Homecoming to The Village

There are sooo many holy days in Bali, and so it felt like that. This new year we celebrated two holy days called Galungan, on the January the 4th, and *Kuningan *on the the 14th. It means we had to allocate some money to celebrate the holy days for making offerings to the deities and ancestors. That's the reason my family and I went home the village where my parents in law live. Things are less expensive in the village.

It's called copper bananas, my father-in-law told me.

My parents in law are farmers. They grow vegetables, bananas, and pineapples. There are also some other trees growing at the house yard, such as sugar apple, mango and dragon fruit. They also breed some chickens and pigs in their farm.

The sugar apple tree growing in the house yard

A sugar apple fruit.

In making offerings for the celebration, we use many kind of fruits, especially bananas. Don't ask why, it's been passed down through generation. Well, bananas are not a problem in the village, because there are a lot of them in the farm. Besides using for our own needs, my parents in law also sell them to the neighbors, and give them away to friends.

When you don't have bananas, (and flowers or leaves) you can actually buy them in a local Bali market, but on holy day the price can be triple of the normal day price.

My parents in law also make traditional cakes to sell. Usually on holy days, people will order cakes from them. These cakes are then used to make offerings for the celebration.

Preparing the traditional cake called "rengginang" or "begina".

Cooking "dodol", another traditional cake.

Stirring the cakes for hours.

So, things were more economical in the village that we some time 'escape' to there when we need more stuff for celebrating holy days.

Err, I forget to mention we need a lot of coconuts in our offerings as well that I had to peel twenty one of them.

Thanks for visiting.