thePlace

            Ruli just had her 30 odd years of waist-long luminous black hair cut.  She looked lovelier and even more energetic. Putri, the daughter had hers chopped off last week, cuter and tom-boyish.  From the back, we could be sisters, almost the same hair-do.  Putri even began to dress like me.  The family now doesn’t cook with MSG, composting and keep their habitual littering to a commendable level.

            Pak Gede, the other Reiki master, says that I’m a bad influence.

            Only met Ruli a year ago because of the impulse to learn to give great massages.  The lone mushroom trip and a heart-brokenly incredible Ayuverdic massage from one of her students at the Zen Resort did it.  Asked to see the masseur’s master and Ruli turned up the next morning and we talked, I was to take lessons from her some times in the future.  Few months later, on a return trip, she gave me a massage.  It was then I  met her husband, Made, who was serenading me while I was being massaged.  A likeable rotund man with an easy laugh; a protective husband that drives Ruli up and down tirelessly from Singaraja to Denpasar and back. 

            A Reiki master, a healer and a great massage trainer, it’s easy to feel good around Ruli.  She exudes a positive loving energy, one instinctively trusts her soft gentle way.  Made who found me the property and my contractor now, in contrast, is much grosser though charming in his careless way.  Ruli is the main bread earner as a massage trainer, while Made, jobless often, is making incense when there is an order and doing anything that comes along.  By small town Balinese standard, they are quite well off and the family is looked up to by the villagers.

            They have 2 lovely kids, Putri, a lovely girl of 18 who is studying hotelier in Denpasar and Rama, a boy of 13.  They grow up steeped in the family’s belief that each has his and her own karma, and thus should be free and independent of the parents’ impositions; seemed destined to be happy and convivial.   With their endless storytelling and musings about the TV programs,  unapologetic screams of laughter often last through the evenings.     

            Although the means is barely enough for a simple family life, living seems so easy and happy.  They gladly receive what life gives them, village kids come and go openly, strayed cat that stays, a dog that barks at everything.  Often 6-7 people sleep in the one-room house of 6x5, staring at the big TV unblinkingly, gushing out laughter and comments.

Everything is just part of life – no struggles, no complains.

Then there is Ayu who is forever grateful to accede to my every whim.  She is the helper in her mid thirties, and has been with the family since she was a girl of 14.  My ‘flimsiness’ is known to all the villagers – my reaction with MSG, no ketchup, the mosquitoes and insects marks….

Since living  here, I don't meet any foreigners and live like a Balinese. I pray with them, go to places with them, eat what they have...and  have much much more to learn from their simple way of life.

Found out from Ruli yesterday that the reason she hasn’t received her ID yet is because the Desa of Kayu Putih requires that I, as the purchaser, pay 1.5% of the sale price to the village. That’s almost $900 -way more than all fees required by the Indonesian government and the Notaris combined!

The ID should have been done a month ago when I left for KL. And not until I pressed Made to find out why there is such a delay that this ghastly news is unfolded.

No ID for Ruli means no certificate of ownership and everything will stop dead. In Indonesia, to acquire a piece of property one must becomes a residence of the particular Desa before all other paper works are processed with the central government. We have gone to see the Dusun Kepala 2 times, once was when the authenticity of the ownership certificate is done, why isn’t this disclosed to us before? The entire population of the small village of Kayu Putih knew that I’m buying the Place!

Oh well, another ‘no-ask-no-tell’ situation.

It is a customary practice that about few hundred thousands of Rupiah is required to get a village ID as a donation/goodwill gesture for an outsider to come into the village where the property is bought. Kind of like a new member fees. Now this 1½% baloney is definitely out of the norm. Made who has been a village head for a bigger village never heard of it.

Armed with little hope, glumly I drove around on the hot dusty streets with Made to find possible remedy. Waited for a long time to talk to a higher up guy, the Camat, and he basically said that there’s very little influence he can give. The village is an autonomy entity and it can have its own rules and regulations – as long as it is not in conflict with the province or state…. A good-nature talkative guy but he isn’t even the right Camat to see – Kayu Putik is not within his camatship. Drove almost an hour to the right place but the right camat has long been gone and it’s only 11 am!

No choice but to drive back to meet Kayu Putih’s Desa Kepala, a pompous stocky Napoleony guy that spoke loudly through his nose. Asked why is this issue was not disclosed by the Dusun Kepala, he mourned over the fact that gone were the days when Desa Kepala’s involvement was a mandatory for any sale of property in the village, and that we should have came to the office and met him personally before the purchase. The Dusun Kepala, which is the head for a yet smaller hamlet is not in charged and has no business to tell us this. I asked to see the regulations. He gave me a copy readily - which shows that he has been waiting for me and well prepared for it (Made spent long hours debating the issue with the lower ranking bureaucrats yesterday). It turned out that the village regulation is voted on and approved at the end of March this year. Among all the rest of the fees, this is the heftiest fees a buyer has to pay. The seller, Pak Totok obviously doesn’t know about it – he has to pay 0.5%.

Bad luck!

I can only bemoan the fact that we should have came and met him from the beginning and that Made, being the Balinese front man should have known better. My next strategy is asking for discount. Agonizingly I started to tell him in half-broken Bahasa and prompting Made to chip in as translator - what the intention of my project is, and that I’m working for a non-profit yayasan that gives free Reiki treatment, blah, blah, blah…. The Kepala Desa didn’t let me finish and repeated his previous thoughts like a ran-loose train. Beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead, he left them there shining and mocking at me. His exaggerated gesticulation made me quite dizzy, I ceased listening.

After a long rambling, the best he could do – minus 1.5 jutas which saves me about $150. We agreed on 4 jutas.

Something is better than nothing, although a little discouraged coming home- the Place hasn’t begun and already a costly problem….

One good thing came out of it – I now know the difference between a dusun and a desa. Except I still don’t know the name of my dusun, just Kayu Putih which is the name of the Desa!!!!