More boring Hillbilly stories.

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India tales here
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Kicked out of the Village.

I’d met Dewi several times before as my friend was dating a friend of hers. I was entering an Indomaret (convenience store) one day as she was leaving and we did that awkward simultaneous side-to-side shimmy people do trying to avoid the other person walking toward them. I suggested to Dewi we’d just invented the beginning to the next dance craze, and asked if she’d be interested in talking further about our world dance domination over nasi bunkus. She said, yes.

Dewi and I started living in the house she owned about fifteen minutes outside Ubud two months after we met - life quickly settled into domestic bliss for the two of us. We’d have breakfast together each morning before she’d put on her sarong, light some incense and take her canang sari (palm leafed weaved basket with offerings) to the small temple she had in the garden. I’d sit with a coffee and watch Dewi’s ceremony, mesmerized by her and her movements - it was a very peaceful way to start the day.

Dewi would then head off to work and I’d begin the laundry, cleaning, making of beds, a bit of gardening and occasionally remove monitor lizards (big ones) that had wandered in from the rice fields surrounding the house. This left me most of the day to scooter through the area, have a late lunch at a roadside warung, or, well, do anything else I chose to amuse myself with. Life was good.

We’d already had an audience with the Banjar (chief) of our little village, me providing my personal information, we explaining our intentions, and offering a small gift befitting a Banjar’s status. We were pleased to find the village chief open minded and with little concern we weren’t married at the time - we told him marriage was our plan eventually even though it wasn’t.

The laid back rhythm of Bali daily life went on blissfully as Bali daily life does, until I went to Sanur by myself to visit a friend briefly one Sunday morning. Not long after arriving, my phone rang - it was Dewi “You have to leave the village….today!”

Not long after I had left home, Satpol PP (municipal police) paid Dewi a visit asking her all sorts of questions as to who I was, where I was from, why was I living there, who were my friends in Bali, and endless other questions. She was told it was unacceptable for me to be living in her house and that I should leave immediately. So, well, with little fanfare, I did.

As it turned out Dewi and I weren’t meant to be forever with our relationship coming to an end some months later. And I’m not exactly sure why there was an issue with our cohabiting considering we’d spoken to the Banjar about our situation, but I suspect Dewi’s Balinese village she’d adopted was a little more conservative than others and after it had become common knowledge we weren’t indeed married, pressure had come on the the chief to have me removed. And what with the Banjar having to save face after giving permission for us to live together in the first place, it was easier to give Satpol PP the job of giving me my marching orders.

Living peacefully in the rice fields with a nice girl will be a memory I’ll keep for a long time.

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