Black Beach

The tiny peninsula on which our hut stood had a precarious
relationship with the sea. I delighted in being housed so close to the
waves, but this was a privileged vantage point - we would only be here
for eight days. The fact was that the peninsula was slowly being
reclaimed by the ocean.


A great deal of work was being done to steady the speed with
which the inevitable would happen. Balinese girls worked
conscientiously carrying pans of cement and rocks on their heads in
flowing single-file formation while the men constructed walls. Also
hungry for a conclusion was the small freshwater lake between the
peninsula and the steady slope of the hills. Not content with its
hitherto isolated status, the water from the lake was creeping out in
determined tentacles wanting to taste the salt. Viewed from the top of
the hill, the row of diligently constructed huts sat majestically
between the shimmering blues and greens of the lake and sea
anticipating abdication. The dark heads of a few village children could
invariably be seen, larking about in the laughing
waves.


Rising before dawn to join the prayers, our challenge was to
navigate in the dark across the garden to the little building which
housed the altar and the library. The hiss of the sea and sand arguing
over supremacy set the scale, counterpointing with our melody. The sky,
pillared by palms, pulled back its midnight tresses strand by strand,
note by note, until the singing was done. Then the world was ours
again; the sea diminished into sparkles by sunlight and our toes were
now visible on the pathways.


'You look like a real Balinese lady,' says Ibu Oka as I
approach the breakfast table in my sarong kabaya. 'Come, sit down, join
us.'


'Emma is an artist and a singer, Susan is an architect,
Judith is a nurse, Peter has just started college.' Bathed in our
exquisite surroundings, everything open to the sky, specific details
seem inappropriate and unnecessary.


The truth is, we are all students; novices in life. But Ibu
Oka enjoys grandiosity. Every day she rises for the dawn prayers, first
ravelling up her river of black hair streaked with silver that almost
reaches the floor. Then she wraps her lithe body in adept folds of
batik fabric. Next she leads everyone in prayer, her own voice reedy
and strong. She will finish with specific prayers for pressing
concerns. Just now she is most worried about the cinema being built not
half a mile away from the Ashram and the trouble it will bring. But she
also prays that the sea will be kind to her huts which provide some
income for the Ashram. She believes her prayers will work; she has to,
as she is a role model for those in her care. There is Sitep, whose
mother abandoned her because she sees fairies, and whose fingers work
like magic with strips of palm leaf to form magnificent altar
offerings. I took a picture of her with a huge tray of glasses balanced
on her head and trying not to laugh too much. Then there is Leci who
breaks the heart of every man who sees her with her perfect features
and her exquisite dancing. Her brother owes his life to Ibu; she
enables him to spend his hours carving bowls from coconut shells and
embossing their curves with Sanskrit. All this taken into account she
commands the table at mealtimes unchallenged by her youthful
companions.


Today we have arranged a trip to a special cove in search of
underwater delights. Ibu tells us the reef there is untouched by coral
pickers who have blighted the best of the reef on this part of the
coast. Indeed it has been a disaster. Early in the morning, as prayers
are drawing to a close, the old women come with their hammocks of
cloth. They move up and down the shallow water picking up pink coral
that has been brought in by the tide. But these are just the spoils of
the more determined workers who go out in boats with sharp implements
to hack away. Their boats are painted with the mythical half-elephant
and half-fish and the prows have eyes giving them powers to see in the
dark. The coral goes to the people who build roads. No doubt soon
they'll need to build a road to the cinema. She despairs.




When we have eaten our fill of black rice pudding and tomato jam, we
prepare for the trip. A driver has been found from the village, but Ibu
warns us to discourage him from running over animals. This is because,
recently, a party of primary aged children, fresh from the closeted
condominiums of Singapore, screamed in horror as one of her men drove
unflinchingly over a small creature that had ventured onto the road. He
cared little, but stopped mechanically to make offerings on the
roadside altar.


Our bags packed, we boarded the mini-bus and set off in the
direction of our special location. On the way the driver told us in
broken English that he couldn't wait for the cinema to be finished, how
wonderful was this modern technology that would bring the rest of the
world to his doorstep. He remembered the arrival of electricity with
delight and was excited by the hotels springing up all along the
coastline. I was amused when he told us that Ibu Oka's people sneaked
out without her knowledge to taste ice-creams in these new places with
vast refrigerators. I remembered a little piece of culinary history I'd
seen: an ice house hidden in the wilderness garden of a Welsh castle,
its entrance shaped in brick to mimic an igloo.


Being opposed to the cinema was evidently a position
maintained from a standpoint of privilege on Ibu Oka's part. She was
immensely learned and had travelled to America and Europe as well as
her beloved India. Her inclinations towards the teachings of Gandhi
were the result of a long view gained from first-hand experience. Her
subjects had not had the benefit of that experience. We were amused by
their transgressions away from the rationed rice bowls.



Our journey almost over, we crossed a junction, passing a
small eating establishment advertising 'Fresh Fish Water'. We chuckled
at the mistake as the bus descended to the beach. Behind us towered
Gunung Agung, the largest volcano on the island. Sacred to the
islanders, the now inactive volcano represents the navel of the world,
and the father of all creation. The great temple of Besakih sits half
way up its slopes.


The remarkable thing about the beach was its black sand, a
vestige of the volcanic life of the island. Bali owes much of its
blessings to the eruption of volcanoes, though only one of them is
still active. It is one of the most fertile places on earth. There is
almost nothing that cannot grow here. There are two thousand square
miles of lusciously fertile land, most of it cultivated, and much of
that cultivation done with respect and love for the land. The
decorative terraces of the rice paddies are the most memorable vision
taken home by the visitor - the multiplicity of reflective pools, each
painted with a view of the sky.


We settled our things on the beach among the rocks, weighing
our clothing down with large pebbles as we prepared to swim. No one
else was around. The driver would return later. It was hard not to
expect the black sand to dirty our feet. Looking at it closely you
could see that, in fact, the grains were a multitude of colours
dominated by a dark dust - dust from the bowels of the earth. The sun
didn't seem to know how to cast light onto its surface, playing tricks
on our eyes as the breakers brought each fresh soaking.


I had done a certain amount of snorkelling before and enjoyed
it immensely - delighting in the otherworldliness of the underwater
experience, the silent kingdom. But nothing had primed me for what I
was to discover here. Wading out until waist deep I didn't realise how
long and to what degree I would leave behind all sense of the here and
now of the air, the beach, the hills and my fellow swimmers. Putting my
face in the water and adjusting my mask for comfort, then checking the
angle of my air tube I began to acclimatise. At first, close to the
shore, there was little of interest to be seen and the black sand
seemed to enhance the murkiness. As I swam further out coral formations
and plant life began to appear before me. Then with utter astonishment
I was alerted to the unique experience this strange place had to offer.
As I swam further the first fish came into sight. Yet it was not the
fish, but the way that they were illuminated by the black background,
that mesmerised me. The iridescent colours of fish from this part of
the world are stunning to see in any context, but none I had
experienced could equal this. They seemed part of a surrealist
painting, vivid and entrancing, elusive and mysterious. Swimming
through shafts of light I followed them, startling more of them from
their hideouts. My heart would pound at the sudden flash of a shoal of
small silvery ones seeming not to notice me, coming within a yard of my
face. There were strange unnameable creatures creeping along the sea
bed; some I knew to avoid for their poisonous quills, so stopping to
rest was a dangerous business. I continued swimming further out, not
knowing really how far. The landscape beneath me became gradually more
complex, as if I were approaching a great city from the suburbs. Rock
formations and corals grew larger and larger and the variety of sea
life multiplied vastly. I turned around and around in places where the
natural architecture intrigued me, trying to take stock of what I saw,
picking over the rock surfaces with my fingers. Of course the water was
getting deeper all the time.

Suddenly and without a trace of a clue to indicate what was to come,
everything that was firm and solid utterly disappeared from view. I was
faced with an emptiness and vastness I'd never experienced. The cavern
reached down and down and I floated above, dizzy and petrified. Who
could tell what lurked in those depths - I resisted visualising my
worst imaginings. I believed that there was room in there for the
Titanic. I raised my head out of the water and squirmed about like a
fish caught in a net, looking all around me to find some sense of
place. For a few seconds there seemed to be none, only the dazzle of
the water's surface and the blinding rays of the sun. I caught sight of
someone else swimming a little way away and then could see in which
direction the shore lay. I swam in that direction, steadily trying to
maintain my composure, breathing rhythmically.


Comfort came in the form of a large solar-warmed towel and a
firm place to sit; the familiarity of my back pack, an old friend. Even
struggling to unzip it, which had come to be a frustration on this
trip, was now a deep joy. I refused to look out to sea for a while or
at the volcano behind me. No one else mentioned the abyss when we came
to talk about what we had seen, eating our Ashram packed lunch. I took
solace in the thought of the human hands that had wrapped the palm
leaves around the sticky rice to make them into glutinous solid shapes,
and the process by which they had been steam cooked. I relished the
tiny orange banana, a gift to the palette. Accepting the whispered
apology of the lapping waves I gradually relaxed.


The journey home was a bumpy ride. Feeling less comfortable,
my hair stiffened with salt water and feet stuck with sand, nails
gritty, I looked forward to a much needed cleansing process. The
changing late afternoon light drew us home, where we separated to clean
ourselves and change for supper.

Within each hut is a little tiled room with a mandi; a tank of water
siphoned off from the freshwater lake. To wash, you must stand next to
the tank and, using a plastic scoop with one straight handle, throw
quantities of water over yourself - a bracing experience. The water
then navigates its way across the tiles and out through an open drain
on the floor to be absorbed by the sand.


After we had moved away from our elegant supper we sat on the
stone steps leading down to the beach. We marvelled at the southern
hemisphere stars, the Milky Way a stretch of clustered pin-pricks of
light. We all spotted shooting stars, a not uncommon phenomenon from
this part of the world, but our starved western hearts still craved
their luck. It occurred to me at that moment that the shooting stars
offered by Bali were a fair exchange for the cinematic experience
arriving from the West; for it is a well known clich? that many
visitors coming to this part of the world are looking for new
experiences. However, when I extinguished the lamp in my room that
night and climbed in underneath the mosquito net, all I could think of
was the abyss.