March 19

Well, can't quite believe it has only been 9 days in Bali. Just left the Green School yesterday where we did a weekend family workshop. The green school is an environmental school all built handmade out of bamboo. It is set in the jungle of Bali near Ubud and has almost 300 students from grade K to 12 from all over the world. Our weekend was led by 3 young indonesian instructors that shared so much of their local knowledge such as curing Martin's Bali belly with young guava from the tree, green coconut water and coca-cola (east meets west)!

We took part in sessions on making chocolate straight from the bean, hats out of coconut leaves, offerings such as the ones the Balinese use to place flowers on and give to the gods, played soccer and played in the mud!

We slept in yurts and one night had to scream out for help with an extremely large spider on the bed....Wayan just came in and picked it up confidently and took it away! The next day he told us his father used to have him eat these spiders as medicine. This guy could also climb the coconut tree in seconds and cut down a coconut for us to eat. Another highlight was Mr.Cobra who took us a night jungle hike searching for snakes and chameleons, knocking them out of trees with long sticks of bamboo. This guy has become immune to snake bites by being bitten as a child and now apparently if the snake bites him the snake will be the one who dies from his anti-venom! Silas and Orrin held these amazing creatures with his help and instruction.

It was hard to leave after 2 short days, especially the boys who had made some really fun friends. We set off to Amed on the east coast of Bali for a couple of nights. It is really rainy here (we came in rainy season) but our goal was to do a bit of snorkelling so this morning we caught a bit of sunshine and jumped into the sea.