1968-69: Cool!

Bali:

From my mother’s diary: “December 1968: The color of Bali is extraordinary. Religious ceremonies with all the village walking to the temple – women dressed in batik print wraps, printed tops, towering head-dresses of fruit and vegetables, intricate palm decorations and creations made without benefit of Scotch tape or staple gun, Gamelan band with gongs, drums and xylophone-type instruments. The procession sand festivals are so bright and rich and contrast with a life lived close to the earth; bathing, laundering in streams, working in hot wet paddies, carrying towering loads on heads. Religion is life. A hard god must be appeased at all times by rituals.” House blessings, night processions, monkey dancing, even a funeral, when we saw them, we joined them.

Ngorongoro crater, Serengeti, Africa:

From my mother’s diary: “February 1969: The crater is filled with wildlife living side by side in lush meadow grass with a large lake in the middle. We got a Land Rover with guide and went down into the crater at 9:00am. After a box lunch in a forest clearing, Dede had her first marriage proposal from a Masai moran (he already had one wife). Daddy offered to trade Sarah for one of their spears, but he wanted two girls for one spear.” I recall that we were lucky that the guide rushed in to interpret, resulting in a good laugh and our freedom. Imagine how a handshake and a hand-hewn spear in the African bush could have changed all our lives…

We were living in the far-flung cultures of the world, the astonishing pages of National Geographic realized. It was startling, enchanting and cool!