Cast of Bali Characters
‘Cast of Characters’ in Ubud who appear regularly in these emails.
Janet de Neefe
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Founder and director of UWRF (and the Ubud Food Festival) and owner of Casa Luna, Bar Luna and Indus restaurants, venues of the festival. She also has the Honeymoon Guesthouse and Honeymoon Bakery in Ubud. Married to Ketut Suardana, who heads the Saraswati Foundation that runs the festivals.
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Wayan Juniarta (Pak Jun)
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Journalist, and activist in his youth, he is now Editor of the Jakarta Post’s Bali section. Pak Jun has run the Emerging Writers program of UWRF since its inception and I worked closely with him from 2009. One of the great interviewers and speakers at every festival, especially on media and Balinese-themed panels. I love to sit down with him over a Bintang and a kretek every time we can grab a few moments from the festival.
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Petra, Santhi, Dewi and Rama, and Dadong
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Jasmin’s Canadian-born mother and three older siblings who live in Bali. Petra founded IDEP, an environmental/permaculture foundation, and later established her eco village Taman Petanu outside Ubud where the family now lives. Petra’s American mother, Barbara, universally known as Dadong or “Granny” in Balinese, became one of my dearest friends in Bali, sadly no longer with us. Petra and Josh separated in 2006 before Jasmin was born, but Josh remained a constant presence in Jasmin’s babyhood, gradually taking on more of the parenting role as she became older.
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Alex and Yoga
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Alex was a student of mine at the University of Western Sydney in the 1990s and has remained a close friend. She and her then Indonesian husband, Yoga moved first to Kalimantan and later to Bali. They have three boys, Indi, Yani and Alby who all call me Nenek Ton- “Grandma Toni”. Passionate environmentalists, Alex and Yoga established a recycled wood business in Bali, Kaltimber, and built an amazing house of old timbers on the southern fringe of Ubud called Podok Langon. I spent some time there with them on every Bali trip. The family has played a major part in my Ubud life, and now that they are living back in Australia, are still an important part of my Sydney life.
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Diana Darling
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An American expat who has lived in Bali since the 70s, once married to the filmmaker John Darling, well known for his documentaries on Bali. Now long married to a Balinese, Diana is an author of the highly acclaimed novel set in Bali, The Painted Alphabet, and an editor. I had heard her speak and seen her around in Ubud long before I got to know her, which happened when she was appointed editor of some of my Lontar translations. Now we meet up every time I am in Bali over dinner, Bintang and kretek. We never run out of things to talk about.
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Jean and William
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American /English expat couple - founders of Threads of Life and the Bebali Foundation dedicated to preserving traditional weaving and dyeing processes across the archipelago. Their gallery and shop in Jalan Kajeng is one of the best in Ubud. Great friends whose work I admire enormously. Their Balinese family, the family of the delightful Pak Darta, have become friends of mine too and I often send people to stay in their lovely losmen behind Threads of Life, Ruma Roda, and often eat at their roof top restaurant.
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Ibu Agung
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Josh’s pembantu (household helper) and my friend over many years. She kept Josh’s house beautiful on her bi-weekly visits. She had originally worked for Petra when I first met her in 2003, and once Josh moved out she made sure she had a few hours a week to devote to him in all the houses he lived in later. I remain in regular touch with her and her family.
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Ketut Yogi
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A driver I first met when he looked after a couple of Swiss friends on their visit to Bali in 2011. He has been a most loyal and reliable driver to me ever since and has become a good friend. He has now built a lovely villa in his village Payangan outside Ubud where I stayed with friends before the 2019 festival. We remain FB friends while I am unable to get to Bali.
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Gab
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A friend of my niece’s and for a time Josh’s girlfriend who lived and worked in Bali and was very much a part of our Ubud lives in those early years. She, Jasmin and Josh all share a passion for animals and took in many a stray dog and cat.
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Janma and Lili
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Janma was Josh’s good mate over all the years he lived in Bali. She is originally from Australia, but has lived in India and Indonesia all her adult life - now married to an Indonesian. Ace scrabble player- beats me every time. Her adult son, Puri was also a good mate of Josh's, and her young daughter Lili was one of Jasmin’s playmates. Janma ran an embroidery factory that employed Ibu Agung, alas closed now due to Covid’s effect on the Bali economy.
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Stacy and Roman
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Stacy is an American whose silver business brought her to Bali regularly where Josh met her. She and her son Roman, 18 months older than Jasmin, moved to Ubud in 2014 to be with Josh. They returned to the States two years later.
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Siobhan and Jumaadi
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Siobhan, a classmate of Alex’s at UNSW, and her Javanese artist husband Jumaadi are friends from Sydney. When Siobhan moved to Bali to do her PhD research into Balinese classical art in Kamasan village, East Bali I saw them both there and in Ubud. Siobhan often volunteered at the festival over those years.
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Stephen DeMeulenaere
and Ochie Anita "Ganesha" |
Stephen "The Millionaire", a Canadian, was in East Timor at the same time as Josh, and like Josh, later moved to Bali. Years later he and his Sumatran wife Ochie founded the excellent Cinta Bahasa Indonesian language school in Ubud. I have had a great interest in the school’s development over the years and have lunch with Stephen and Ochie every time I’m in Ubud – always lots to catch up on.
Good friends, Anita and her poet husband, Ketut Yuliarsa own the wonderful Ganesha bookshop in Ubud that is a hub in Ubud for all of us booklovers, both visiting and expat. Its rare book collection on Bali and Indonesia in general, is unrivalled. Ganesha also runs the Books For Bali project, supplying donated books to remote schools in Bali's' poorer areas. They sell second-hand English novels for book-hungry travellers and expats, and also stock Lontar's collection of translated Indonesian literature. Anita and Ketut live between Ubud and Sydney but are almost always in Ubud at Festival time. |