Bali

The sadness of the people of Bali continues. This week the popular Air Paradise, one of the carriers of Australian tourists went through the hoop. Their Australian runs already halved, petrol increasing, the numbers of tourists plummeting, what else could be expected. That two of our family were about to wend their way to Bali again for a very brief visit, and got caught up in this is a bit sad, but the sadness of the people of Bali is appalling,

It is beyond most of us to understand what these mad bombers think they are doing, or who they are hurting, but one thing is clear and that is that, as usual, the most vulnerable will continue to be most vulnerable! The people who will really pay the price are not the suicide bombers, or the opulent tourists, it is not the government in Jakarta, it will be the woman who has two jobs and two small children.
This woman, who is not postulation, but someone I actually talked to in a restaurant, lives in a small inn with her parents; she gets up in the morning to do her duties in the inn, get her kids off to school, and prepare meals for the evening. At 2 p.m. she gets on her 250 cc motorbike and drives into Legian where she works in a restaurant until 11 p.m. and then drives home for the 45 minutes it takes to get her to her bed; and then it all starts over again. She thought my daughters were beautiful. (I do too), but I shuddered because she admired their white skin. She too, was a fine looking woman, I was rather surprised by the reverse racism... If that is not too harsh a word.

I gave her 50,000 rupiah (less than 7 dollars) as a tip, seemingly generous, but pathetically so.

Does she still have a job? Or does she survive on half an income? Who really suffers?