The Year of the Pillow Cases - The Negara Orphanage visit.
Just prior to our 2006 holiday we asked friends and fellow posters on the Bali Travel Forum to send us pillow cases for the orphans and old folks home we visit in Bali. In just a few weeks we had enough for the Negara Orphanage we intended to visit on this trip.
Negara is the most run-down, disgusting place we have so far visited in Bali. It can do with all the help that we and other supporters in the north of Western Australia and in Holland (that we know of) can give it.
The kids are great and deserve more than this place offers, a situation we suspect has at least partly arisen from the corruption that sees part of the Indonesian Government's grants go into too many pockets along the way.
We hope to cut out the leaks by donating directly to the kids and the staff.
The Negara Orphanage. The boys bedroom 'cells' on the left and the filthy, tumble-down mandi (toilet and wash room) on the right. In the distance are the abandoned girl's sleeping cells.
We had 60 pillow cases and so we needed 60 pillows.
No problems.
Off to Makro and pick them up.
Ha ha!
Sixty pillows, each packed in a slippery plastic
bag is really more than a handful, especially when many of the bags were
punctured and what was supposed to be a vacuum seal that sucked them down to
about a quarter of their normal thickness allowed them to expand to full size.
Even stacking them onto Makro's un-steerable, spring loaded trolleys was
impossible. We eventually had 3 trolleys and even so they kept slipping out from
the bottom at each little bump in the floor.
The greatest challenge was to get them all into Made's Kijang. The first 20 or
30 were fairly easy but then the top of the luggage space was reached and, as
you pressed down on the load to make room for a few more on the top, half a
dozen would pop out at the bottom and fall onto your feet. After a few tries we
closed the back hatch door and Made began stuffing them in from the
inside. To keep them all in place Herself sat in the back with arms spread out
to hold them. Made and I rode in the front and tried to ignore the curious looks
and outright laughter from other motorists who passed us. Stopped at the traffic
lights was hell. There was nowhere to look and avoid the giggles.
When we got back to the hotel we had to find somewhere to store them and after much difficult Balinese decision-making by the manager, the front desk clerk, the security guard and one gardener it was decided that the massage room upstairs could be used. Getting them up there was a circus and getting them down again a few days later and re-stacking the Kijang was just the worst as half the staff and many other guests had heard about our difficulties came to watch and offer advice, often conflicting and not at all helpful.
A Kijang nearly full of pillows. Made stuffing about inside.
Eventually we made it of course, with a full load of Chupa Chups and coffee lollies, a new desk top computer for the managers wife Rini and a lap top for one of the kids - and it was Febria who won the geography quiz,
bags of balloons, some soft toys (a first for some kidz), many hair scrunchies,
several wall maps of Indonesia, Australia, Bali and the World for their school, sporting goods donated by the West Adelaide Squash Centre and from Matahari's and I forget what else.
To prove that we made it and that the pillows in their new cases were surprisingly well received by the kids (and the staff I might add) here are some more photos:
(If you sent us some pillow cases and you can find them here we'd love to know.)
They're supposed to be pretending to be asleep but most could just not bring themselves to completely close both eyes, or even one eye, in case they missed something.
Has someone slipped in for a second photo with her other best friend?
Even the helpers were happy - and why shouldn't they be?
The links below will take you to some photos of other parts of our holiday.
Not all will be ready and active straight away but they will evolve as July rolls in to August and so on.
Silver jewellery and bead shops, Handbags, woodcarving and leather.
Stuff we took, the flight and the airport taxi fare board.
The orphanage for children with handicaps, Panti Asuhan Kesa Yanikang Papa in Gianyar.
Friends including the girls on the beach, little Kadek, the feet and fingers, driver Made and family including the newly-weds, waitresses and food, and of course the old boat builder of Jimbaran Bay.
The Baleka Beach Resort and the Baihai.
Rice and the Subak Museum at Tabanan.
Pura Luhur Batu Karu, north of Tabanan.
Food, glorious food.
Kintamani and the crater and lake of Mount Batur.
Kites and batik quilts, tea/coffee/spices plantation.
Back to the 2006 contents page, 'The Year of the Pillow Cases'?
Right back to our home page for the shoppers Cheat Sheet, the first visit to the Negara Orphanage, a long Bali story (the 2003 'Rushed Trip'), the details about Bali's peoples, rices, religion and culture or history or things to do and see in Ubud as well as many others.
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