Market....
A wrinkled woman sways gracefully past, a basket piled high with
freshly picked spinach - dew still glistening - balanced on her
head. A man swings by, the ends of his batik caught up around his
waist to protect it from the wet grass, a large openwork cane basket
slung across his shoulder. Through the openings in the cane, small,
beady black eyes gaze trustingly out at the passing world - another
batch of ducks heads for the market.
A young
woman passes, her red kebaya a splash of colour against the apple
green rice shoots, an obese swaybacked pig trotting happily beside
her, led by a piece of string. Another woman glides past, a tightly
rolled kapok mattress resting crosswise on her head, a laughing
child clinging to either hand.
And
now a group approaches - a young man, surrounded by a swarm of excited
childrep, all eagerly looking up at the brightly coloured kite the
man is flying. They pass, and it is not a kite they are watching,
but the magnificent kupu-kupu barong (the giant Balinese butterfly)
that they have fastened to a string - a living kite of many colours.
But
already a brighter colour is staining the clouds - an intense vermilion
- as the sun edges its way up above a row of palms bordering the
river. The vermillion stain deepens and spreads, tinting any cloudlet
in its path, until the sky is now a patchwork of pearl and flame.
A schoolboy,
his lesson books nonchantly perched on his head, pauses and asks
the inevitable Balinese question - which is also a greeting:
"Where
are you from?"
"Australia.
"
"What
are you doing?"
"Watching
the sunrise."
The
young face suddenly becomes serious. A pair of brown eyes stare
inquiringly up into mine:
"Don't
you have a sunrise in Australia?"
Fasten Your Fire Extinguishers
Food
habits, 1 am convinced are purely a state of mind. In Bali dragon-flies,
caught in the sawahs on the sticky end of' a bamboo sliver and fried
in coconut oil, are esteemed a delicacy. In certain districts "hot
dog" is not just an empty phrase. i have seen dogs, their feet
neatly trussed together, strung on a pole across a man's shoulder,
being proudly carried home from market.
Extraordinary
the fads we develop in food. Vegetarians aside, most of us have
some food we love to hate.
Frogs
and turtle, head my black list. And yet frogs' legs are a gormet
dish often served in Bali. i made this discovery only after
I had
helped myself to a bowl of golden crisp morsels - I assumed they
were fried prawns - and polished off a couple before I became aware.
that they came equipped with a bone structure extremely unfashionable
in a prawn. A closer inspection revealed an unmistakable knee joint.
Too late to repent - 1 had become a frogs' legs eater.
SO
far, I have avoided coming to g-rips with turtle. My first confrontation
with turtle on the menu, instead of in the sea, was
When
I was working may way along the line at an elaborate sinor asbord
in a llushy Fijian resort. i lifted the cover off one dish, to discover
brown gobbets bubbling in a gooey broth. The attendant waiter, with
a flash of white teeth and an upward roll of his eyes to indicate
ecstasy, implored me not to miss this treat turtle meat. The speed
with which I slammed back the lid and sprang forward to the next
platter, left the burly Fijian thought fully adjusting his hibiscus.
Trouble is that I have never been abic to rid myself of the idea
tt'.at tbc +turtle is some kind of waterproofed incestor, who has
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