Gili Trawangan gets us good and proper

---

Grace and an enamel bowl.

A woman walks past in the street below. Her flip flopped feet pat in time to the ebb of the ocean behind her. It is early morning and the sea shimmers behind her like fish scales in the sun. Her traditional Indonesian sarong hugs her slender frame. She is elegant and regal, despite her poverty.
The woman balances an enormous enamel bowl lightly on her head. A huge fish, curved like a boomerang spills over the edges, its head and tail flopping in time to her pit patting flip flops. Its black skin shines in the early morning sun. It looks wet, rather than dead.
And given that this is Gili, there’s a chance it could be.
Perhaps the flopping is from her gait.
Or, perhaps, the fish is not yet dead.

Gili ears.

My wheels whoosh along the road, echoing the splash of water being sprayed onto it before me. It helps with the dust, to wet down the road. The man wielding the hosepipe is adept at getting the road wet without including me in the bargain. He is not annoyed by my interruption. He simply re-adjusts the stream of saline water, and patiently continues what he does every day, twice a day, until it is done.
He does it only to his bit of the dirt road. The bit he has already swept, and cleared of pine needles, and leaves and hoof prints. Of bicycle tracks and footprints.
Each day is begun with a slate swept clean.
And each day is ended with a clear canvas upon which to imprint the night.
Street sweeping and road wetting are the meditation here.

Yoga has a sound.

I love my early morning yoga.
The shhhswish shhswish of Cusz’s broom as he starts the day clearing away the leaves that have fallen since he last swept. The shhhswish shhswish of the horse cart as it whooshes new arrivals to their as yet unseen home. The shhswish shhswish of the mother/shop keeper/bike rental/water bottle filler as she sweeps the road in front of her home and shop clean. The shhhswish shhhswish of the fan in the room behind me where Geoff and the kids stay cool on this already hot day. The swish swish of the breeze teasing palm fronds. The shhshwish shhhswish of the ocean - so blue it hurts my eyes - as it laps the shore like a dog drinking from a bowl.

Horse hooves as small as Faith’s feet.

The horses here are tiny.
I fear that their thin little legs are going to snap like pretzels as they flurry along the dirt road, the jangle of bells strung across their chests tinkling in time to their soft canter. The bright red pompoms dangling off the cart’s rooftop sway drunkenly, keeping beat like a metronome.
Swing swing, shwoosh shwoosh, tinkle tinkle, crack crack of the whip against the carriage roof, the low murmur of the charioteer urging his sure-footed companion forward.
This is the music of the island.
My body now automatically moves to the side of the road long before my mind realises it is hearing the bells of an oncoming horse cart.
Here, small horses, their ankles as fragile as my wrist, are the king of the road.

The shell tells a story

Turtles are slow and graceful.
They’re also beaky. And snake-like. I am surprised that their shells are seamlessly joined to their skin.
I’m not sure why I expected them to be more tortoise-like, but I did.
They’re not, though. They’re more streamlined. And perfectly sealed.
Their symmetrical scales fit together like honeycomb. Their nostrils form two pin pricks like a snake’s nose. And their patterning reminiscent of a giraffe.

Today I swam with a turtle. I dived down and touched his shell. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did.
I simply had to. He was so old and wise and peaceful.
I felt so human in my need.
He felt so old in his grace.

---