Our first activity was going to Karuna Bali, a nonprofit organization that teaches English in Bali. We heard from Perdana Scholastica, the program manager of one aspect of Karuna, the EduCare Program. EduCare is an interesting model where university students travel to rural villages and teach the elementary school students English for 4 month intervals. The overall goal is to encourage students to be passionate and interested in learning English, because currently, as Perdana said, “English [is seen as a] really hard and miserable subject.”
The other program under the Karuna umbrella is the Campuan College, which has both 3 month and 1 year programs teaching adults English and computer skills. The school is unique because many of the students receive scholarships to attend, allowing those who may not be able to usually attend school to expand their job prospects.
After the presentation we were able to speak more to Perdana and the director of Karuna about how they gather funding, select teachers and choose villages to teach at. Then we returned to our home stay for the best home cooked meal yet before our free afternoon!
Erica, Sarah and I took a taxi to the downtown tourist market to start off our afternoons. So many European faces! And so so much stuff. It was raining on and off at this point, so we had to creep through the tarp covered market, which had actually been the local fruit market we visited a few days prior. I didn’t end up buying anything since I really need to learn what reasonable prices are, and we are coming back here anyway so it doesn’t make sense to buy anything now.
We then began wandering back towards the home stay, and on the way decided to get a massage for $5.50! The experience was oddly similar to my massage in Peru, and involved a fair amount of slapping as well as uncomfortable moments as they apparently decided all 3 of us should be in the same room during this experience. However, overall it met my expectations for a $5.50 massage and I walked out oily but relaxed.
Dinner followed and then we went to a Legong Dance at the prince’s palace! It was impressive to see the game land played the way it should be, and the haunting music that accompanied each dance was beautiful. The first welcome dance had 6 girls come out and perform the typical Legong routine, complete with darting eyes and small precise finger movements. The second dance was probably my favorite as a young boy, maybe around 12, came out in huge costume and did the dance of the young soldier. The crazed look in his eyes, along with the dedication that he had obviously put into learning the dance, which was extremely detailed down to the step of his foot and twitch of his toes, was mesmerizing.
More dances followed some showing the courtship of a king and princess, and fights between various animals, along with a very interesting dance that reminds me of a Chinese opera performance I saw somewhere, with a man dressed as a woman acting as a man. A fellow traveller accurately described it as gender inception. Nevertheless it was good as well, although confusing, and after trying out the dances ourselves, the amount of dedication that these dancers have shown to their craft must be ridiculous!
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