Ahhh...Neighbors

We’ve only been in Bali three months, but have had ample opportunity to acquire neighbors in the various places we’ve stayed. For the most part, we’ve been insanely lucky, meeting people we have things in common with and enjoy and remain friends with even after we’ve moved onto the next house we stay in. First, we had Jon and Sarah with their daughter Alula. Our houses were practically on top of each other as we could see and talk to each other from our windows. They were rather good sports and never minded my toddling son wandering around half naked, even when he walked straight into their house only to squat and pee on the floor.

In our next place, we met quite a few families we have enjoyed endlessly, but the neighbors we remember the most were a couple that came only for one night. They got in late afternoon, while we were at the pool. We didn’t actually see them arrive. But we heard them around 6:30. At first, it was subtle, that sound you think you hear but you have to crook your neck for a second and pay attention until you for sure hear the sound of other people having sex. It wasn’t much a stretch – as in Bali, many houses don’t actually have walls. You have curtains you pull across for nighttime privacy, and mosquito nets that hang over the bed. Mosquito nets and curtains, it turns out, don’t do shit to block out sound.

Kent was making dinner. “I think the neighbors are having sex” I said.

“Good for them.” Kent said. The sound of furniture scraping the floor got louder. The moaning and groaning got louder. It was no ordinary sex; it was Olympic marathon sex. It entailed moaning, groaning, yelling, screaming and I swear, at the end of two hours, they both were speaking in tongues and maybe even whirling like dervishes. Then all was quiet on the Western front.

“Impressive.” Kent said. I half expected him to hold up an Olympic score card grading their performance.

Instead, Fyo was our payback, as it was then that he discovered the two soup pots in the lower kitchen cabinets. He discovered he was strong enough to not just pick them up, but throw them on the brick floor. Again, thanks to the lack of walls in Bali houses, we safely assumed that all the neighbors heard our son playing his own soup pot version of the gamelan. He slammed them, threw them, and kicked them and then threw the lids after them.

“At least, we can lie and say it wasn’t us, but the temple next door.” I said, which we did except to the friends we knew who wouldn’t disown us.

Our house now sits in the middle of rice paddies. We do have neighbors; we have a house next door to us owned by some Australians who generally keep it rented out. Most the next door guests stay quiet as they come on holiday. Until this week.

This week, we came downstairs and as we savored our first cups of morning coffee, swore we heard a punching bag. Kent stood on the edge of the wall to peer over the fence.

“They are. They’re boxing. One is holding up those pads while the other one hits them.” It wasn’t even 7:30 in the morning.

I saw Wayan the groundskeeper for the house the next afternoon.

“I am so sorry.” He said. “It is noisy. There are so many of them. I think 15.”

“Fifteen people are staying in that house?” I asked. Dumbfounded. I didn’t think it was that big. “Do all them box? Or dive bomb the pool?” The dive bombing in the pool was our afternoon cacophony.

This afternoon I took a short walk with my son. We stepped aside as a parade of people walked by. They were white; I swore I heard an Australian accent. I eyed them down the path and peered to see if the beginning of the parade indeed walked into the neighboring house. It did. I stopped one of them.

“Are you staying next door?” I asked one who looked like kind of fatherish.

“We are. You’re here.” He said pointing to our house.

“Yes.”

“I hope we don’t wake you.” He said.

“Oh, we’re usually up by the time the boxing starts.” I said. He laughed.

“It’s them – the girls. They do it every morning where ever we are. Yell over the fence if it’s too loud. We kicked them outside, then still heard them, so we walk the loop.” The loop took an hour and a half to walk. I briefly considered my own hour and a half morning escape, but discarded the idea. I prefer to spend that time in my pajamas until I finish my coffee.

“You guys on holiday too?” He asked.

“Yes.” I said, “Until September. And you?”

“Two more weeks.” This was one of those moments I struggled with my composure. I am rotten at lying or trying to cover up my motives. I'm sure he could see in the lines on my forehead that I was only asking to find out when they would leave. I didn't want to be one of those witchy neighbors who demands library quiet, and I'm not - I love the sound of children playing. I don't even mind the sound of children swimming and splashing. But the punching bag? At seven am?

Inside, I told Kent I met the neighbors.

“Oh?”

“Two more weeks.” I said. As if on cue, the dive bombing in the pool began followed by the death metal playing (Can you call that music?.

“Two weeks? I thought it would just be a few more days, but two weeks?”

Two more weeks of punching bag pugilist antics, and dive bombing in the pool.

Oh, heaven help us. This probably is one of those things that we have to lump into our karmic debt.