Dear All,
It feels like months to me. I've settled as well as can be expected for the first week in any Southeast Asian country (meaning that everything is fine except that my body is mad at me for flipping everything 12 hours forward and feeding it strange food that it hasn't figured out how to process yet).
The owner of the restaurant I am going to learn at, picked me up at the Airport and took me to her compound. It is a walled in acre of land with a complex of six or 7 buildings all linked together by covered, open walled connecting rooms and outdoor pathways. There are trees, orchids, and staff everywhere (I counted 5 including their driver). There is a lap pool, recessed lighting all over, and two little shrines (apparently all family compounds have these). We even watched the first debate by satellite. It is spectacularly comfortable.
I'm staying in the guest house where their daughter(now in school in the states) used to live. It is a rather large duplex with its own full bathroom, air-conditioning, wi-fi (but I left my laptop home), a flat-screen TV with a DVD player and a full-sized bed. Unfortunately, I won't be living here very much longer. It is too far from where I'll be working. I'll have to rent a place like all the other white folk and join the soiled masses. For now though, I feel like I'm cheating or something...but I am most certainly not complaining.
Outside of the compound, things are a teensy bit different. Out there, it is developing nation business-as-usual. You know, open sewers, feral dogs, shanties, entire families of 4 or 5 driving home on a single motor bike. Seriously, they should have an HOV motor scooter lane.
I've been getting shepherded around by my host so I can learn the lay of the land and get acclimated. Basically, we hop in her shmancy new car and the driver takes us wherever she needs to go. With four pretty successful restaurants, a catering service and another restaurant and spa on the way they are able to live ten times more luxuriously than an upper-middle income family in the states while earning about the same amount of money. It is astonishing how well they live, amidst the hovels.
A plan for my stay seems to be emerging. I will, most likely, be working at a restaurant called Cinta (Pronounced "Chinta") Grill in Ubud. The chef there is named Getsweety and is a nice 30 year old guy with a slightly messed up foot from a botched childhood surgery. It is an absolutely lovely place on a busy shopping street with open air dining (covered) on both sides of a square site with a rectangle of open-air dining (uncovered) in the middle. The kitchen is small but serviceable, with a 6-burner stove, two woks, a barbecue grill, and some counter space.
So far, the four, count them, four days I have been here have been like this. I wake up at an ungodly hour and listen to my body yell at me because it doesn't know what is happening. Then I have some breakfast and plan the day. We have been spending our time with a variety of restaurant related activities such as visiting the office, sit in on catering meetings that "might be of interest", tour her other restaurants, or stay at home and work on recipes for the new Thai restaurant she is building called Siam Sally's. Then, at 3 each day, we go to Cinta Grill to hang out with Getsweety in the kitchen perfecting the recipes for that same new restaurant. I get to watch/help out in order to get used to the kitchen, staff, Getsweety, food, language, etc. It is a lot of fun because not only am I learning a lot, I get to taste all the new dishes and give feedback. It seems that I will have a few-days a week schedule at Cinta to begin with, plus occasional stints helping to cater events. It will be good to get experience in both of these aspects of the business.
So, overall, Bali is pretty bloody sweet. Compared to India, Bali is 3rd World Lite; just like the rest of the 3rd world only better for you. Even though my time in the lap of luxury is drawing to a closed I'm not bothered by that at all. I'm excited for what is to come. I'll do fine.
Lots of Love,
Alex
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