Tropical Storms

Excerpt from "A Patch of Paradise" By Gaia Grant September 2002

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"A Patch of Paradise"
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Although Bali has generally remained a relatively idyllic island almost cut off from the rest of the world, there are also often storms on the horizon. Every time Indonesia goes through a new stage of transition, we feel the impact to some extent.

There have been years of local, national and regional dips and troughs from a number of different factors. Each dip has shown how fragile paradise can be – especially so far as living in Indonesia is concerned.

We could literally see the storms coming early in our stay when the sunsets on the west coast turned a fiery red. As soon as the international community had a whiff of the problem – a smoke haze from forest fires created by illegal loggers in Kalimantan – there was outrage and concern. We only discovered later that this sort of disaster was nothing compared to what was to come…

From environmental destruction to violent uprisings, we were to see the full range of possible disasters. Often these were from a distance, as if the storms were in the same region but passing by on a far ridge, threatening to swing by our own little patch but often skidding past instead. Sometimes, though, we were in the middle of the storm, and we felt the impact of the fury on our island.

Try to imagine the changing moods of a storm: with the foreboding heaviness of black clouds looming, the strange green-grey colours signalling a darkening mood, the occasional claps of thunder that suddenly scare you and shake you to your bones, the flashes of lightening that put everything in stark contrast, the deafening roar of wind and rain. That's what living in a dramatically changing country can be like.

We have continued to enjoy our sunny beachside existence on a day-to-day basis, but there have often been those threatening clouds on the horizon. So much in the background has been unpredictable for so long.

So many times since we've been in Bali, and in so many ways, Indonesia has been a black smudge of conflict on the world map. So many times we have felt the pressure to simply give up and go home. But we have survived the turmoil before, we have become determined to hang on.

 

 

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