July 4 - Tonight we walked back to the shore before dinner. Cows with wooden bells pressed upon the dark blue black of Indian Ocean night like black forms. ding dong ding.
July 5 - I won’t shower till the water is cleaner than I am so I didn’t shower for days
July 6 - We saw the fiercest monkey tonight it was chained to a log in the backyard and would taunt us with his 3 inch fangs and launch coconut shells in our direction. The monkey had already killed chickens that had crossed its path. To deter further needless deaths or injuries the owners wanted to tranquilize it to grind his teeth down. They ended up using pliers to rip its fangs out.
July 7 - Akbar left today. We went to a remote river and burned the syringes and medical waste and washed the car.
July 18 - The local homosexuals spoke English very well. However their propositions were a bit disturbing. "Can we smoke your penis?"
July 19 - Met a lunatic with two monkeys. He showed us the bottle of charred bones of a monkey he had kept over a decade ago. "That monkey was smart; it would guide the cattle round my house." The man, who looked like Robin Williams carried the monkeys on his back, talked to them, and bathed them in the stream that ran by his house. He then invited us into the house and told us our fortunes. From his cabinet he took out a very worn old parchment with odd symbols and numbers neatly charted. Then he looked at our names very carefully and said Ben, Adnan, and I we were all angry men... and added that I always think about nonas (girls). He predicted Suroso to be mild tempered
July 22 - We played soccer with a group of five-year-old kids. I inevitably stepped and ran on mounds of fresh manure generously placed on the field
July 23 - We stopped the car during an exhausting ride and threw rocks at a tree to relax
July 24 - The neck of my guitar broke. Bad karma day as tempers flare. Nobody spoke in the car.
July 25 - Stopped in a smoky signmaking store. One 9-year-old boy was smoking cigarettes talking about chicks and drinking tauk (an alcoholic beverage made from from palm trees). We exchanged jokes, songs, and stories.
July 26 - Adnan was very keen on the lady in red that worked in the hotel. I sketched her. She had run away from her parents in Kalimantan because they forbade her to marry her boyfriend
July 27 - Hiked up a mountain in Tana Toraja Highlands before dawn. I passed a freshly made foul smelling gravesite up the slopes. (The hang dead bodies in caves there). I saw the clouds pass through the valley below and colorful red breasted bird dipping and playing in the air
July 28 - Met up with a couple girls that escorted me to barbecued fish restaurant. I had five tuna steaks at a quarter apiece. Afterwards they brought me to the house to meet the very large extended family and offered warm Coca-Cola
July 29 Learned Boogey songs as 30 Boogeymen encircled me as I was playing near a truckstop. They showed me their characteristic strumming pattern. I later slept in the restaurant. Earlier that afternoon, I had taken a walk in the rice paddies. The blue purple sea of dusk atmosphere covered the glowing green lucent rice patties. An unprecedented yellow moon slowly emerged above it all
July 30 - Stalled in the hot immigration office trying to renew our work visas. We are shuffling papers, passports, and various documentations from place to annoying place.
August 3 - Stopped at a enormous serene amphitheater of layered rice paddies. Rows and rows of rice grew quietly before us.
August 4 - I lay on the beach and watched two stars so intently they started to wiggle. I then I wondered how many other people had looked at those same two stars and saw them wiggle like that
August 5 - Stopped at a waterfall. By chance I hiked up a little bit away from the waterfall. When I looked back I could see a rainbow ring around me
August 7 - The day before my flight to Bali, I gave my guitar away to a family who operated a hat making sweatshop. We talked of cultural differences and religion. Earlier that night I went to Ujung Pandung's equivalent of Coney Island. It was closed but along the way I saw the most incredible sunset. Two mysteriously dark rays were cast from the horizon
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