparity in income between us and the locals. This is a restaurant situated in an unpromising area, and it has way more Balinese patrons than bule. The restaurant has to make a living too, the pricing is not exorbitant even with the increase, and at least they are up front about it.

It is an interesting subject: how justified it is to charge more to people that may be able to afford to pay more? Regardless, we will continue to patronise Warung Kemulan, although we will have to wait until Ramadan is over. 

The second event was more upsetting.

The school notified us that six students were walking to and from the school when they encountered some construction workers. The workers whistled at them, made unwanted comments, and complimented their hair. It made the students (not identified but likely to have been teenagers) uncomfortable.

The area between many of our homes and the school – informally called Sibang Village – is currently full of construction. Many landowners have decided to lease their land rather than farm it, so that it is used for new villas for the growing community of bule rather than providing food for the local community (something Mahnaz touched on in her last blog).

Anyway, the backroads to the school are full of this construction work. Whilst Ubud apparently has set hours that such work cannot exceed, it seems to be a free-for-all in Sibang, with work often starting at 7am and going on well into the evening.

As we walk to and from the school, we encounter many of the construction workers. They are often quite small men – at 5”10 I feel like a giant amongst them! – who have come over from other islands (most notably Java) to work in teams at the various properties. They seem to me to either be very smiley and friendly, or taciturn in the extreme. Nothing in-between! I understand the latter attitude. At times when the sun is at its fiercest and most direct and the humidity is so oppressive that standing still is uncomfortable, they are constantly on the move, mixing cement, digging, plastering, scaling roofs, and carrying bamboo.

And I do wonder what they make of us, as people who have so much more materially than they do? We talk to many locals but we don’t really say anything to these chaps. And our lifestyle and custom is basically why they are toiling away from their families on the mainland (sometimes for 11 and a half months of the year). How welcome do we make them feel in what is their new home environment? Personally, I’ve never felt uncomfortable with them, and will always say Selamat Pagi (“Good morning”) and smile if we do make eye contact. 

I asked Mahnaz if she had ever felt uncomfortable when alone near them, and she said that sometimes she will hear shouts of “Halo” and “Good morning” from behind gates, as if they are too timid to say it openly to her face. But neither she nor Anisa have had any unwelcome attention.

The school’s approach and ethos is very much about respecting the community and their environment, working with their neighbours and contributing to their growth. After all, 20% of the pupils are from the local Balinese community and have their education subsidised by the school.

The school is reaching out to the workers via their security guards, they are developing educational posters and increasing their patrols in the area. They have contacted the local government for their support, and in the meantime have asked parents to accompany their children to and from school.

The wider debate within our community group included a plea not to lose sight of the fact that the people that were affected and most in need of support were children. There is no excuse for any behaviour (gender-based or otherwise) where adults make children uncomfortable. Regardless of any cultural differences, this behaviour was not acceptable under any circumstances.

Distressing stories started to be shared of how this experience has been triggering for so many females. It reminded them of occasional previous experiences here in Bali, but also many decades of similar experiences back home. Often, these started when they were young children and they were the subject of unwelcome attention, intimidation and harassment from strangers. Barely any females were able to say they have not been the victim of such behaviour, which really brought home to me – thinking of Mahnaz and Anisa – how widespread a part of everyday experience it can be for so many. I’m grateful that some of them felt they could open up about this, and equally mindful that many may not have felt able to do so.

A constructive suggestion was about how the men in the bule community could reach out to the workers. One poster wrote poignantly of how he passed the workers every single day but had never related to them before. One day – before the incident that triggered this – he made a point of befriending 5 workers building a bridge. Initially they were a little rude and jeered him, but on his return journey he brought them packs of cigarettes. They were very young, but opened up to him about their homesickness and loneliness, their working conditions (often they receive only the most basic food rations from their employers). They really started to engage with him as fellow human beings. They shared their food with him, and posed for photos with smiles all round. A small gesture from him but one that I’m sure will have resonate for a while afterwards.

Of course, this is not an approach that can be adopted practically by many of the women, let alone the students, but it shows that we all have a part to play in making our communities cohesive and safe.

Part of the barrier for me is that the weather means I don’t want to stop and chat to anyone for more than a few seconds on the journey to and from school. My Bahasa is still really limited, and I am very shy (honestly!). But if I want to be part of a community that makes it safe for Anisa, Mahnaz and all other women and girls to walk these roads, this is something I will need to overcome.

The workers getting to know the students’ fathers was highlighted as a potentially effective approach too, but without us shouting opprobrium and criticism at them. Our Bahasa friends suggested the workers are most respectful (and fearful) of their supervisors, managers and employers. This is the key demographic we need to reach out to, as hierarchy and respect from those in authority is really important to them. It has been suggested to the school that they include this in their strategy too.

The behavioural change that is required ultimately has to come from those who perpetrate such actions. It is not – and will never be – the fault of the victims. The solution is nuanced and complex, but I feel optimistic that things will improve.

Word of the week: despite the weighty subject matter, life in Bali continues to be a joy under the mata hari (sun). 

Mata means eye, hari means day, so the sun is the eye of the day. Very poetic.

Don’t forget to leave a comment!

Date : 08/03/2025