In Reply to: More wheelchair friendly comments jbr posted by Holladaze on Wednesday, 7. December 2005 at 20:52 Bali Time:
Yes I agree the experience can be very different elsewhere. Lombok. less touristy, wasn't always a good experience. For example the lady who laughed scornfully as she held up her son to show us said to me," look at my perfect son,and now look at yours.You have nothing." There was no mistaking her intent to wound. There were others who said similar. The woman on the local bus who loudly told everyone on the bus what she thought of a person such as my son. (Thankfully my son doesn't understand Bahasa Indonesian)
But there were other experiences which far outweighed the above.Two of them:
Simple things like the lady who looked at my son with compassion as we waited on a dusty road on a very hot day, hoping for a dokar to come along. (there were no cars or motorbikes in this village) This woman gave him fruit and water to quench his thirst. She very firmly waved away my offer of payment.
And then there were this group of children. For the first two days of our stay they gathered before and after school to call out to my son, " stupid. stupid."
On the third morning i was ready for them. As they gathered outside our room -we were staying in a very basic room in the middle of a rice field, rented out by a homestay-I listened as they called out
the usual "stupid, you are stupid" to my son. I told them they were the stupid ones to be speaking to my son this way. They stopped immediately on realising I'd understood their language.
The next day they were back. They were back with a small bouquet of flowers they'd put together for me. Every morning before school, another bouquet of flowers. They asked for my son to go on walks with them. And they climbed coconut trees, then cut open the coconuts, just for him. On our last day, as we walked down a street to get to a waiting car, boys were appearing at windows and doors everywhere. Calling out to my son and running out to give him small goodbye gifts of treasured packets of potato chips etc.
I have a photo of them all that i will always treasure. :)