Ubud, Week 1

Where are all of my friends. 

This first week in Indonesia has been a real transition.  After 25 hours of traveling, speaking to no one except for Oka, the driver who picked me up from the airport, I arrived in a private villa in Ubud, Bali and found that there was still no one to speak to.  It was obvious that I was somewhere magical but without friends/family to share it with,  I didn't know what it meant.  The first few days had up and down moments of acceptance and extreme discomfort but by day four, things were exponentially better.  After frequenting the trendy Yoga Barn studio for Vinyasa flow, attending an evening of Tibetan Meditation, strolling through the Sacred Monkey Forest, traveling to the beaches of Bali's West Coast, learning to ride and renting my very first moped, going to communal movie showings, spending a day cycling through the Balinese countryside, and sitting for copious amounts of time in a range of high-end Ubud cafes, I can confidently say I have the following new friends/contacts:  a 59-year-old expat para-sailor from Mexico, a mid-20s real estate agent from Moscow, an Italian gynecologist, a middle age Australian couple from Perth, a San Francisco salon owner, and a very-pregnant American blogger living in Laos committed to the challenges of raising a bicultural toddler with intellectual disabilities and championing all-natural birth.   

I am grateful for these people in ways that surprise me.  I'm not sure I've ever gone so long without interpersonal contact, and its absence has done wonders for what it means to me in even the smallest forms.  Learning to be truly content in your solitude is critical, but nothing makes sense to me without human engagement.  

I am also learning to calm down my agenda.  No matter how many countries you go to and how many times you hear people say it, leaving the U.S. has its challenges.  Especially after year one of graduate school where it felt like every minute was dedicated to something that I had to do.  Now I wake up in the morning without complete plans for my day.  And I'm almost ready to be okay with that.  Almost.  

Lastly Jaime, the University of Denver law student who will also be doing research in Tentena/Poso this summer, arrived in Ubud last night and will travel with me to Sulawesi early tomorrow morning.  She's awesome.  I'm so glad to have her.  We're both totally uncertain of and excited for whatever is lying ahead for us.  Pictures are being taken but picture uploading is super slow.  I'll do my best to post whenever I have internet capacity to do so.  

Write and tell me how you are!  As you maybe picked up on this post, I miss my friends and family. 

-Hanna