More on Driving Licenses in Bali

Last month I wrote about my experience renewing my driving license in Bali. It was, as I noted, a pleasant experience. Much more so, in fact, than driving itself usually is. I like driving. As with many teenagers in the United States, getting my driving license was one of the highlights of my life. I’ve been driving since then – 46 years. For a few years, I drove a taxi in Chicago while I was an undergraduate student. It wasn’t the safest job – I was robbed twice, once at knifepoint and once at gunpoint – but I loved the job itself. I got paid for driving, and I met many of the unusual characters for which Chicago is known. When I moved to California, one of my past time activities was driving down on PCH 1 to Monterey and Big Sur or up north of Petaluma along the coast.

When I ended up in Bali and bought my first motorbike, I took many trips around the island, often spending a night here or there just to see what was going on. But that was many years ago, and the island has too many people with too many vehicles now. My road trips have been cut back because it’s just really dangerous out there with the number of crazy drivers increasing by the day – or so it seems to me. So, I was surprised to read the little handout that I received from the police when I was given my license last month.

The document explains the steps to get a license which is helpful as the steps have been changed a bit from the past – you have to get a letter of health from a psychologist which I find interesting. Obviously I didn’t need one. Then there is a list of the main factors in accidents. These I find great: I wish that someone took them seriously.

The ten causes are:
1) driving without discipline – I would guess that this would include texting while driving, going through red lights and stop signs, turning left from the far right lane and on and on.
2) being unskilled in driving – young children out on motorbikes who have no idea what they’re doing might be an example of this
3) being emotional or sleepy – I get emotional when I get sleepy, so maybe that’s what they mean
4) driving too fast – think government officials with the red plates and high school boys getting out of school for the day
5) not staying in your lane and keeping a safe distance – tailgating is considered a must by most drivers; many a time I’ve seen someone slam into the vehicle in front of them because they were right on their bumper and couldn’t react fast enough to stop when the vehicle in front did
6) having a poorly maintained vehicle – maybe those motorbikes that have been in so many accidents that they only have the frame and engine left
7) blownout tire – a common occurrence due to the poor conditions of the roads
8. wet or ruined road – people seems to drive faster during the rainy season when they roads are slick and the results of slamming on the brakes is a nasty fall
9) bad visibility – everyone who has driven the main road from Singaraja through Bedugal down to Denpasar has seen the drivers who are in just so much of a hurry that they pass on blind curves
10) drunk driving – think Saturday nights out in the villages particularly along the east coast road

All of these make a lot of sense so why are so many people out on the road doing exactly what they’re not supposed to?

There is also a long list of requirements for driving a motor vehicle, but I won’t go into the details here. Suffice to say, if everyone followed the directions and requirements on this document, the roads in Bali would be much safer than they are today. But then again, if everyone followed the rules, what would I have to complain about except the weather?

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An Indonesian Poem: My First Translation of Indonesian Poetry

I was asked recently by a neighbor and local businessman to translate a poem about aging from Indonesian to English. He gave me the Mandarin version (which didn’t do me any good) and the Indonesian version. My translating has been kept to pretty basic stuff such as translating directions or lesson plans or occasionally giving speeches. So, this was a new step for me. I took some literary license with the poem in order to convey what I took to be the message of the poem. I’m not sure about the results, but it was actually fun once I got into the mindset. Indonesians tend to be much more sentimental than I’m used to so it took a bit of stretching myself, but I find the issue of aging and how the elderly are treated to be something of interest.

When I Am Old

When I am old, not like my younger self
Be understanding of me, be patient looking out for me.

When I spill gravy on my shirt,
When I no longer remember how to tie my shoelaces
Remember the times when I taught,
And guided you to do it

When I am senile and continuously repeat myself until you are bored
Be patient listening to me, don’t cut off my words
In the days of your youth, I continuously repeated stories that I had already told you thousands of times until you were lulled away into dreams

When I need you to help wash me,
Don’t blame me
Remember the times of your youth when I used so many ways to persuade you to bathe

When I am confused facing new things and modern technology,
Don’t laugh at me
Reflect on how patiently I answered your every question
during those days of your youth.

When my feet are too tired to walk,
Reach out your strong, young hand to lead me
Like when I taught you to walk in your childhood.

When I forget the topic we are talking about,
Give me a little time to remember it.
Really the actual topic isn’t what’s important to me
as long as you’re at my side listening to me, that’s what makes me happy

When you see me aging, don’t be sad
Be understanding of me, be supportive of me
like I was of you when you were beginning to learn about life.

disaat daku tua, bukan lagi diriku yang dulu
maklumilah diriku bersabarlah dalam menghadapiku

disaat daku menumpahkan kuah sayuran di bajuku
disaat daku tidak lagi mengingat cara mengikatkan tali sepatu
ingatlah saat-saat bagaimana daku mengajarkan
membimbingmu untuk melakukannya

disaat saya dengan pikunnya mengulang terus menerus ucapan y
ang membosankanmu
bersabarlah mendengarkanku jangan memotong ucapanku
dimasa kecilmu daku mengulang dan mengulang terus sebuah cerita yang
telah saya ceritakan ribuan kali hingga dirimu terbuai dalam mimpi

disaat saya membutuhkanmu untuk memandikanku
janganlah menyalahkan
ingatlah dimasa kecilmu bagaimana daku dengan berbagai cara
membujukmu untuk mandi

disaat saya kebingungan menghadapi hal-hal baru dan teknologi modern
janganlah menertawaiku
renungkanlah bagaimana daku dengan sabarnya menjawab setiap mengapa
yang engkau ajukan disaat itu

disaat kedua kakiku terlalu lemah untuk berjalan
ulurkanlah tanganmu yang mudah dan kuat untuk memapahku
bagaikan dimasa kecilmu daku menuntunmu melangkahkan kaki untuk
belajar berjalan

disaat daku melupakan topik pembicaraan kita
berilah sedikit waktu padaku untuk mengingatnya
sebenarnya topik pembicaraan bukanlah hal yang penting bagiku
asalkan engkau berada disisiku untuk mendengarkanku daku telah bahagia

disaat engkau melihat diriku menua janganlah bersedih
maklumilah diriku dukunglah daku bagaikan daku terhadapmu
disaat engkau mulai belajar tentang kehidupan

Posted in health issues in bali, life after retirement, life in the tropics, retirement in bali | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Retirement in Bali: Reflections on Two Years of Life After Work

When I first retired, I made a list of things that I was going to do in retirement. Partly this was because I was excited about retiring and having a chance to do the things that I always wanted to do but never had the time for. Partly, it was to guard against falling into the path of some retired expats in the tropics of starting off the day with a beer at 10am and continuing on from there throughout the day. Last week was the second anniversary of my final retirement, so I went back to take a look at the list. I discovered a few things about the nature of retirement and time and my way of dealing with those.

Time moves more quickly when you have nothing required of you. I was worried before I retired that the days might stretch on and on with me desperately trying to fill the day with meaningful activities. I’ve heard from some elderly folks who continue to work even when it’s not financially necessary that retirement is the beginning of death. My take on that is that it’s only true if you don’t have any interests or a sense of living creatively. Retirement offers the opportunity to see time in a new way – less as an obstruction and more as free-flowing, multi-directional paths to explore.

image: compassrosebooks.blogspot.com


So, I’ve given up on the list, which really was the equivalent to chaining myself to as set of pre-conceived ideas of how I should live. Instead, I go with what I want to do everyday within my daily routines: writing from 7am-9am, cleaning the house from 9am-12 am, reading from 2-3pm, napping from 3-4pm, teaching English to the kids from 4-5pm and then sundowners from 5 until dinner. In other words, I have a framework and mold my days around that framework. When I’m not reading or writing, I have a preference for watching online education videos from Stanford or Yale or anywhere else that I can find good ones. Then there are always the many excellent talks from TED.

And then, sometimes, the framework is just too restrictive. The floors can go a day or two without mopping – no one really seems to notice that they’re clean except me anyway. Sometimes I’m not tired enough to take a nap. Occasionally, I’m just too involved in something else to take the time to read for an hour. For example, I’m working on fixing one of the walls in one of the kids’ bedrooms. The other day I wanted to get as much paint scraped off the wall as possible so I spent six hours on it – everything else got pushed aside for the day. So, while I have a framework – a routine – I don’t lock myself into sticking with it if something more pressing, or interesting, comes along. The key thing is not to fetishize a framework. It’s only a temporary, artificial construct that can provide a sense of regularity, especially during the early months of retirement when, after the initial headiness of not having to go somewhere and do something everyday wears off, it’s possible to fall into post-retirement depression.

So, I take days now pretty much as they come up. The goal is to be open to whatever happens and go from there. Today is my 21st wedding anniversary. The framework is being set aside, and my wife and I are going out for a ride on my motorcycle to the tourist area to the west of us for lunch and some sightseeing. Nothing special, just a little time together out of the house and away from the kids and animals.

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Electronic Gremlins, Birthdays, Bali Weather and Health

We seem to have been struck by electronic gremlins. I’m sure that if I took the time to discuss this fully with my wife, she’d have some supernatural explanation for our recent woes with the electronic world, and at this point, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t agree with her.

My air conditioner has taken to turning itself on and off seemingly at random, but usually in the early evening when I want to use the air conditioner to cool off the bedroom. Then there’s the computer network we have in the house. The ADSL modem started shutting itself down randomly as well. A bit of a pain for my children who like to leave homework that requires internet access until 5am. And for me, who likes to work until 1am and then get up at 6am to start writing again, being without the internet is a bit problematic.

So, I checked out the connections on the AC and the internet. Both seemed to be OK, but the modem was definitely showing signs of wear-and-tear plus some water damage from the roof that previously leaked. Using my best technology skills (that my students will remember), I whacked it a few times (softly) and all the lights went on and off for a few minutes and then, with a beep of resignation, went dark. One thing easy enough to figure out. I went out to buy a new modem.

I buy all my computer stuff (except for Mac things) at Bagus Computer on Jalan Diponegoro; they give excellent service and good prices. I came home with the modem and after hours of trying to configure it, I went back to the shop where I got specific instructions on what I was doing wrong. The short story is we’re back on line. The AC? Well, I’m trying something different with unplugging it during the day and then plugging it back in at night. Three days of this and no problems. Why? Electronic gremlins obviously.

another birthday in kampung bugis

During all the electronic traumas, we had my youngest daughter’s 13th birthday party. Lots of food as usual and just the family. There seem to more and more children each year added to the family, and the adults seem to keep getting older. Why is that? So now all my children have hit the teenage mark – ages 40 down to 13. It’s been a long ride.

I’ve finally come to admit that there are seasons of illness directly related to the weather here in Bali. Singaraja has gone from having nighttime temperatures of 90°F one night to 70°F the next (yes, I still think of temperatures in the Fahrenheit system. Just seems to be easier to relate to.) So, I’m just recovering from a week of a bad case of the flu. I’m not sure why tourists would want to be here for this kind of weather, but they seem to keep coming. The rainy season seems to be here now, so if you’re traveling to Bali for your vacation, don’t forget your umbrella. .

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Bill O’Brien – a Friend and a Good Man

Over a life, we interact with thousands of people – at work, at school, in the neighborhood and from the family – and all these people affect us in some small way. It’s one of those wonderful and terrible things that life inflicts on us. Out of all these interactions, a few take on a significance that changes our life in some substantial way. Bill O’Brien had that affect on me. I’ve been trying to remember when I first met Billy, but that was almost 45 years ago, and our memories tend to do some funny stuff when we get older. Friends get confused with other friends, incidents that we wanted to happen but didn’t suddenly seem to have occurred. Victories get inflated, defeats get diminished. We bring our past into line with our present by blending and bending the facts either purposely or not.

It could have been when I was living on Larrabee Street with Susie Rosenberg, but it more likely was when I was living on Armitage with Carl Davidson and Karen Gellen. Richard Monet lived in the front apartment back then. I became friends with Richard, and it may have been through him that I met Billy for the first time. Billy introduced me to the whole Lincoln Park group of people that he hung out with – most of them were involved with the movement. I’ve kept in touch with some like my old friend from Chicago and San Francisco, Pat O’Kiersey, for over 40 years.

Billy took on an older brother/mentor role from the start – trying to get me involved in one project or another. A lot of it had to do with writing, which I was very averse to at the time. I was this working class, hippy kid working for SDS who was trying to get as far away from my working class background as I could. Bill’s combination of advice, listening, and some timely history lessons helped me come to terms with my background and embrace it. He taught me about the rich history of the working class struggle and the development of unionism in the US. My involvement in the union movement came from those lessons of Bill’s.

Billy was a facilitator. Every time that we saw each other he had a new person that I had to meet. One of those meetings helped me get my job as a paperhandler – a job that provided me with a living for a good twenty years. Another person that Bill introduced me to got me involved with the Citizens Health Organization and opened up my interest in health-related issues that still concern me today.

Taste of Chicago - Bill and Bruce

Billy and I shared the love of a good drink; he and I started a Spring walking tour of the city’s bars back in the early 70s starting from Weiss’ on Lincoln Avenue and ending up at the newspaper bars down by the old Tribune and Sun Times buildings. As we moved from bar to bar (just one drink in each bar), Bill would tell me tales of the neighborhoods – their history, politics and special points of architectural interest. I absorbed more Chicago history on those long walks than I can remember now, but Bill was a man who loved Chicago, and even though it’s been over three decades since I left the city, it’s never far from my thoughts.

My Indonesian wife had a chance to meet Bill on her first trip to the States. We wandered around Grant Park and the Taste of Chicago. He regaled her with stories of the city’s ethnic foods, and I dutifully translated all of his comments struggling to use just the right words to transmit his love of the place and its people. When I told Su the other day that Bill had passed away, she just shook her head and said, “I liked him. He was a good man.” I can’t think of any better tribute to my old friend. Rest in peace Bill, we’ll miss you.

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