“My issue is safety. Do you think it’s safe?” Emily asked me.
“I don’t know – I’ve never done this before. You have. What do you think?”
“I only did it once. I don’t know.”
But the water sports people said it was okay to jet ski and banana boat in the rain. It didn’t matter that it had just thundered and downpoured. We both suspected they wouldn’t tell us the truth either way- so we decided to follow the rule that makes all third world travel possible – assume these people had PhDs in their field. We followed blindly as if the lady assigned to help us won a Nobel for jet ski operation.
Being the expert that she was – she was absolutely right. Emily’s rescheduled birthday water sports were a ton of fun despite the gray day.
We had picked Sunday as our water sports day because the weather forecast said Sunday would be perfect. Instead it had intermittent downpours all afternoon. Emily was not to be defeated by weather again and decided we would go to the beach and wait for one of the typically 30-45 minute breaks between rains.
Her strategy paid off as we went soaring through the waters of Nusa Dua at 40+ miles per hour. Emily learned that banana boats are a ton of fun despite looking kinda’ lame. I learned that a jet ski may look like a motorcycle on water – but it doesn’t handle like one.
In the end our decision to play to our ignorance taught us a few things and led to a great time.
I have been wondering lately if sometimes ignorance isn’t just bliss – but healthy. As we wander the world and spend time in other cultures, there are moments when we wonder if perhaps our own society hasn’t become neurotic because it knows “just enough to be dangerous.”
This morning on the way to the beach, Emily spotted a woman bottle feeding her baby on the back of a motorcycle. Of course, our initial reaction was mild shock (all the real shock wore off years ago).
“My sister won’t even give Bailey and Hayden a bottle in the car!” Emily said.
Common sense and most parents would agree with Molly…in America. However here, kids have pacifiers, bottles and snacks while leaning over the handlebars of a motor scooter. If you told someone here that it’s not safe, she’d probably cock her head and give you the Balinese equivalent to a “What you talkin’ about, Willis?” look.
I’m sure there are accidents in which kids get hurt here. However, either few people hear about them because there is no Bali local TV news or it’s working for them – so why mess with it? What’s the better choice for people who can’t afford a car?
Their lack of safety education and awareness may put them at risk, but it also makes their lives manageable. After all, given they have no real alternatives, more information and awareness would just leave them feeling like shitty parents who fail because of a financially unachievable standard of parenting.
In the case of Balinese parents, ignorance is sanity. Ignorance is self confidence. One might go as far as to say ignorance is healthy.
When Jacob and Diana were here, we discovered Diana has a phobia about driving in fog. Emily stopped and asked, “Do I have a phobia?” and then turning to me, “What’s your phobia?”
Are they handbags? Do we choose them to add a complimentary eccentricity to our personalities? It made me wonder how much we develop illnesses and handicaps because of what we know.
Do you know how many Balinese I’ve met with obsessive-compulsive disorder or a fear of germs? None. It made me wonder – did OCD and germ phobias even exist 150 years ago before germ theory was common knowledge?
Is it possible that people in Bali, Thailand, India and Nepal don’t need behavioral therapies because they don’t know what to be obsessed with or that they even have the option to have a phobia or an obsession? These ideas simply don’t exist.
In this case, ignorance is mental health.
Emily and I talked about how unlike the people we see here and in so many countries, American parents – and moms in particular – have it rough because of everything they know. Or perhaps more accurately, they have it rough because of what everyone knows.
Who wants to destroy the world with disposable diapers? Who wouldn’t rather feed their kid organic food? What parent doesn’t want their kids to have home cooked meals with the perfect nutritional balance to promote great eyesight and boost their immune systems? And who wants to be caught without the latest, safest, best car seat-stroller interchangeable system? After all, the latest ones always have the best safety features.
These things all take time, money or both. Often it’s time and money that even the best of parents don’t have. There are parents – particularly mothers – who make a full time career out of parenting to the top standard from the blended organic baby food to baby yoga. Even, if you have the time and money, it takes a full-time effort to do it all.
I wonder if we know and expect enough to make ourselves miserable? Because let me tell you – there isn’t a Balinese mom out there worrying if she’s bonding enough with her baby, using potentially toxic toys from China, or if she should change her detergent to be gentler on her baby’s skin.
Somehow despite this, there are a lot of happy, healthy Balinese kids. There are also a lot of women who feel happy and validated that through the same cooking and care taking Balinese women have been doing for generations, they’re good mothers.
Could it be that ignorance is sometimes right?
Still, there are the moments when ignorance takes away the fun. If Emily was served a cup of rich Balinese coffee, for example, she might enjoy it and I would think nothing of it.
However, when we both know that said cup of coffee came from beans eaten, digested and pooped out by a rodent-like animal called a civet, it becomes the most interesting cup of coffee in the world. In Indonesia it’s known as Coffee Luwak. In the course of our journey, it’s known as a memory.
Sent from my iPad
