Sunday night, the eve of the Balinese
day of Nyepi, Hindu new year’s day (more about that later), the
entire population poured onto the streets of Ubud for the
long-anticipated parade of the Ogoh-Ogoh. (saying something twice in
Indonesian makes it plural). As far as I can figure, the idea is to
build the scariest looking float you can muster, and make as much
noise as possible in the hopes of scaring all the demons away. Then
on Monday, Nyepi, everyone is as completely quiet as possible, so
when the demons come back they will think Bali is uninhabited and
leave it alone for another year.
I was as excited as the next person to
witness the festivities. As morbid of a concept, it was an
exceedingly gregarious occasion. (The master of ceremonies said the
kids hadn’t slept for the last three days preparing.) It reminded
me of our Halloween. So, each street/neighborhood had its own floats
– usually a small one in front made & carried by the children,
followed by the big one carried by 15-30 men, followed by a gamelon
(traditional percussion choir) playing as roucusly and loudly as
possible. They also all had neighborhood pride t-shirts they all
wore. cute. The floats processed one by one down Monkey Forest Rd. &
all gathered in the soccer field where everyone, EVERYONE, mingled &
gawked & snapped photos. Then they proceeded back up Monkey
Forest Rd. to the main intersection in front of the temple where the
MC talked about each one, they jumped & spun in circles, hooted,
hollered, scared everyone (mainly that the power lines would come
down), and went back home. I also heard that traditionally they are
burned that night to exorcise the demons, but i had left. I also
didn’t see/smell any fires. Our taxi drive Gede said that people
had been putting so much work into making them that after the parade
they would keep them in front of their houses for a while. “Very
Bad Idea” he said.
My second favorite thing about the
whole affair was seeing all the many and varied families out in the
field. I shouldn’t have been, but was surprised to see that it was
at least half foreigners. And a LOT of mixed Indonesian/foreigner
families, with all their adorable kids. All the Balinese were dressed
in traditional clothes, even all the teenagers, with their lip
piercings and sarongs. Loved it.
My MOST favorite thing was watching the
designated Guardians of the Electrical Wires. These were guys (as you
can probably guess) with very long bamboo poles that were forked at
the top who ran before the Ogoh-Ogoh and lifted the wires, while the
float carriers ducked sometimes almost to the ground until the
yelling crowd around indicated it was clear, whereupon they would
hoist and bounce and shout until the next wire. The fact that none of
the monsters went up in a blaze of glory was a miracle itself. And
the pause every 10 meters or so duck under wires didn’t seem to
dampen anyone’s spirits either.
I’ve just put up a few pics – it
takes forever to load them, so you just get a few at a time.
