Day 11: Singaraja

Today was not the best morning, because my night had been consumed by pained squirming from a pressurized ear drum. No idea why this started or why it continued, but really it is just excruciatingly painful.

I tried to fix it by all the methods I’ve learned in years of airplane travel and in my scuba class, and even put my ear over a cup of hot water this morning, but to no avail. Luckily it hasn’t been as bad in the daytime as at night, just left me a tad deaf.

In class we had a real lecture about social enterprises and all the various ways in which they may operate. For profit, not for profit, hybrid, it was an interesting lecture but many of our Balinese peers seemed confused by long definitions and more complicated subject matter. I tried to help out those in my group but I’m sure at least some of the finer details got lost in translation. Probably didn't help that I was confused too!

In the afternoon we were on our own to work as a group to track down Singarajan social enterprises and talk to them. My group had some difficulties as we of course tried the American way first and tried to google different organizations with little to no success. However, in a lesson we should all remember, connections are everything in Bali, and Ary simply called up a friend and our group was set to visit a local school for the mentally disabled.

We only have three Balinese to four Northeastern students in my group, leaving our motorbike numbers off, so I volunteered to stay and try to conduct more research. After the rest of the group rejoined me at a local Internet cafe we began working on our presentation, and I must say it will be very interesting.
We still have a lot more work to do on it, and only time will tell about it’s success, however the day was a pretty good indicator as to how the rest of the program is sure to play out. We were lost, found our way, got frustrated, disagreed, came together, disagreed, agreed, lost again, found our way, tired, hungry, hot, lost…I think you get the point. Nevertheless I think we are all pretty happy with where this is going, and it will take some work but I’ll let you know how the presentation goes on Monday.

Dian then drove me back to our dorm, my second motorbike ride! It feels like an old habit now, but I am still amazed with just how easy everyone commutes by them here. It’s obvious to me that these smaller, more efficient and cheaper vehicles could be used in the US since we really don’t need giant SUVs to drive to work and back. It’d take quite a mental shift, but I think everyone in this group is going to return to the US tooting the horn of the moped.

Lessons Learned:

Semut = ant in Balinese

Still a bit confused by this but evidently there are helmet laws here? From what I gathered passengers have to wear a helmet. But we’ve all broken that law and tons of Balinese do as well.

Most businesses/organizations here don’t have a web page, isn’t that odd to think about? In the US I completely disregard any company with a bad, incomplete or outdated web page, not to mention those that don’t have one.

P.S. bought my ticket from Bangkok back to the States! See you all on July 17th