My fathers middle name is Bonaventura. In Spanish it means good traveler. Like me, my father is true to his name. Exploring the globe I have since my very first months of life. This crave for exploration, brought me to the island of the gods. Or otherwise referred to as the island of Bali, Indonesia. With my Dutch roots I was enlightened by the vivid culture of the volcanic island.

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Here I found my love for the ocean. Swimming, surfing, and diving through its waters I soon felt at home on the island and it’s oceans. There is no way to compare the Dutch ways of living and culture to that of Bali. I accepted this fact from day 1, and I’m happy that I did. It let me explore the people, religion, beaches, mountains and everything in between for what it was. On the island of Bali I was destined to finish my secondary education. My father had found a new job here and one could say we settled like a stone. So much so, that after the first year on this tropical island we decided to stay instead of returning. So I went on to make more friends, journeys, and soak in all the culture I could.

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Now that I have returned back to The Netherlands I am so grateful for surfing. Having this current past-perspective, I feel so aware of having had surfing as a tool to exercise, relax, explore, and feel life to the fullest. Surfing has brought me to places I would have not ever seen otherwise. Through the jungle, mountains, and oceans I went to find perfectly peeling waves. These wave-rich destinations were filled with local culture. Small markets with the most intense smells of spices, animals, and local kretek cigarettes. Strangely this common sight as a traveling surfer became a very normal one with a slight passing of time. We humans adapt so quickly. Old trees, bicycles, rain, and an organized agenda were the things I would specifically describe as me, and what surrounded me before I moved to Bali. It is the thing I expected I would reflect on as ‘normal’. However, my entire concept of normal was wrong. Nor am I a psychologist or someone with a strong opinion. I think especially because I don't have a strong opinion I was able to adapt. One might say something completely opposite as another, but having a space in between to accept both sides and analyse is where I found my peace of mind. 

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This tool of positioning and adaptability was not a gift at birth or something I took years to practice. It has nothing to do with me, and solely with the positioning of where I was during these five years abroad. It was a true mix, or in Bahasa Indonesia ‘campur’ of opinions, problems, people, desires, and passions. A scene of nothing I knew before. In Bali the practise of farming rice is very common. Even though it is decreasing due to growing tourism it is most definitely noticeable when visiting the island of the gods. This practice goes back hundreds of years. The view of such a rice plantation in Bali is overwhelmingly beautiful at any stage, but what makes it even more beautiful is the sustainable system that makes all Bali’s terraces operate with perfection, as it's been doing for centuries. This system works its way from the three large volcanoes: Agung, Batur, and Batu Karu to feed several large rivers with fresh rain water. These rivers have countless divergents which form small canals called ‘subaks’. Such an irrigation canal is the last form of transportation for this fresh and nutrient rich water for the rice paddies. As illustrated on the image of the two subaks below we see a split of two subaks. You and I might not notice this at first sight, but the right subak is carefully modified to feed the perfect amount of water to a farmer's rice paddies. These water dividers are so closely regulated that there are laws and rule books to decide who gets what amount of water.

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This system is overlooked by many different regulators from the farmer to the royal family of Bali. It is such an intricate system that is hard to describe and has many connections with Balinese Hinduism as also seen by the small temple at the point of diversion of the two subaks. I see this system of water, rice, and cycles as a resemblance to adaptability. A firm system written and regulated by law and government, but capable to adapt with any change of weather or almost any sort of sudden alteration. This spectacle of water, canals, and rice is the way I would describe my time in Bali. I have been positioned in such a raw and natural environment where nature decides what is best. Being faced with constant change is where I found rhythm. Just like the change in the rice cycle. I would find a flow within all this chaos, where my peace would be at its best.