Global Citizens

who needs sidewalks One of the many sources of confusion as I wandered into town today is the lack of sidewalks especially when people are speeding along on motor bikes and cars. You just walk on the left side of the road and give the wheeled vehicles the right of way. Even in the city the sidewalks are the parking areas for the motorbikes for the most part and are sparse for actual use as walking paths. The Blanco museum has to be one of the strangest places I have ever visited.It has been in the family for decades and Blanco was an eccentric artist born in the Phillipines who married a Balinese woman and made this area his home. On the estate sits his original studio, a bird park, the family temple, paintings by him, and now also paintings by his artistic son who inherited the painting bug from his father. The art is mainly paintings of traditional Balinese women in sarongs only. While our tour guide spoke earlier this week of the fact that until Westerners inhabitied the i

BaliWise Hospitality training Today we visited BaliWise . The NGO is setup to empower marginalized women, conduct environmental education and teach skills to young girls in preparation for work through their sustainable jobs program. The training arm of the foundation graduates approximately 120 young women per year. They are in residence for six months with room board, pocket money, and training provided. They are then followed for an additional three months after they have been placed in a hospitality related field. Today we got to meet two of the girls and I met the job placement specialist who recruits hotels and resorts as this is the largest industry in Bali to employ the young women. They prepared and served our lunch and a morning snack. The Zero Waste Centre that we  visited is the public education arm. There were stations for weaving, dyeing, upcycling of soap, oceanography, and recycling. Soap upcycling program Soap upcycling program Hotels in Bali give their un

92 year old ikat weaver    Today we visited Tenganan. This village is home to approximately   families. This is one of three places in the entire world in which double ikat weaving is produced. In double ikat (geringsing) weaving there is a pattern dyed onto both the warp and the weft fabric before being woven.  The elder to the right is using a back loom weave. She is sitting on the floor and there is a wooden piece strapped to her back that helps to stabilize the loom as she weaves. It can take up to an hour to weave 1 inch of the double ikat weaving below due to both the intricacy of the process and the eye strain involved with completing this kind of detailed work in low and poor lighting. Double ikat weaver daughter of the elder above  I also found an artisan that did carvings and paintings on palm leaves. He added my name in English and in Indonesian onto my purchase. This now means that I have my name in other languages on things from at least three countries. Cool.

2 year old Komodo Dragon Today was a free day since yesterday we were broken into smaller groups in order to facilitate the indigo dye workshop. So I decided I would explore Ubud and instead of going to the Monkey Forest which I think I will try on Friday I went to the Bali Bird Park.  As part of their programming I arrived just in time for the Komodo dragon feeding. Did you know that Komodo dragons are quite dangerous. I got to watch one feed today and saw two babies.Komodo dragons can lay motionless for hours waiting for their prey. The ends of their forked tongue samples the air which when put back in the mouth is brought to a receptor in the roof of the mouth called a "Jacobson  Organ". They can "smell" food ie dead meat from up to 4 miles away. There are serrations in the teeth that harbor pieces of meat from previous meals supporting about 50 mostly poisons bacterial strains.  The teeth are also carved allowing it to tear flesh efficiently. Their mouth

copper tjap layered indigo dyeing. Two waxings Today's expedition included an indigo dying workshop and a lecture on Indonesian textiles. The dye workshop took place on a beautiful property that is dedicated to natural dye plants. Our instructor explained how this process worked for the various colors and how it is used in the various villages and communities that Threads of Life works with. I spent my morning learning how to use two different methods of designing fabric in order to create a design. We did some of the design with a copper tjaps( pronounced chop) and the rest with a tjanting . The thin lines in my design are all the tjangting while the gecko, elephant and butterfly were all tjaps. Lunch was provided as part of the morning activities and was a vegetarian feast beautifully wrapped in a banana leaf. After leaving we were transported back to the Threads of Life storefront where we were treated to a lecture on the different communities and villages th