The Island of the Gods

    Still here! Living on, teaching in, exploring the Island of the Gods - Bali. My second week of teaching went very smoothly, with fewer kids than I saw the previous week. It seems we are coming to the end of a term, so some schools have closed, with mine remaining open, just a limited number of students. I started introducing fruits and vegetables to my class, which went over well! We played games using plastic fruits and veggies, I made up worksheets for them to color in and we went through electronic flashcards on my tablet (that was their favorite). We continued working on and mastering the names of animals, their favorite one being the butterfly. It seems every time we sing 'Old McDonald,' they jump up and down over wanting to act out a butterfly and flutter around the classroom. That, and a ribbiting frog. Thursday's class we made butterflies out of paper, pipe cleaners and our creative, colorful minds to beautify our butterflies. I have one student in my class who is a very talented drawer in the making and instead of scribbling down colors whenever I ask them to color something in, he draws full scenes, with a house, people, pets, the sun, and very detailed trees.

    In other news - Inka's puppy opened her eyes and took her first steps this week, the ladies indulged in a night of salsa dancing, cock fights could be found on every corner and the island of Nusa Lembongan was discovered.

    Nala, the name the group of us have given to Inka's puppy, took her first steps this week along with opening her little puppy eyes to reveal beautiful, grey, shining eyeballs. She is very wobbly on her legs but she can get going for awhile before she collapses again onto the ground 5cm below her. Her little personality is starting to come out as well, as she has tried play fighting with me and gnawing on my ankles, toes and fingers. It's been amazing being able to watch Nala grow over the last few weeks and see Inka's motherly instinct kick in.

    For a fun night out, myself and 5 of the girls I live with decided to go salsa dancing at a place called Cafe Havana, that came as a recommendation from another friend. None of us had ever really been salsa dancing before but we had heard the waiters and waitresses at the restaurant were all trained salsa dancers, willing to dance with you, as well as offering classes on Friday nights (we went on a Thursday, though). Did we ever have an amazing, hot, sweaty, giggly, amusing time. The live band played three different hour and 20 minute sets, the waiters had some people up on their feet, as well as a very friendly, very salsa-talented Australian man who was asking anyone and everyone if they would like to dance with him, even if it meant getting his toes crushed. By the end of the night I think our whole table plus others had been twirled around the dance floor by this stranger, who actually managed to make us all look like we knew what we were doing. We plan to go back at least once more before we all leave this island, and who knows, I just might look into taking classes when I return home!

    Full moon Odalans (temple ceremonies) are a very big deal here and span over three days. Seeing as this past week we had a beautiful (harvest) full moon, our village and the surrounding villages were bustling with families dressed in their traditional temple wear, flower offerings could be found everywhere and, wait for it......cock fights were taking place every single day. There is a large, grassy area that we pass in the car on the way to school everyday that had a tent setup and was surrounded by roughly one hundred people watching cock fights. I never actually saw a fight, nor would I ever try to, but they are very popular here. Cocks or Roosters are treated better than dogs here - they are given massages, fed the best food, brushed, cleaned, etc. Prized posessions. In fact, the owner of the house I live in has 12 roosters including a very decorated prize-winning rooster (I have to admit, the thing is quite beautiful). He has him out every night, massaging him, and rumour has it, he has killed 20 roosters in cock fights.

Ladies on a Fast Boat

    Finally, after a busy week of teaching, temples and cock fights, seven of us took off to the island of Nusa Lembongan for a 3-day vacation away from our own island of Bali. Nusa Lembongan is best known for its dive sites and surfing, neither of which were things any of us are skilled in, but we still wanted to go for the relaxed vibe, white-sand beaches, blue waters and the Sunrise Hut's we stayed in at the top of a hill. We comfortably piled into 2 huts at this beautiful resort, which included an infinity pool overlooking the channel between Lembongan and Cenigan Island, and a perfect view of the nightly rising moon and daily rising sun. We were actually all awe-struck when we were sitting eating dinner on our first night and suddenly noticed a glowing orange light from behind a layer of clouds. Very quickly revealing the harvest moon. We had taken a 30-minute Fast Boat from Sanur, Bali to Lembongan and upon arrival, jumped off the boat, into the seaweed-infested water, to wade into shore, bags held above our heads.

Arrival in Lembongan

Devil's Tear

    We spent the weekend lying on Dream Beach (it really was a dream), visiting Devil's Tear (50-foot cliffs with even higher ocean spray), discovering Blue Lagoon (clearest, bluest water I have ever seen - stunning), zooming around Lembongan and Cenigan on scooters (on the bumpiest, most non-existent, pothole-infested roads you can imagine...no exaggeration, I'm talking full on craters with a scattering of boulder-sized rocks, strategically laid out to cause you to zig zag), crossing the famous Suspension Bridge (narrow enough for one scooter to go across at a time, plus a few missing planks, see video - http://youtu.be/dlipedJEimM), and snorkeling. The pictures will barely do it any justice but you can get the point. As per usual, I was a little apprehensive getting in the water to snorkel, as open water is not my thing, but once I was in, I was okay. Managed to see some beautiful fish and even more beautiful coral. Seeing as we were out around full moon, the waters were very rough all weekend, with extremely strong currents, but luckily our boat driver, instead of anchoring in one spot, continually moved alongside of us, so when we were ready to get out he was right there!

Blue Lagoon

Moonrise from our veranda

Under da Sea

    Also, shocker, football is quite big here. Slowly over the course of last week, different flags popped up in front of houses, restaurants, hotels and bars showing the support of their teams. Fifa World Cup 2014 is in full swing. GO ENGLAND GO! But really, Los geht's Deutschland, kampfen und siegen ;)

XOXO Nicky