This is the local market at the end of Jalan Intaran, where I am staying in the Sanur district of Denpasar (Jalan = street). This traditional market gets going at about 5 am every morning and is in full flow when I leave the house for my language school at about 6.50 am. I believe that everyone has packed up and gone by about 8 am. In the photo, you can see schoolchildren on their way to the local school (all in uniform), and lots of fruit and vegetables for sale. One of the high volume items is small baskets (about 3 inches square) made from woven banana leaves which are used for offerings for the gods. The lady with her back to the camera on the left in a white top and navy jeans has a bundle of them in her right hand. These offerings (usually containing a little rice or other food and some flowers or petals) are placed everywhere in Bali – at street junctions, at the small temples in houses, outside houses on the footpath and are replaced a few times a day. Unfortunately, the food they contain is usually snaffled by the hordes of roaming dogs which seem to be everywhere. The other thing that you can see is huge election posters - Indonesia has two sets of elections this year : presidential elections in June and local elections in April. The local elections (as far as I can understand) are a new development and this is the first time that Indonesians will have the chance to choose local representatives in a formal election. From looking at the posters which seem to be asking people to give their second vote to one of the candidates, it appears as if they are going to be using some form of Single Transferable Vote which should be, eh, interesting for a first election. I have asked Pak Agung to explain how the system works but didn’t get very far which leads me to suspect that if he hasn’t got a grasp of it, then the chance of other less well educated citizens understanding the system is very slim indeed. Watch out for the spoiled vote count ! Two of the local candidates (cousins but standing for different parties) live on Jalan Intaran (my street) so the place is festooned with flags, banners and posters.
I will post more on the presidential election in the coming weeks - the current president is SBY (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) and is known as Mr. Clean in recognition of his efforts to clean up the endemic corruption which blights Indonesia at every level. Two of the candidates opposing SBY’s re-election (I believe that there may be as many as 30 or 40) are military officers (SBY is also a former army general) associated with the former Soeharto regime so have a tainted past in the eyes of many.
As I write this, it is 7.30 am on Saturday morning (things start early here !) and I’m looking forward to a weekend with no school (unlike the kids in the photo who have school six days a week). We’ve just completed our first week at IALF, the language school in Denpasar, and I am going to have to spend some time this weekend doing homework and learning some of the growing vocabulary lists we have been given. It’s shaping up to be a very hot day with a clear blue sky and the temperature is already almost 30 degrees so I will probably stay indoors until late afternoon apart from a visit to the air-conditioned internet shop to browse Saturday’s Irish Times online and catch up on the latest gloom from home. Later this afternoon I hope to go the beach at Sanur for a swim with some of the other volunteers who have also been lent bicycles by VSO. All this is assuming that it stays dry, which is far from guaranteed – it hasn’t rained since Thursday so we are overdue another downpour.
The language course has been going quite well – everybody in the class is progressing at more or less the same rate and everyone is doing their homework so nobody is getting left behind. Our teacher, Pak Yudi, is a young man who also teaches English to Indonesian students and like all good teachers, has limitless patience. So far, we have struggled through such areas as personal introductions, family relationships, jobs, food, drink, countries, numbers, dates and times. The rewarding part is when I can pick out a word or two when I eavesdrop on two Indonesians speaking to each other in a shop or on a bemo.
On Thursday afternoon, I had the opportunity to practice my Indonesian and help two local girls with their English. Ibu Agung (Mrs. Agung) helps a number of local children with their homework after school and Silvianita and Okiani (named after October, the month in which she was born) were keen to show off their extensive English vocabulary to me so I am looking forward to practicing with them again on Sunday afternoon. I think that talking to nine year olds is enough of a challenge at the moment !
Here are the two smiling students :
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