Beautiful Bali

Sunday, July 16, 2023

We head out to the airport after the IESB Gathering. The flight is slightly delayed but uneventful. I have 3 seats to myself and stretch out to sleep until we reach Bali. I'm exhausted and ready for a break.

The car W reserved hasn't come though. We wait over an hour. Finally we take a taxi  to the hotel. Laurel is late for her first-timers meeting on the beach but makes it to their dinner. W and I walk the shore and settle in.

The room is nice - and clean. Hurrah. Deals are everywhere as tourists are welcomed back to Asian destinations. But the hotels aren't full.

Monday to Wednesday

Meetings, walking (usually 15,000+ steps), and lots of food fill the days. We start with morning walks on the shore.

The beauty is staggering.

After checking out lunch in town, we have the same bad luck with taxis. The third one we call, after an hour of waiting for others, stops in traffic far from our destination. We hop out.

Some ceremony, of which there are many on Bali is plugging the roads. W uses Google maps as we walk a few miles in the afternoon heat to a pottery outlet.

We look at the new wave of crafts.

This is an island of artists.

This bigger-than-life motorcycle is made of rattan.

Many shops and hotels are abandoned or have failed during the pandemic.

But there are signs of new growth everywhere, too.

The conference starts with an outdoor banquet that includes 4 suckling pigs. I stay vegetarian.

Another day, we walk to a highly rated pizza place nearby (#Robypizza). Excellent and the company of those who join us is fun.

We're here to work, of course. And that happens mornings, evenings, and at meals = where we network together.

This mermaid on the hotel grounds is dressed in batik.

The lanterns along the beach walk are beautifully crafted.

Our room borders a pool so I slip into the water most days.

There's a wide variety of Indonesian and global food. Sometimes it's nice to eat things you recognize.

The scenery is marvelous. 

The statues are many.

Hindu temples are everywhere.

Carvings - beautiful or grotesque - are abundant.

We become reacquainted with and introduced to global workers from all over Asia.

Thursday

It's my nightmare evening - team competitions in games, working with and against people you don't know. For me this kind of event feels utterly pointless. It's chaotic and noisy with vague directions. Someone tosses balloons and balls around the room while lights flashing overhead.

For one part, we're instructed to build a house using paper, spaghetti, tape and string. We don't have a vision for what we're building beyond "a house" following a few points of an introductory talk. A simple, 5-minute plan pops into my head. The house in my head is fully formed, strong, and sleek.

A few men on the team are engineering types with other plans - rolling papers around pens as the timer starts. We end up with a complicated 30-minute structure. It's ugly, uneven, but strong (taped to the table and tied down).

The rules are to use what's in the bag: spaghetti, paper, string, and tae. There's no rule against seeing what other teams are doing, so I roam the room to learn something. Why reinvent if someone already doing something worthwhile? Maybe we can streamline it. But it's futile. The teams, working among the shouts of others in the room, can't even hear each other. Ugh. What a mess.

We aren't given the criteria on which the house will be tested. Later, the structures are taken off the table, set on the floor, heaped with water bottles, etc. The lesson? "That's what being a global worker is like."

Seriously? You don't know what you're doing, who's in charge, why you're doing something, or who's working with you? Wow - there's not one thing I'd put on a recruitment poster.

Not sure what "togetherness" it fosters in others, but after an hour and a half, I flee the chaos in the auditorium for the quiet of our room. Lord have mercy - you couldn't pay me enough to work this way.

Read more:

*When the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” the glory of the Lord filled the house of God. 2 Chronicles 5:13,14

*The holy city, the new Jerusalem, has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. Revelation 21:2,23

Moravian Prayer: Blessed Architect, what a home you have prepared for us! The light never dims, the music never ends. In it is found no evil, nor darkness, nor crying, nor pain. Best of all, we will be with you. Prepare our hearts for the day when we become heavenly citizens. Amen.