3/15 in Moni: market, rice fields, village, and Barnabas

I've got a nice little routine every morning (it's interesting how satisfying routine is with so much change in my life this year). I do my push-ups, then count my beads with my Tibetan mantra (I bought a mala - a string of 108 beads when I was in Dharamsala), then I do a little yoga - the sun salutation that my friend Ginetta showed my how to do again (I used to know it years ago). Sometimes, like yesterday morning, when I left at 4:30AM to catch the sunrise on Kelimutu volcano, I have no time, so I chant my mantra and count my beads in my head (I did this all the way up the mountain because it was soo cold). It seems like it should be the easiest thing - say four words over and over again, counting 108 times, but I have a "monkey mind," wandering all over the place. (By the way, everyone things I am Muslim due to my beads. Apparently they use 108 beads also. And I am told that the Catholic rosary is 108 beads as well.) But my favorite part of this practice is a lesson I learned from Elizabeth Gilbert's book, Eat, Pray, Love. There is always a 109th bead, hanging separately. Gilbert writes that the 109th bead is a reminder to offer thanks to your guru. Well, I have no guru, but I do have so many teachers and experience so many "life lessons" daily (sometimes, or often, I learn the same lessons over and over again - usually having something to do with preconceptions, expectations, and/or attachments). So now, at the 109th bead, I offer thanks to all of my teachers and all of my lessons.

I started this day at the "Monday market"

Then hired a motorcycle driver for the day. Flores is such a spectacularly beautiful island. Unfortunately, I have seen much of it from a bus window. I wanted to go back to the rice fields I had seen about a half hour before arriving in Moni.

Tobius, my driver/guide, took me to some hot springs, and then to this traditional village.

He introduced me to the village artist, who invited me in for coffee and a little chat.

This is his most recent piece, made out of 300 year old wood, and also my favorite piece. He decided to dress me up in the traditional hat for the photo.

The artist's daughter and grand child

There is a church choir which practices every afternoon (for Easter celebration) right below my guest house. They sing in Indonesian, and the tunes are not familiar, but they are so obviously Christian. It sort of seems out of place, and sort of doesn't (I am used to the Muslim chanting from loud speakers, and the majority of Indonesians on Flores are Christian). "Out of place" is just a concept based on a narrow perspective. These huge television disks seem "out of place" among the very traditional houses, but that is only because my view of traditional villages is so narrow.

Kids from the village, Koanara, next to Moni

As I wondered through Koanara, I was invited into the home of Barnabas (sitting to my right, your left), where I ate lunch, and was invited back for dinner (a little side business of his, "Local people eat same, same." Barnabas says) I thought that for my last night in Moni, it would be fun to have a traditional meal. So I ate with Barnabas and four of his neigbors, while his wife and two children served. Barnabas spoke about as much English as I do Indoneisan, but the conversation never waivered. I think the beer and arak helped.

Quotes from Eat, Pray, Love:
Again, what I was thinking about I end up reading about the next day. Yesterday I wrote about my favorite part of the mala - the 109th bead, where I say thank you to my teachers and lessons. Today I read about gratitude. Gilbert wrote that she has been praying a lot lately. "Most of my prayers are expressions of sheer gratitude for the fullness of my contentment. " She goes on to write about her guru, who said that most people think happiness is a stroke of luck, "something that may descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. . . . You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings." She goes on to write, "I keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcy told me once - that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. . . . I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering and distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all of the misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself, but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people." (pgs. 272-3)