DACMan

W:  “My uncle has a new dog.”  (Wayan, his family, and parents all live in the same family compound with his uncle and his family, but they live in different houses).  “I complain to uncle. Dog poop everywhere and bring mud in my house.”

D: “Oh, so you didn’t get a new dog, your uncle did instead?”

W: “Yes, Pak David, only uncle has dog now. When I had dog, he complain to me. Now I can complain!”

D: “Wayan, why dogs?”

W: “Must have dog in Bali.”

D: “For what?”

W: “To protect!”

D: “From what? What for?”

W: “Forrrrr…  forrrrr… for like classic protection, you know, Dogs.” (We’re both laughing now).  “Actually, I don’t like dog. I hate cleaning up dog poop, dog print, but when my dog die, Pak David, I cry. I really cry! My kid too, crying all day.”

I’ve just stepped back into the surreal world of Bali.  The ice-cream man just rode by on his bicycle with his recording blaring “Jingle Bells,” alerting kids from miles around that he’s here and ready to sell. Invisible ants are carting off a six-inch dragonfly across the living room floor, my spayed cat just had kittens (I thought the stitches were in an odd place), and I just relocated my coffee tree forest to a new area of the living room.

The weather is hot, the pool is warm and the AC works.  All is well in Baliwood.

The house staff is hard at work. They are busy cleaning the staff house, which looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned since the day it was built. It has required the use of a pressure washer and other arcane tricks of the trade.  Putu and Made are running around in their boxers to keep their “uniforms” from getting wet. Nyoman is far too dignified for such antics.  It all borders on being a Fellini film, with cameo shots of the kittens that couldn’t have been hatched.

More on cats:  At the warehouse, on the other end of town, two new kitties showed up a couple months ago. Sugi, my warehouse manager, hates them. They make “stinky messes” and Mr. Clean can’t handle it.  He laughingly tells me he hired a cat assassin. I’m not sure if he’s really joking. The cats are gone and he’s really happy…

The ducks are on parade down in the rice field below, quacking up a storm and playing follow the leader.

Yes, it’s Bali again.

When I hop in the car with Wayan Balik, my driver, I know within minutes we will have some outlandish conversation about Bali, life, or the Gods.  We egg each other on until some aspect of life becomes a take from my new film, “The Three Stooges Meet Fellini.”  Anything is fair game, no matter how serious the subject, and the goal is to make each other laugh.

Yesterday I asked Wayan, “What will the topic be today?”  He replied, “we’ll know in a few minutes when we’re not thinking.”  How true.  The conversation went something like this:

W: “I had to kill four chicken this morning for ceremony. I don’t like it.”

D: “Oh, right, it’s Metal Day, (the day when Balinese bless/honor everything made of metal, from cars to Kris knives).  I thought your father killed the chickens.”

W: “No. He bought the chicken, organic chicken (ha ha), but he is really bad chicken killer!  Last time he tried to kill one, blood everywhere, but chicken still alive running around. Bad.”

D: “So now you have to do it.  Are you a good chicken killer?”

W: “Yes, but I hate it.  At ceremony time, Bali is a legal killing zone.  (We both laugh, followed by a long thoughtful pause).  But such is life.”

D: “Can’t you just hire someone to do the killing?”

W: “No, Pak David, it’s bad in my village to do that.”

D: “Oh, you mean you look bad to the other people in the village, like you are a chicken, chicken killer?”  (Laughing)

W: “Yes, everyone would talk and my family would be hurt.  My sister came to help my Mother with the ceremony.  She knew she would get half the chickens!”

D: “Do you have to kill pigs for the big ceremonies?”

W: “No, for that we can hire professionals, thank Gods.”

D: “Thank Gods!  In America, if we had to kill our own animals to eat, I think we would be 95% vegetarian.”

W: “I would rather be vegetarian and not have to kill, but I do like chicken!”

D: ” Especially organic ones.”