More Imade

a) I will not pretend to know what it is to be from Bali
b) I do not know anything about Bali. I only know about how delightful it is to tell dramatic stories, so some of the following may be someone else’s desire to tell dramatic stories. However.

I talked to my Balinese room steward cronie again who told me some more stories from his life.

Before that, I talked to a guy who has worked since 1999 on cruise ships. He is South African and good looking in a are-you-a-roman-soldier-talk-to-me-about-your-nose way. I had him record something for a radio piece I’m doing, since some friends and I went to Senor Frogs beforehand and had $14 drinks (that was a discount) that came in a glass that said “YARD!” down the side but was probably like 2.2 feet. Anyway, I was feeling brave. After chatting with this guy for a moment, he told me he used his DJ voice on the recording—because he is a DJ in South Africa. He said he gave a shout out to his brother in Colorado. I said “why do you have a brother in Colorado” and he informed me that he “married a bitch-ass American.” Anyway. So I cannot fully express the very rare occurrence of the attractive male on a ship—the dancers are mostly gay and blah blah—anyway, I talked to this one. I asked him where he was a DJ, thinking he would say “Johannesburg” because where else is there (ignorant) but he said “oh theatres. I did a lot of work in theatres. A lot of drag appearances. I did an all drag show of Cinderella.” I asked him which part he played, he said “the ugly stepsister and the other one—oh it was so funny—was this short, very short, round bleck guy.” Then he said he toured in Grease, as the guy who has the cigarette behind his ear. Now he is on the ships. Sure.

My Balinese friend told me stories that made me very confused. He told me that it is a common Indonesian ritual for people to eat a glass bottle, just like it is candy. And the demon inside the Indonesian will eat the glass for them (I’m sure there’s some cleansing part to this, but we were having language barriers and deafening Sean Paul in the background). Anyway, this is so common apparently that it has happened on the ship. And the guy who ate the glass bottle went to the doctor and had an x-ray and they didn’t find anything. My cronie told me Bali would make me be very confused, that they also had a ritual where people went into a trance and were unable to be stabbed by knives, even though the knives cut through other things.

He also told me that for a year and a half he was a driver. “I drive Mercedes Benz! It was 2 hours from my village!” I asked why he stopped, and it turns out the police caught him. I asked why, he said he was a driver for some Chinese people who had him deliver luggage to some of the hotels. The police caught him and opened the suit cases, one was filled with marijuana, the other: cocaine. The police said “how old are you?” and he said “19” and he told me “you see, I looked normal! Very stupid! So they picked me because the Chinese man was very smart!” So they put him in jail for a 2 days, and the Chinese man got him the best lawyer he knew. Imade, my friend, said “one hour in jail is like one day Megan!” We had a language barrier again and somehow got to the point that Imade told me it was the biggest case in 1995 and all over Indonesia’s version of CNN. He said he didn’t tell his father he was working for the Chinese guy and that the village found out from seeing his face in the paper, because he pushed away the reporters. He said he wanted to take care of his father, who is a rice farmer (I mean?). He said he quit driving after going to jail but then…started again and also worked in an Italian restaurant so he loves spaghetti carbonera and some other Italian dishes. Also, he collects stamps, although he told me he has plenty plenty from America so, seriously, no thanks for any more.

He wants me to come to his Island, even though the traffic is very bad. Also, he said the kids in his village will say “hello tourist!” even though they do the same thing in the cities, those city kids want something, the village kids do not. “Maybe one day you come on honeymoon!”

They do ceremonies for pregnant women at 7 months, then 3 months after the baby is born, like a baptism, then 6 months after the baby is born, “like a birthday” and then he got frustrated and said “our calendar is not the same as yours! It is different! It is very complicated!”