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| JoAnn making her offering |
All of Bali was preparing for the Hari Raya Galungan (ga-loon-gan), the Balinese equivalent of Christmas. It is the most important feast for Balinese Hindus and celebrates the creator of the universe (Ida Sang Hyang Widi) and the spirits of honored ancestors. The festival symbolizes the victory of good (Dharma) over evil (Adharma). Tall bamboo poles, called “penjor” are erected, on the right, outside of each residence and business. The poles are decorated with coconut leaves, fruit, & flowers and have lantern looking things hanging from them. The lantern looking things are woven from coconut leaves. Also, the little alter that hangs just outside each residence and business is highly decorated with woven palm leaves, plaid fabric, flowers, & fruits as offerings for the spirits.
Preparations begin 3 days before the festival. Two days before the festival Balinese cakes called jaja are made; they are used as offerings and eaten on Galungan. The day before the festival, animals are slaughtered for the feast and as offerings. On Galungan day, everyone goes to temple in the morning, then gets together with family in the afternoon.
It was nice to learn about the festival preparations from JoAnn & Adiyanti, especially because we are missing Christmas this year. JoAnn lamented the amount of work it took to prepare for the festival. It reminded us of our complaints about how much you go through preparing for Christmas. Unfortunately for JoAnn, 10 days after Galungan is Kaningan, the day the spirits return to heaven, and this day is celebrated with the same feast as Galungan. Thankfully we don't have Christmas Day and then 10 days later, have to do it all over again.
The Legian Beach area was deserted on Galungan. It was so nice to walk around without traffic, hawkers or beckoning shopkeepers. The hotel was very quiet with most of the staff on vacation.
In the afternoon, we watched as the “big boss” of the hotel arrived to make an offering at the hotel alter. He had his wife and children (about 2 and 5) with him and they were dressed in their temple clothes.
It is such a departure from the west to see how comfortable Balinese men are in, effectively, skirts.
Both men and women wear a sarong- a Kamen.
Women's tops are called – Kebaya
Men's tops are called – Baju Koko
And men wear a little fabric 'hat' called – Udeng
We enjoyed experiencing this Balinese holiday and seeing a family dressed in their holiday/temple clothes. Two days later we were touched when JoAnne arrived with a bag of goodies for us. She brought us: oranges, apples, little bananas, some funny looking fruit that resembled sea urchins (rombutan), a cake (Apum), rice crackers, and some candies made of black rice (dar darl). Everything was quite tasty, and we were very appreciative that she shared her holiday treats us.
We chatted with JoAnn and cracked up as she lamented the fact that her son always wants to wear jeans and she's always complaining and trying to get him to wear cotton pants because the jeans are so difficult to wash, wring out by hand, and they take 2 days of full sun to dry. Kids are a pain in the ass in every culture!!
