New Year's Eve 2015

Living here has its advantages, none of which I moved here for mind you, but yes I live right on the beach… a place I would have never pictured myself in a million years. I am not one of those people who say: ‘I feel the ocean calling me’. Had you asked me 15 years ago where I thought I would be living in 15 years, I would have said: ‘in a cabin in the mountains somewhere with lots of snow, chopping and piling my own wood, with bears and deer and raccoons and squirrels.’ Yet here I am. Life is funny sometimes. 

Regardless of what you have planned, how much you prepare, or how adamant you are about creating your own destiny, shit happens. And perhaps ‘shit’ is not the appropriate word as sometimes that shit is good shit. Shit that expands your horizons, shit that opens up your perceptions, shit you’d never expected that has you changing courses and diverting from the path you’d set out on. Pardon my use of expletives, but in 'retreat speak' one might say the universe has other plans for you. 

Take for example my plans for New Years Eve. The original plan was to stay at home, celebrate with our friends and ring in the New Year with good food, good snacks (which I’d spent the whole previous day making) good music and of course copious amounts of alcohol. 

Silly me. The number of years I’ve lived here equates exactly to the number of New Year’s Eves that have completely sucked ass. Why on earth would I think that this year would be any different?! Call me naïve, but I thought THIS year would be different. It is the only celebration on the Balinese calendar that coincides with anything where I come from. Here, there is no Easter or Thanksgiving, no Halloween, no St. Patrick’s Day, no May 24 weekend , no Christmas. There is only New Year’s Eve. 

Don’t  get me wrong, there are things to celebrate here, so many I cannot even count – from full moon to days revering the specific gods of different things, like Saraswati Day (the goddess of knowledge) and metal day where you make offerings to everything you own made out of metal, be it a motorbike, a refrigerator or spoon. There seems to be a ceremony for everything, but the difference is, they are all the same - Go to the temple and make offerings come home and make more offerings and it’s all good. There are no actual “celebrations” except for New Year’s Eve. And you know sometimes a girl’s just gotta dance.

So here’s me, completely blanking the totally disappointing previous New Year’s Eves, like the time in Dalung in the mechanic’s garage where they’d all decided at 11:50 that we should ring in the New Year at the local bar, only to find the place they wanted to go to was closed, so instead we rang in the new year driving around in a car, or every other time when those left standing (because everyone started drinking at noon) went home at 12:05. Where I come from, the party starts at midnight. Not so here. 

Call me a positive thinker. I had planned what I would wear the week before. The day before I spent in the kitchen making party snacks, not only to impress the friends and neighbours, but so I would not be relegated to eating deep fried innards of some random animal. 

On the day of, I showered and started to get ready WAY too early. Armed with liquid eyeliner and a can of hairspray that Kadek’s mom had left me when she was here the last time, neither of which I have used since the early 80s, I put on makeup, sprayed my hair into place. Complete with my frosted lipstick I was looking very farrah fawcette-esque, which was fine because no one here knows who that is or that I looked like a complete throwback to the late 70s/early 80s. I was ready – bring on New Year’s eve! 

It was only 5pm and Kadek and Oda were still busy making Ayam Betutu, which is one of my favourite Balinese dishes. Although a bit early for lipstick, so far so good. Between my party snacks and the Ayam Betutu, we had the ‘good food & good snacks’ part covered. 

I’d decided to go visit the next door neighbours where everyone else was that we’d be spending New Year ’s Eve with. They had been doing Dangdut Karaoke since noon and when I went over, it was quite apparent that that is when they’d also started drinking. I could feel my well laid plans of a great New Years Eve party that would last ‘sampai pagi’, starting to slip away and with that the reality of all of the sucky past New Year’s Eves came flooding back. Feeling defeated, I happily accepted the glass as it came around to me and the one immediately after that they gave me out of turn on the premise that I had some catching up to do.

No! This year WAS going to be different. I made up some excuse about how I had to go check on the status of the chicken because at the rate I was drinking, I would be three sheets to the wind before 7pm, which not for a good New Years Eve makes, not to mention the following day. When I get back Kadek is still chopping spices up and then Oda’s mom brings out a plate of food for the boys. Why are we making Ayam Betutu if they are eating? I was waiting for the chicken to eat. I am then told the chicken has to steam for a few hours. I was already getting hungry and consumption of alcohol on an empty stomach is never a good idea, so I too had some food, knowing the chicken I had been so looking forward to, I wouldn’t be hungry to eat…. And so it slips further away.

By now I’d been ready to go since about 5pm and I’d already had a few drinks next door and just waiting for Kadek and Oda to get showered and changed, but they were apparently not in as much of a rush to get going as I was. After coffee and some casual chatting, with me getting more and more impatient and feeling completely ridiculous sitting there wearing frosted lipstick, Kadek turns to me and says, we’re going to Kadek’s (another guy named Kadek) house later. What? What about the chicken? What about my party snacks I’d spent the whole previous day preparing? What about everyone else we’d planned to spend New Year’s Eve with? 

This new plan entailed us drinking a bottle between the three of us first, going next door and hanging out a bit then going to Kadek’s place as it was painfully obvious that it was doubtful that anyone next door would even make it to midnight. After a half bottle, we decided to go over while they were still conscious. At 7:00pm there were already a few people passed out on various lounge chairs. 

With the sun just having gone down, out came the flying ants. The fireworks we set off early did nothing to deter them.  So here’s me with my carefully sculpted hairdo sprayed in place with about a hundred flying ants stuck in it. 

After a few more rounds of karaoke and several drinks later and a few more people succumbing to overzealous drinking, I was actually looking forward to getting out of there and going to Kadek’s house. Accepting and now welcoming the change of venue, I go back to our house to prepare to leave. And damn it SOMEONE is going to eat at least some of the party snacks I made. Deciding to forgo the tortilla chips and eggplant dip, I figured my tofu and vegetable pockets would travel better. All I had to do was deep fry them. I get them out of the fridge and started to carefully try to peel them off each other and despite my having floured them so they wouldn’t stick together, they were sticking together. I managed to salvage about 8, cooked those, threw them in a bag with a bottle of sambal and proceeded to pack my other bag – Big bottle of water, toilet paper, flash disk with party music, mini notebook in case the speakers did not have a USB port, because oh yes, there would be dancing and I would slit my wrists if I had to listen to dangdut and Indonesian house music all night.

Oda’s well orchestrated plan of having his mom come over next door to ask him for ‘help’ with something at 8pm had him peeling out of there and headed to Kadek’s place before Kadek and I. I wish I’d thought of that. Finally at 9pm, Kadek and I leave and as I run over to get my carefully packed bags, Oda calls to us from inside his kitchen. He had come back to make a cup of tea, but wanted to go back with us, so we waited for him to drink his tea then finally left.

There were only 5 other people there, but with Oda, Kadek and I just arriving and almost doubling the number of people, it made for an acceptable little party. He had big speakers set up that he had hooked up to his laptop, and everyone was on the front porch of his house with massive amounts of beer bottles. There was a pitcher with beer in it and a block of ice in a plastic bag, and as with all Balinese gatherings where people are drinking, only one glass that goes around the circle. With the change in beverage with significantly less alcohol than the Arak we had been drinking all night, I welcomed the change.

After the third glass, though I was feeling rather full. Time to get the groove on. I had bided my time to change the music, so I wouldn’t look like I was trying to take over, which I was, of course. My dance music playlist was accepted and for everything else that had not gone as I had anticipated, at least there would be dancing… and there was.

Just before midnight we all went out on the street and watched the fireworks everywhere, counted down to 12 o’clock and set off our fireworks as well. They then moved the speakers and the beer out on the street where we all sat in the middle of the road for about 10 minutes before everyone decided it was time to go…. 5 minutes later than usual!

So another New Year’s Eve has come and gone, and despite my grandiose plans to make this one the best ever, it was again mediocre and somewhat disappointing.

As the Balinese are more day partiers than night partiers, and New Years day people still have their speakers set up outside and left over alcohol and because they’d had a good night’s sleep having passed out early, they tend to continue the party the next day. I figured this just may make up for the night before. 

I woke up New Year's day at 7:30 and made myself a cup of coffee and peanut butter on toast and went to enjoy it on the table outside set up half way between our house and Oda’s house (Oda lives behind us). Pak Su arrived for his usual morning drink. He gets a half bottle of Arak. Now many a time have there been people drinking early in the morning asking if I would like to partake. I don’t drink in the morning and I have always politely declined. Oda’s mom comes over and gives Pak Su a bottle of jamu. Jamu is a traditional remedy for just about anything, from high blood pressure and diabetes to bad blood circulation and the common cold. Depending on your issue will depend on what it’s made out of. This jamu was orangey-brown and thick. Pak Su asks me if I want some. I told him that I would rather drink ‘that’, pointing to his bottle of Arak, right now, than that jamu. He misunderstood and poured me a shot of Arak. That was SO not what I’d meant. I then figured what the hell. I actually drank it. 

So here’s me drinking at 7:30 in the morning because … well for no reason. It didn’t even seem like a good idea at the time, yet there I was sharing a half bottle of Arak with Pak Su. We talked about our respective New Year’s Eve experiences and the party where he had been also ended just after 12. After the half bottle of Arak was done, he gets another one. As he’d intended to drink the half bottle on his own, but with me sharing, it was technically only a quarter bottle as he’d pointed out, so I was then required to share another half with him. At that point it wouldn’t have made me any less depraved if I had declined. Although being intoxicated early in the morning was a new and interesting experience, I’ve now been there, done that with no plans in the future to repeat. Once the second half of the bottle was done, I got a call from a client who wanted something done today so they could get it printed tomorrow, so I headed to my office. I’d almost finished but I simply could not keep my eyes open. I had to have a nap. Just 20 minutes and I’ll be fine.

I was rudely awakened by my phone ringing. It was Kadek calling me saying he’d forgotten it was Friday and that I have a class. I’d asked him what time it was – I had no idea. He says 5. I know my class is at 5, what time is it now? He says:”5! Find someone to drive you I will call them and let them know you are on the way.” DOH! I literally slept through New Years Day only to have to wake up and go teach an English class to the kids in Penuktukan. As I am walking down the stairs to go find a ride and I can hear my neighbours over their karaoke microphone calling to me to come over. So much for making up for last night.

Living in Bali is very different from holidaying in Bali. But despite the challenges, as we ring in 2016, I realize there is no place I’d rather be.

3:30am disposal

So after having lived in a house that had about 100 rats that lived between the ceiling and the roof and would make regular visits to my kitchen, despite my having everything in the fridge or in sealed, air tight containers,  and to the wardrobe, in the middle of the night making me have to wash dishes that had already been cleaned, before I used them and having to commit countless items of clothing to the ‘rag bag’ due to holes having been chewed through them, and Kadek’s veto of my idea to get a pet python to handle the problem, I was so happy to finally move into a new house that was built without ceilings and nowhere for unwanted guests to hide. 

So when I was awoken a few nights ago by the sound of chewing wood and subsequently all three dogs going nuts trying to find where that sound was coming from, I was not amused. Oh no. This is not happening here. Drastic measures would have to be taken.

The next morning, I borrowed a mouse cage trap from my next door neighbor and carefully baited it with dried fish and set it in a place that the dogs could not reach but was sure to get the attention of my newest unwelcome visitor.  First night nothing. I think it was the same rat we’d seen running up Oda’s tree about 10 yards from our house a few days before and was just paying visits in the night to our house.

I was awoken last night at 3:20am by loud whiny squeaking. Ooooh I think my trap worked! With the help of my cupboard shelves and a plastic stool, neither of which I was sure could support my weight, I climbed up to retrieve the trap that had been set on a ledge between my office and the bedroom. Sure enough, there he was.  I had a good look at him and he could easily fit in the palm of my hand. With his big black eyes and satellite dish ears, disease and pestilence aside, he was almost kind of cute… almost.

I explained to him that this was not okay and that he’d left me no choice. I took him downstairs and got my bicycle. Unbeknownst to me one of the neighbourhood kids had been playing with my bicycle and put the seat all the way down. The dynamo I have hooked up that turns on the light when you pedal had also been adjusted so it wasn’t working. So here’s me trying to relocate my new friend to somewhere far far away, with a rat and trap in one hand, my cell phone with the light on being held securely between my teeth, practically hitting myself in the chin every time I pedal, trying to navigate the off road dirt paths in the middle of the bush at 3:30 am in the pitch black with three dogs jumping up, trying to get at my cargo, almost knocking me off several times. 

I must have been close to a km away when I heard something squeak. Okay this is it. A place far enough away from my house that he won’t find his way back and other rodent friends to keep him occupied so he doesn’t get any funny ideas about coming back to my place. I got off my bike, crossed a creek and walked way into some sort of plantation of some kind and set him free.

I finally got back to the house, went upstairs and thought… okay now I can sleep. And I did, for an hour and 20 minutes until my alarm went off at 5:30 to make sure Kadek was up because he had to go pick up a guest from Ubud and take her on a day tour at 9. Okay with Kadek thankfully having ironed his own shirt, I made sure he was properly caffeinated and waved him off and thought, okay NOW I can finally get some sleep, just as the sun starts coming up and beaming into my room. As nice as it is, not that nice if you are trying to sleep and don’t have curtains yet. Just as I start to doze off at about 6:45, the neighbours get the chainsaw going.

Ahh life in paradise.

how bali made me thin

I was always active as a child. I used to play outside, ride a bicycle, roller skate. I was always on a soccer team, in a dance class or part of some sort of organized sports club when I was growing up. As I got older, I joined sports at school, I was a member of a paddling club and used to race kayaks and war canoe. I played offensive tackle on the flag football team in high school (only because they wouldn’t let me try out for the real football team). But even my with my activity, I started really gaining weight in high school. I gained even more weight after graduation despite playing both 7 and 15-a-side rugby. The extra weight served me well as a tight head prop, but sucked for pretty much everything else. I continued to gain weight throughout my 20’s. I hated having my photograph taken and shopping for clothes became an exercise in self-loathing. I didn’t like the way I looked and I didn’t like the way clothes looked on me. 

 

I was in denial and tried to convince myself that it was the big-boned German side of my Dad’s family genes that were to blame. That, couple with the fact that as a Canadian, I had evolved to have more meat on my bones to survive the cold winters. I remembered reading an article in Reader’s Digest in the dentist’s office waiting room called: “Fit & Fat”, about a woman who was heavily into exercise and in great shape, but her BMI was still in the obese range, despite passing all sorts of cardio tests. Maybe I was like her. Maybe I was just never meant to be thin. Regardless of the excuses I made and the ways I tried to console myself, I didn’t like how I looked and I didn’t like how I felt.

I had always been self confident in every other aspect of my life. No one intimidated me, physically or psychologically. I was well-read, able to hold up my end of an interesting conversation, though thoroughly unhappy with the way I looked, managed to have my share of boyfriends nonetheless. I started travelling so you can add wordly to my list of appealing attributes. So why did being overweight overshadow every other positive aspect of myself? I would go through periods of time where I actually convinced myself and quite possibly others of my attractiveness. But it would take just catching an unexpected glimpse of myself in a mirror or seeing an impromptu photo taken of me for the reality of the situation to shatter the fantasy and I would be back to self-loathing.

I was smart enough to figure out that new-age diet trends were non-starters. There’s no way anyone will be able to maintain a diet of either eating a specific food or by cutting out a macro nutrient that has been a diet staple of every civilization since the dawn of mankind. That’s just stupid. Besides, I love food. It’s one of the joys of life and I somehow always seemed to be hungry.

Of course it didn’t help that my mom is the best cook I know. She’s what I would call a decadence chef, routed firmly in the belief that everything is better with butter - mayonnaise in the guacamole, sour cream and parmesan in the mashed potatoes, whipping cream in the carbonara. Maybe this was all my mom’s fault! There was no low-cal, light or diet anything in our house when I was growing up. It was almost as if eating that stuff was some form of sacrilege. I remember asking every evening ‘what’s for dinner?’ in anticipation, because regardless of what it was, it was always great. But every now and then, she’d crush my expectations with the dreaded four letter word: RICE.

I had always hated rice, from as far back as I can remember. I don’t know why, I just did.

Alright so here’s me – overweight and hate rice. And where do I choose to go and live? Asia! Indonesia, specifically. Although there are other Asian races that are typically thinner on average than the Indonesians, they are still comparatively small to North Americans in stature. 

I’d met Kadek (my now husband) when I came to Bali the first time. He would introduce me to someone new and they'd say to him: "Oh, gemuk sehat!" (fat & healthy!) and give him the thumb up. I then moved to Medan, North Sumatra for 4 years. Medan is the third largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta and Surabaya.  In Medan, there is a really great mix of Indonesian, Chinese and Indian food.

I had gone home to Canada for a visit at one point and when I got back, Aswan, the school bookkeeper, says to me: “You got fat!” Okay so I had put on more weight while I was there – probably from all the cheese, but really? Did she just say that? Indonesians love to state the obvious that I really don't think is necessary, but they really seem to feel the need to point it out regardless. If you are anything over a size small and you come to Indonesia, be prepared for someone to comment on your ‘fatness’.

The tropics are not easy on clothes. Sun-drying fades and wears clothes quickly and just everyday wear seems to be a lot tougher on clothes here, so even if you abhor shopping, sooner or later you have to break down and go shopping for clothes. You might think that especially in Indonesia where the exchange on the dollar is so good, shopping, even if it’s not your favourite pastime, would be at least satisfying in a monetary sense.

There are a few things, however that make shopping in Indonesia an exasperating experience, especially if you are overweight. For those not a size six and flat-chested, and not living in an ‘International’ city, don’t even bother unless one size fits all t-shirts and mu-mus are your style.

It’s not just the clothes themselves, the sales people add to the unpleasantness of the shopping experience. Working on commission, they tend to follow you around the store grabbing random things off hangers and shelves saying: “You want this? How about this?” Not to mention they do little to help your self-esteem when, as you pass by the store, they yell out: “Come into my shop, we have big size for you!” When the Asian L size is small by foreign standards, the XL is medium and the XXL is large, most people are embarrassed to ask if they have anything in an XXXL.

I was at my heaviest right around the time I got married, tipping the scales at… well that’s not really that important, but suffice it to say I was big. I then moved back to Bali from Sumatra. 

We then moved up to North Bali as I had just accepted a job as the general manager of a retreat centre in the north. I was living on-site at first, eating restaurant meals everyday, usually buffet. That job lasted almost a year before it was very apparent that [this is me being diplomatic] that was not the place I should be. In that time I had moved off site and I’d found another job as Business development Manager/Retreat Facilitator at another resort 15 minutes down the road, where Kadek had already been hired to manage their transportation and activities and later hired as the manager. We both spent a LOT of time there building them up from no business to 13 groups a year by the time we left. Not unlike the previous place, I was putting in 14 hour days and eating all my meals there. 

We both quit to start our own business. That’s when everything changed. 

When Kadek wasn’t driving our guests, he was fishing, so I was left to my own devices to feed myself in a rural Balinese village.  The morning market here opens at 1:30am and closes at 6am. The day starts early for the families of farmers and fishermen. Unless you get to the market at silly o’clock, you have to get your food from a local warung. That’s all fine and well as a take-away meal costs between 40 and 80 cents. You’d think that with food cheaper to get out than cook yourself at home, I’d have been eating all the time.

I’d get up and think okay time for breakfast. What to eat… rice or… rice. There is no bread, there is no dairy, there is only vegetables and meat and of course, rice with everything. I can’t do rice for breakfast. Okay lunch time! Time to eat. What should I have? Rice or …Rice. I guess it’s rice! Dinner time. Time to eat. Rice? I guess. It got to the point where I would think that I’m not hungry enough to eat rice again – I’ll wait until later.  I started eating only when I was hungry. Low and behold, the less I ate, the less I was hungry and I eat now once or sometimes twice a day. Guess what - I lost so much weight. After all the excuses, turns out I just ate too much.

I haven’t been a size 8 since I was … well, 8!

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been on a diet in my life and I wouldn’t turn down a chocolate brownie or an entire pizza, hungry or not. It’s also not because of the nutrition factor of Balinese food. Balinese food is SO bad for you. It’s high in fat, cholesterol, salt and sugar. Everything is deep fried.

Losing weight has nothing to do with what you eat, just how much you eat. You want the secret to weight loss? EAT LESS!

I know that’s not always as easy as it sounds and if I hadn’t moved here and just got bored of eating rice for every meal, had no other options and hadn’t started eating only when I was hungry, I’d still be overweight and unhappy. Although I don’t think I’ll be posing on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition anytime soon, for the first time in my life I can remember, I feel good in my own skin.

top 20 indicators that you've been in indonesia for a while

tourist or traveller

I once overheard a conversation in a café on the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park in Langkat, North Sumatera that made me laugh out loud. A visitor, who was asked by the café owner how it felt to be a tourist in Indonesia, turned to the owner, indignant and said: “I am not a tourist, I am a traveller!

Traveling is a wonderful thing, regardless of how one chooses to approach this experience. People travel for different reasons. Whether it’s seen as a chance to break away from the daily grind and treat oneself to a holiday in a resort, sipping cocktails by the pool, or the package tour traveler trying to squeeze in as many countries as possible on a 14-day tour, or the backpacker on a quest to find out what’s out there – they are all equally legitimate. As far as I’m concerned, travelling is more educational than any college or university classroom. It offers you insight into other cultures as well as a better understanding of your own, while opening your mind to different perspectives which is the basis for understanding human nature on the whole.

Of course there are those vacation revellers who don’t seem to take advantage of these benefits and are more concerned with drinking themselves silly or getting the souvenirs and photographs of places to check off their list of countries done, than learning anything about the places they’ve visited – or themselves, for that matter. It seems like such a waste.

This having been said, what I find even more ridiculous are the self-proclaimed ‘world travellers – not tourists’. Oh you know the ones I’m talking about. You’ll see them in the backpacker cafés and hostel bars. They tend to seek each other out, comparing stories, trying to outdo each others tales of 18-hour trips in the back of a pick-up they hitched a ride with and shared with 6 other people and 4 goats because it was free, thus making them, presumably, savvy travelers. They wear their experiences of self-flagellation with pride, as if it should merit them some sort of traveller badge of honour instead of the title of village idiot, when for the equivalent of 50 cents, they could have taken a local bus and made the same journey in ‘relative’ comfort in three hours. It’s these same travelers who don a sarong and go into the market on Sunday with the notion that they blend into the landscape.

Should you encounter these savvy sojourners, they will be instantly recognizable by their first words to you in the form of a personal anecdote of their most recent travel hardship they had to overcome, letting you know that you’re dealing with a real traveler, not just a tourist. This is usually followed up with an expectation to ‘top that!’ You’ll also notice they wouldn’t be able to tell you the names or anything about any of the passengers they shared that 18-hour trip with as they were too busy trying to impress their captive audience talking about themselves. You may, however be lucky enough to avoid such an encounter should you not look a seasoned enough traveler to be worthy of comparison, say – for example, if you’ve had a shower and you’re wearing a clean shirt.

Attempts to ‘go local’ by foreigners probably won’t be met by ridicule or disdain, but our traveller often confuses the locals’ peculiar fascination of the novelty of the dread locked, sarong-wearing tourist, with being accepted as an “International citizen” that belongs nowhere and everywhere at the same time. If you are a visitor from another country, you are a tourist – plain and simple. That’s how you are seen by the local population in the place you are visiting. You may disagree with me about there being no difference between a tourist and a traveler, but make no mistake; you are the only one making the distinction between the two.

There is something, however to be said of acceptance. I have lived in Indonesia for the last 13 years. Though my situation is a bit different to that of a person traveling through, I never presumed that I would ever really be able to belong in a society I was not born into. My husband is Balinese. I go to temple and to ceremonies in traditional Balinese dress. I do it out of respect and as they say ‘when in Rome…’, not because I think it will make me any more Balinese. I know I look like a bule going to a costume party and I often used to feel a bit ridiculous. I have fair skin and hair and blue eyes. No matter how well I speak the language and despite my new-found ability to ride side-saddle on a motorbike in a sarong, balancing offerings on my head, I’m simply never going to blend in. When I made the decision to make this island my home, I had to come to terms with the fact that I will be 90 years old walking down the street, having lived here for 60 years and I will undoubtedly get a “Hello, toureeest!”, and that nothing I could ever do would make me seen in their eyes as one of their own. Not that I ever wanted to be Balinese, I am Canadian. It’s part of who I am, but no one wants to be seen as an outsider in their own community. Then a funny thing happened…

Due to work obligations, my husband and I had moved to Southern Bali. On one of our trips to my husband’s village, our neighbour in his village, from across the road asked me “Kapan pulang?”, which means ‘when home?’ I responded: “malam Sabtu” (Friday night), thinking she was asking when I was leaving to go home. She started laughing and said “Inggak! Kapan pulang?” It was then I realized she wasn't asking me when I'm going home, but when I got ‘home’ to the village – my village. It was at that moment I understood that acceptance into a community is achievable and that people will accept you for the person are, not because you’re trying to be someone else.