Life in a New Culture: Bali: Part 3

From the CU Independent, published Oct. 5, 2009.
http://cuindependent.com/2009/10/05/life-in-a-new-culture-bali-part-3/

Life in a new culture: Bali: Part 3

Opinion: Even when everything seems to be going wrong, it's okay

By Stephanie Davis on October 5, 2009

This week, I went from trying to have simple conversations about food and family in a foreign language to trying to describe when, where and by whom I was sexually assaulted.

Now, before I say much more, I need to clarify. It was not rape, or any verbal assault that will leave me scarred for life, but I discovered how much having your breast groped in broad daylight can seriously screw with your sense of security. Especially since it happened in a house down from where I’m living, on a route I walk every day to and from school.

I have been in Bali now for four weeks, and I was finally starting to settle in and feel comfortable in an environment completely different from anything I’ve ever known when this happened.

Since I started planning my semester abroad, it seems like I have had everything go wrong. I had to re-write an application proposal before being accepted because the subject was too touchy. My financial aid hit a roadblock, and I figured it out only a week after I was supposed to have my plane ticket. The price of the ticket went up an extra $500 the day I purchased it.

Upon arriving, I immediately came down with what they call here “Bali Belly.” With the lack of water treatment here, I’m sure it’s easy enough to imagine what that entailed. Within a week I was limping with the first injury of the group, and half a toenail missing. As soon as I figured out how to tame my Bali Belly, I came down with a cold that knocked me out for about a week, and left me stranded at home while my classmates spent the weekend at the beach.

For two weeks, I thought my camera was broken. I’m focusing on photojournalism, and thought I would have to spend my semester in Bali sans camera (thankfully my fantastic photojournalism professor, Kevin Moloney, let me know it was a minor problem and something I was able to fix myself).

It’s amazing how quickly my self-confidence plummeted.

But in the last two days since the incident, I have come to realize something: If there’s a place for everything to go wrong, it’s here in Bali. While I don’t have many resources here, and have to work around a communication barrier, it’s not all that bad.

I am, after all, on a tropical island. My classes are held on a covered porch, with tropical flowers falling constantly from the trees in the landscaped yard into ponds with koi surrounding us. For class, we went to archaeological sites built in the 11th century, and walked back to our school through a tropical rainforest in a downpour. I don’t think I’d ever done something so unique in my life. Granted, this is probably how I caught my cold, but I’m trying to ignore that.

I only live 30 minutes away from the beach, and after living in Colorado my whole life, I think that’s pretty darn nifty.

So when I do start to lose my confidence, I have decided that I am going to remind myself that I just need to open my eyes and look at everything I would miss out on if I shut myself into a shell.

After I was groped, it occurred to me how strong the communities here in Bali are. When I told my home stay, Bapak, what happened, you could see the anger on his face. Not only was it an insult to his hospitality, it was an insult to the community’s honor. Within minutes, the entire banjar, or neighborhood, knew what had happened and vowed they would find the perpetrator. This is not a community you would want to mess with.

After all was said and done, and I visited with neighbors who asked about what happened and wondered if I was OK, I realized how much Indonesian I really did know, and was just too scared to use.

That, and my home stay mother was feeling so bad for me, I had access to hot water for a bath for the first time since I’ve arrived. What more could I have asked for?

Contact CU Independent Contributor Stephanie Davis at Stephanie.davis@colorado.edu.