CATEGORY 114 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST Huge arcs of Pacific brine are pushing dangerously close to the fragile cluster of driftwood, bamboo, snorkel gear and salvaged odds and ends he has fought to defend these 30 years – his little home and empire on a slip of Bali beach. The ocean, swelling with lunatic pulses, is toying with the little shack as a full moon rises and the next generation of fisherman yell and laugh and throw javelins at each other along the warm bubbly brine. Just one heavier sigh from the sea, and all will be lost. Five families depend on this little arrangement of wonky planks and rental equipment – one of the few truly freerange enterprises left in a world where the gentle art of local business, unentangled enterprise and simple exchange are being regulated and debted out of existence. You know that equation. Made, the fisherman (Mar-dey), is watching with a gentle, bloodshot eye. He’s seen all this before. And bigger tides. He’s ridden already much worse and more dangerous waves of destruction, he says, sent out by the bank. By the debt vampires. By the matrix of bloodsuckers who prey on honest, fragile, unindentured subsistence communities like his. And have been on the hunt for a decade now. I am nervous. The fishing boats have been pulled right up under the frilly petticoat of forest that hugs this little cuticle of sparkling black sand. Deck chairs have been hauled way into the woods, temples have already gone down as the beach is but gently but firmly pulled back into the sea by a deep and swallowing swell. The northern corner is completely gone. A drop-off one meter deep has been carved out of the beach, a trembling edge that is collapsing over itself as inch after inch of the world we’re standing on is wiped out before our eyes. The little shack, heavy with a canopy of neon night cloud, is alone on a last promontory of stable sand. Its driftwood walls are shining with moonglow. It’s foundations, Made says, are nearly two meters deep. He dug them himself. He trusts them. Shouldn’t we panic? I wonder. Run around and dig, bolster, sand bag, or something? Made suggests two Bintang beers, a packet of Gudang Garam clove cigarettes and maybe some chips. “We will sit together and watching the night. Better this: just sitting together, enjoy the everything: the people and the beauty here. This is not my real problem. We will have more dangerous nights with the sea.” He makes off for supplies. I huddle under a beach umbrella, in soft rain, and consider the difference between fighting for survival against an entire ocean, and surrendering to trust based on generational relationship with the forces of the universe you’re born in. The difference between the creative and destructive rhythms of the sea, and the global financial construct, with its strategic and predatory distribution of profits and loss. Made is a ‘simple’, uneducated generational heir to a lifestyle and livelihood that created healthy, generous, warm hearted and secure human beings with beautiful teeth and strong nervous systems for thousands of years. It has taken less than two decades of ‘development’ and capitalism to tear that lineage to shreds. From debt to dental trouble, the fishermen are in crisis, as are the farmers, priests, mothers, men and babies everywhere – not only in Bali, now that this new kind of wild force: consumerism, has raised its golden head, and shown its sharpened teeth all across the debt-free world. There’s illness. There’s alcohol. There’s cavities, depression, infection, obesity, anxiety, jealousy, disputes and shame where there was once harmony, abundance and a culture built around sharing and REALITY BITES Man Vs Sea King Tides are nibbling at the fisherman’s mortgage again. Jade Richardson By Jade Richardson
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTc3NDk3Mw==