Black Magic.

Not long after Ken and I arrived in Pejeng I remember having a chat in the kitchen with Ketut and Wayan about eachothers scars, you know how you do... "wow you think thats big look at this" yaddah yaddah.

Well I remember being so shocked at the traumas these guys have been through and that they were lucky to survive, with very basic medical help.

 When Ketut was 7 years old a large branch from a tree tree fell on his head and knocked him unconscious he was in a coma for 7 days and when he woke up he had amnesia for one month and a left leg that would'nt move it took him one and a half years to recover and then his mother died. Another story that I will get back to later..

The happy couple Yannik and Ketut.

After Ketut had finished his story he turned to Wayan and said show Mum your back, Wayan would only reveal a tiny glimpse of his back to me and I was shocked at the scarring that I saw I tried not to gasp and he didn't want to talk about it.

 I couldn't believe it when Ketut later told me that when Wayan was one and a half years old he pulled a pan of boiling hot oil from the stove on to his back. He was in hospital for two months and lucky to be alive, the first month was touch and go.
He never takes his shirt off or goes in the pool, only once ever has he had a swim, when we had a party for his daughter Putu's 4th birthday. I was so shocked when Wayan turned up in a wet suit!!!! Now I know why.

Mr Cool....The Big W.

Now if you think those stories are tough get a load of this....
Tartik the village English teacher, was eight months old and crawling when she stuck her thumb in an electric socket and blew her top digit right off!!! Her parents never took her to the Drs and and she told me that people would complain about the horrible smell whenever they were around her!
WT-!!!! Can you believe it?

Thats not all, I could go on and on about this amazing woman I'll just share another quickie, whilst working with her I found her pronunciation of some English words just terrible, and one day she turned around and said to me "very difficult Mum tongue problem" well shit she poked her tongue out and I could'nt believe it, what should of been a nice pink tongue looking at me was nothing but a little beige stump! When her teeth came thru as a young child she would chew on her tongue and as she got older it became a habit and in the end she just chewed off half of her tongue!!!!

Tartik
Not a good photo of her thumb but I just love the way Kadek is looking at her crazy mother.

Ever since I've been coming to Bali (and thats thirty years now), I have heard the locals talk about Black Magic, and it's quite common for people to have Black Magic put on someone they're not happy with, it's as natural and as common as attending ceremony but just a bit more discreet.
Anything that goes wrong here is either due to the Gods being not happy or Black Magic.

Now getting back to Ketut, when he was young his family had a falling out with another family over their rice fields and Ketut's mother became sick and eventually died when he was ten years old.
 Everybody in the village said that Black Magic had been put on Ketuts family.

Twenty years later a very successful Ketut took ill and every day became weaker and weaker, he developed black marks up and down his arms legs and went from Dr to Dr only to be told that they couldn't find anything wrong with him. Yannik was so stressed, she felt strongly that Ketut was dying as he had lost so much weight so she took him to a "paranormal Balian" (psychic witch doctor).
As soon as they walked into his room the paranormal began to feel sick, he said that the black magic around Ketut was so bad that he couldn't help him and they had to go to Nusa Dua to 'paranormal specialist" so off they went.

The specialist gave Ketut a healing and some herbal medicine and after the first two visits Ketut started to feel better, on the third visit the paranormal said that someone had planted a voodoo glass vial in Ketuts home and it had to be found and destroyed or he would never recover and someone else will become ill or die.

 Now here's the tricky part. This paranormal had never met Ketut before, he lived miles away, yet he told them exactly where the glass bottle was, he said it was approx 3ft in from the front door on the left hand side and buried very deep nearly one meter down and Ketut could not touch it or go anywhere near it. So that afternoon our Wayan was called upon to do some digging. Now Black Magic is not taken lightly here and Wayan was very scared but he knew he had to help his Uncle (Yeah everyone's related here its a bit like Tasmania) so many offerings were made.

Smoko whilst making offerings.

 Before he started to dig Wayan had to break up all of the concrete slab that Ketut had laid for an entry to his house, and sure enough after digging down very carefully Wayan found this tiny glass vial completely sealed about 3 inched long with no top and no bottom and inside was a 6 inch nail bent compeletly in half touching tip to tip!!!!!!!!! Frickin amazing how the hell did that happen??
With in a month Ketut was well again, all of their life savings gone ($700), paranormals don't come cheap.
The story doesn't end there, years later the Black Magic persecutor's son became sick and the Drs didn't know what was wrong with him and he too went to a paranormal but he could not be helped and he died at the age of 33....Karma?

Now the weird thing is Yannik only told me this story last week and she said "Mum know man do black magic?" I say "What?" She said "Mum take photo of man when she come to Bali I show you" and there in my photos is a picture of a happy smiling toothless Balinese man and when I looked closer I was surprised to see a large black shadow above his head I had'nt noticed this before, you know like an orb but black not white...go figure.
Yannik said to me "be careful Mum some Balinese smile on here pointing to her face but not in here pointing to her heart".

Can you believe I took this photo of a stranger, and Yannik knew all of the time and didn't say a word until last week and why last week?  I guess we are becoming closer and Yannik trusts me as I'm hearing more and more stories which I'm keeping for you...later. I'm sure you'll understand why I can't post the photo in this blog, but his photo is in blog post ...12.

So many stories to tell you but I would like some feedback, sometimes I hold back on stuff because I think maybe my blog is too long. If you think this story is too long please leave a comment I would really appreciate it as I want to encourage readers not discourage them and I need your honesty.

Much love to each and every one of you.
J

Cooking lesson Sunday was guacamole and chocolate cakes.