3 minute read
Cultural Awareness
Cultural Awareness >> An International School with a Balinese Spirit
Every year, for 24 hours, the airport on the busy tourist island of Bali is closed. This is the day that the Balinese people celebrate their New Year, known as Nyepi. This is the day of silence. No traffic, no music, no TV, no lights….no school! Even the mosques respect this day and their minarets are silent. The day before Nyepi is another matter: it is a day of noise, parades, music and monsters. Huge statues called Ogoh Ogoh are paraded through every village, accompanied by hundreds of people and loud music. The Ogoh ogoh monsters symbolize the evil spirits surrounding us and they are paraded around and ultimately set on fire to rid these evil spirits from our lives.
At Canggu Community School (CCS), every class in the Primary School collaborates with the school gardeners to make a class Ogoh Ogoh for our very own monster parade. This is one of the annual traditions of the school. Parents, students and staff gather in the Primary playground to watch the Ogoh Ogoh parade on the day before Nyepi. The huge statues are carried by the students themselves, dressed in traditional Balinese clothing. The gamelan orchestra accompanies the parade. Each year musicians from the local community come to work with the Year 5 classes to learn the traditional accompanying music.
This annual school event is one example of the value the school places on the host country, its traditions, rich culture and talented people. When you walk into CCS you know you are in Indonesia. The school buildings include traditional Indonesian architecture and there are four Balinese temples on the campus. These temples are used for various ceremonies throughout the year, most notably for the celebration of Saraswati, the Goddess of books and learning. All staff, regardless of religion, are invited to the ceremonies. The most recent ceremony on the campus was the cleansing ceremony, Melaspas which must happen for each and every new building on the campus. The new secondary staff room has recently been completed, and before it could officially be used, this cleansing and purification ceremony had to take place. .As Director of the school it was important that I attended. One of the rituals I had to perform was to sit on a coconut three times. I am still unclear as to the symbolic meaning of this very difficult maneuver, but suffice to say it was of importance at the time and so I tried my very best. The building is now cleansed of any bad spirits and is in use.
These unique Balinese religious practices do not just happen on special occasions. There are offerings made to the spirits daily. Decorative baskets with food, flowers and even sometimes a cigarette are placed in strategic positions around the school. Yes, CCS is a nonsmoking campus, apart from our ancestral visitors!
Students at CCS come from over thirty different nations, and they are fortunate to live and go to school on this wonderful island and be immersed in its magical culture. These unique ceremonies and daily rituals contribute the student’s education and enrich the lives of the whole CCS community.
By Beccy Fox, Director, Canggu Community School
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