Hari Raya Nyepi Eve

Okay. Tomorrow is the "Day of Silence" or "Silence Day" or "Day wherein you mock me because being silent for a day is my nightmare" (eh-hem), which means today is "Silence Day Eve" and as such, I thought I'd provide some context:

Raya (day) Nyepi is the celebration of the Balinese New (Saka) Year. On Raya Nyepi, the island observes silence. The Balinese Hindus follow a ritual called the Catur Brata Penyepian, roughly the ‘Four Nyepi Prohibitions.’ These include: amati geni or ‘no fire,’ amati lelungan or ‘no travel,’ amati karya ‘no activity,’ and amati lelanguan ‘no entertainment.’ In other words, a day where you sit, in silence, and do nothing. And when the sun sets, roughly around 6:50 p.m., it's lights out. 

Deep sigh. Deep.Sigh.

But that is tomorrow. Today is Raya Nyepi Eve, which is cool. Village meeting halls known as ‘banjar’ and streets feature papier-mâché effigies called Ogoh-Ogoh, built throughout the weeks leading up to the Saka New Year. Youth groups design and build their mythical figures with intricately shaped and tied bamboo framework before many layers of artwork. The Ogoh-Ogoh is a symbol of modes of nature that form the malicious characters of living beings. They are purposefully grotesque, demonic, and often obscene. They are carried in parades around town (all the towns on the island, it happens everywhere in Bali) accompanied generally by drummers and proceeded by girls carrying bamboo. Then all of the Ogoh-Ogoh meet in a field (or a beach, depending on where you are in the island) and burn the Ogoh-Ogoh to exorcise the demons from this year before beginning a new year. 

I found two parades and here are the pictures: 

This is the one I saw on my walk to school this morning that led to my asking my guru why there were weird demonic paper-mâché  guys on bamboo sticks. TG for the internet. 

I'm not sure that the full size of this one can be captured: I stood and watching about two dozen men move and once, rip down, telephone wires to get this Ogoh-Ogoh onto the main street. I also have a video of the crowd cheering when (if I knew how to input videos here, I would, but alas, you're going to have to ask me to send them to you and/or just wait for me to come home to see them), at long last, this Ogoh-Ogoh was freed. I was almost nearly standing in the exact wrong place as it almost toppled over, but, fortunately, it did not. 

This Ogoh-Ogoh doubles as an Avatar. 

An elephant Ogoh-Ogoh and his piggy-back riding buddy. 

Even little kids make Ogoh-Ogohs.

This Ogoh-Ogoh took them probably forty-five minutes to get properly positioned before they were able to walk with it. The band was impatient. The girls waiting with their red banners were impatient. The white people taking pictures were impatient. And then finally, the dragon Ogoh-Ogoh took flight. 

Dragon Ogoh-Ogah from the back. 

I'll leave the rest of my thoughts re: Raya Nyepi for later if for no other reason, to give me something to do tomorrow.

But! Something else that's happening tomorrow: a total solar eclipse! Look: 

Tbh, I'm not a scientist, so idk what this NASA nerd chart means other than the internet tells that a) it will be a rare full solar eclipse viewable basically exclusively in Indonesia, b) it will be a partial solar eclipse for other Oceanic countries, c) that America won't see it at all, and d) nothing bad has ever happened to anyone who directly looked at the sun as it disappeared behind the moon. I win!

Finally. Something to look forward to on Silent Day. jk. Erm, sort of jk. 

Lastly, at class today, Okta told me that "kamu sedang apa?" (what are you up to?) gets shortened to "sendang apa?" because it's obvs you're talking to one person. Which now, thanks to the internet and the cool kids, its now abbreved to "aps?" In other words, I can abbrev in more than one lang. I knew this day would come and I'm so v. pleased.

I took this picture on my walk home because it was pretty. And tomorrow it will be quiet and pretty.