I’m a Canadian traveller, who has currently fallen in love with Indonesia and it’s little island of Bali. I have been living here for 7 months now, and will be moving to Australia on my next adventure.

 

I started in Turkey, then travelled Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Vietnam. With my favorite places being Istanbul, and the Turquoise coast in Turkey. As well as Lombok, Indonesia this beautiful quiet island in Indonesia filled with the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen, hillsides, rice paddies, and the best surf around!

 

I got stuck here for the love of Bali’s people, and their strong Balinese traditions and culture, which is rooted from Hinduism. The friendliness of the people along with the surf, the beaches, and those magnificent rice paddies filled with palm trees and temples has become a part of me.

 

Bahasa Indonesian, is one of the first languages amongst my travels that I have actually learned and had the confidence to speak everywhere I go. Like I said, Indonesian people are one of the friendliest people on this planet, and when it comes to trying to speak their language, there is much appreciation from them.

 

One of the major reasons I have stayed here so long is the volunteer work that I did. Even before starting my trip I knew I had to give back in some way or form.

 

When I fell in love with this island and the people in it I knew I would be helping out here! I walked into this small organization in Penestanan, a village near Ubud that my boyfriend and I were living in. I soon began teaching English to the kids in surrounding villages, in their compounds (Balinese homes are situated in a compound like structure, where multiple houses of the family are segregated within a compound) as well as within Penestanan. The kids would gather at BCP (Bali Children’s Project) or amongst their compounds. I taught in 3 different villages around Bali.

 

I also taught English to Pre-K, Kindergarten and Grade 1 kids at their schools. I also taught Grade 1 up to Grade 8 kids within a school. Now that was an experience, teaching teenagers, I soaked it all in and enjoyed all of it despite some kid’s unwillingness to learn.

 

Lastly, I ended up getting knowledgeable in nutrition and whole foods living in Bali, which ended up leading me to become a bigger part of BCP. I composed and implemented a nutritional curriculum that I taught and will be used in the future by BCP and its schools and children it supports.

 

I also held a nutritional workshop for around 40 parents, and another workshop for children.

 

I got to see the children of BCP that were not financially stable, and needed sponsors to support their education. That was one of the most memorable things amongst my volunteer work. From this, I ended up raising money for a little girl named Rossa, whose parents didn’t have enough money to support her education.

 

I will never forget the stories, faces, families and the living situations I witnessed that were apart of their lives. It’s another side of Bali that no one sees. But at the end of the day, they were happy, and that really gave me a new perspective in life. It opened my eyes to everything in this World, society, companies, our food production, cultures, war, and the list goes on. I sort of woke up from the illusion of society.  

 

So at the end of the day, I have realized and witnessed that this World is a magnificent place, and the things in this wonderland should be kept simple! So here I am now, writing what I have learned, and the experiences I went through that impacted me, to hopefully impact my readers as much as it did for me.