The Bali Bombing

Baby Jane intends to go to Bali shortly for an A' Capella workshop - her new big thing - and has asked me to join her.

Well, no, I won't.  Not for the workshop.  But Bali?  Bali is another story.

I've never been to Bali.  Always refused to go because it's such a touristy-type destination and I already have one of those:  Fiji!  My beloved homeland! And choosing Bali over Fiji always seems a betrayal because I'd rather my holiday dollar went into the pockets of people I know and love.

But the film "Eat, Pray, Love" changed all that and the Bali segment gave me a longing to see the place, and being there with Baby Jane would be a special kind of bliss, even if she is off the whole time with that singing-thing!

Naturally, thinking about Bali has raised all those memories of the 2002 bombing.  It came very close to home because a couple of Keith's students lost their mothers at the Sari Club.  Mind you, their mums had gone off to Bali because that's where lots of Australian football teams were on a R&R bonding-holiday, and these were ladies who liked bonking footballers and who were in competition to see who could score the most, and even had their check-lists of intended intendeds ready before they left ... so it wasn't like they were Solid Mumsy Types and those students were already raising their siblings on their own.  But still, losing your mum is a pretty hard thing to do ...

... which made it particularly shocking that two days later, all our students, including Keith's other students in that particular class, were saying "Oh, shut up about the Bali bombing already!  We're sooooo over it."  And that's even before the girls had their mums'  bodies returned!

Gosh, for me that was the final straw. I was soooo detesting Australian teenagers by that time, and you can see why I was glad to finally get out of teaching!

If you've never seen what happened, here's shots of the aftermath:



However, over the years, I've met several folk who were actually there.  Mostly, they were the ones who now talk about "getting a strange feeling" that something bad was about to happen and so returned from Kuta to their hotel.  Or the mother whose kids were out partying in Kuta who, back at the hotel, was suddenly overwhelmed by "the strangest undirected panic" "something to do with my kids being in danger" and who raced into Kuta to drag them out of the Sari Club, embarrassing them completely, and they were all back at the hotel, complaining profusely about their mother's craziness, when the bombs went off.

However, I have also met a fellow who was actually in the Sari Club when the bombs exploded and his story is the strangest one of all.

What he says is that everyone now says that the song "Murder on the Dance Floor" was playing - and it has almost become part of the mythologising of that awful night - perhaps because of the irony - but that isn't what actually happened.

He says that, yes, this song was playing, and he was out there on the dance floor, dancing away ...



... but then that song ended and Cher's "Do You Believe in Life after Love" started ...



... and suddenly, for no reason, although this was one of his favourite songs, he took Cher in aversion and felt an urgent need to get away.  And he was at the bar, with solid wood in front and lots of people off to the sides and back of him, when the bombs went off.  First the one across the road, at Paddy's Bar, which made everyone in the Sari Club freeze.

But almost immediately the world changed and there were explosions and flying debris, flying people and smoke and fire all around and in the brief silence before the thatch caught fire and the screaming started there was Cher's voice singing "Do you really think you're strong enough?" and the thought "Bugger it! Yes, I am!" galvanised him into action.

The incident, he says, has made him very thoughtful about Fate and WHY!??  He says a lot of people left the floor when that song came on and they all survived while all the people who loved Cher and who stayed dancing or who raced out, cheering, to dance when that song came on, were all the ones who died.  He says Loving-Or-Hating-Cher must be the strangest reason Fate has ever chosen for selecting who would live and who would die! 

And so he had lots of questions about it:  Cher as Kali? Cher as Shiva, bringer of death?  It's all something he has a hard time getting his head around anyway.

But I think it's all chance, although it's strange that some folk had premonitions and others didn't, included two certain ladies with their check-lists ready to be ticked off, determined to beat the other in seeing who 'got the most'.

Now THAT is a scary, scary take on FATE!!!