On Saturday, August 10th, our motley crew of EGL’s departed from seven different states in the US to meet up in Ubud after roughly a day or more of traveling. Despite the jetlag and late arrival for most of the group, we woke up the next morning bright-eyed and eager to explore the Island of the Gods. That morning, we had a very insightful orientation from our volunteer coordinator where we learned about Balinese culture and the various traditions and ceremonies that Balinese people partake in, followed by a short orientation regarding our temple reconstruction volunteering project.
Later that day, we decided to explore the village that we were staying in to gain a glimpse into the culture of the Balinese people surronding us. After speaking with a local taxi driver, we discovered a serene river located at the bank of a beautiful Hindu temple, where we enjoyed some time in the water. Afterwards, we witnessed a prayer ceremony on our way out. As we began heading home, we ran into some local 10-year olds playing volleyball, and they eagerly encouraged us to join them in a friendly competition. To our surprise, the kids were quite talented and ended up beating us with perfect jump serves and pretty impressive spikes. The day was followed with some time relaxing by the homestay’s pool and a nice Balinese meal prepared by the kitchen.
The next day, we began our first day working at the temple sharply at 9am. Our project has roughly 30 volunteers in total from all over the world, including people from England, Lebanon, France, Portugal, Italy, China, India, and Spain, to name a few. Our work mostly entails laying new bricks for prayer use, painting walls, and mixing concrete to build a wall around the compound. All of the volunteers are incredibly friendly and we had an awesome time socializing and getting to work hard under the sun for 4 hours.
At the end of the work day, we decided to explore the Sacred Monkey Forest.At the sanctuary, we got to see hundreds of monkeys interacting with their environment and some of the people visiting as well. The highlight of that trip was witnessing a monkey snatch a water bottle from Robbie Greenberg’s hand and proceed to shower himself with the stolen merchandise. After the sanctuary, we explored downtown a bit and enjoyed an authentic meal at a cool restaurant. All around, we’ve had a great start to our trip and we’re looking forward to sharing the rest of our adventures with you guys! Stay tuned for more updates!
EGL Family Abroad 