In Reply to: Masa Inn posted by calm on Saturday, 26. January 2008 at 07:30 Bali Time:
about my friend Wati. I met Wati and her boyfriend Bob at our hotel in Legian. Wati is a lovely lady, average looking, 30 something smiling round face. She comes from a small village near Blitar in Java. Bob from New Zealand is her boyfriend of the last year. I suppose he might be fifty if that. He treats her nicely and sends her what money he can each month. To supplement this money she works as a baby sitter for various people in Denpasar. I wonder if they might get married one day and like to think they probably will. Nice people.
Wati doesn't speak a lot of English and so, because I speak a little Bahasa Indonesia, we often chat in and around the pool. Bit by bit her story unfolded with details from Bob as well.
When they met Bob told me Wati was "on the game" but now she is his regular girlfriend she doesn't need to work on the streets any more.
Wati's husband Budi was killed in a motor bike accident on his way to work about 5 years ago. Wati was pregnant with their 3rd child. After his death Wati's mother in law and her young brother in law who was still at school tried to work out what to do. They had a small piece of land and grew vegetables which Budi's mum sold, and still does, at a roadside warung. She also sells eggs and coffee etc. Not enough to feed them all and send Adi to school. If Adi was to leave school maybe he could get some unskilled labouring work and in the short term they could all eat. Long term this would not a good solution because without schooling young Adi will never get a job that pays more than peanuts.
This is what they decided. Adi left school for six months and got a labouring job with the same boss for whom his brother had worked. Wati had the baby 2 months later and when he was weaned at 3 months of age she left to find work in Bali. As soon as Wati was able to send money home they planned for Adi to return to school.
Wati was to stay in the room of a friend from the village. Ayu had a job as a waitress in a restaurant in Legian and her family relied at least in part on the money she sent home each month. Sometimes Ayu brought home extra money for the family. She always told them that friendly and generous customers gave her money to send home because they knew her pay was poor.
When the pair arrived in Bali Ayu explained that she had only had the waitress job for a very short time and that the money was barely enough to feed herself and rent a shared room let alone to send money home so after getting to know a few of the girls on the street Ayu began to work as a "kupu-kupu malam" that is, a hooker. She thinks her mother suspects where the extra money comes from but says nothing.
Wati couldn't even get a start as a waitress. Times were quiet then and staff were being put off not taken on and so predictably Wati became one of "the girls".
It wasn't so bad, she told me. Most of the men were quite nice to her. Often she would have one "tamu" for a week or maybe more and she would stay in the hotel with him. She sends money home and Adi is in his last year at school and doing very well. She is proud of how clever he is. Her two eldest children are at school and the little one (Budi) likes to help his grandmother on the stall and will collect the eggs carefully without breaking any.
So, there you have it. My friend Wati's story. She tells me it is very lucky that she has Bob as her boyfriend because he is a "very kind man". Also lucky because she is now over 30 and it's hard to get so much work on the streets now she is not so young.
Much of this was told to me as I mentioned in and around the pool and maybe you wouldn't object to Wati being in your pool now that she has been promoted from hooker to girlfriend. I suppose Bob could have always left her in the room while he swam when they first met so that other people wouldn't have been offended by her presence.
If the couples you mention were actually having sex in the pool then I agree, that is offensive behaviour, although not confined to hookers and their blokes from what I have seen. If not then I really think you should walk a mile in somebody else's shoes before you ban them from the bluddy swimming pool.
True story, names and personal details changed.
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