Karma

It was the last day of the conference in Bali.  I was expected to be there throughout the morning session, and there was a talk I was interested in seeing just after lunch.  There was an opening between 14:00 and 17:30, I think it would be just enough time.

Right at 14:00 I went back to my room, swapped out the professional attire for climbing attire, booked a motorbike taxi (Grab), and was on my way by 14:30.  The climbing gods were smiling upon me because the ride was about 30 minutes and gym didn’t open until 15:00.

At 15:00 on the dot, I jumped off the back of the motorbike and headed toward the wall.  There was no one there.  The entire gym is all outdoors, there were two speed routes, a few sport routes on an overhanging wall, a couple of top-rope routes, and a large spray wall for bouldering.  There were about a dozen crash pads stacked nicely beneath the boulder wall.  I wasn’t sure if I should jump on the routes or lay out the boulder pads, and by 3:30 I decided that no one was showing up.  Since I didn’t have anyone to belay me, I decided that it would be fine to lay out the crash pads and boulder.  As I laid out the pads, a little crag dog came out to join me.  So here I was bouldering in beautiful Bali with no one around but me and my new friend.  After working some routes for a little bit, five young local kids showed up and just watched from a distance.  They spoke a little English, and I speak no Indonesian, but we all speak pretty fluent Human.  

I could tell that they were too shy to approach me, so I offered an olive branch and asked/gestured to see if they wanted to try.  That is all it took; they all came over to investigate what I was doing.  We figured out the names of colors, numbers, and all of our names, simply by pointing and gesturing.  It was a lot to remember, but I do remember that “Saya” means “Me” and “Anda” means “you”.  Once we started communicating, it turns out that they actually know more English than they were letting on but, they were a little timid regarding their use of a foreign language.  I found out that this is their 1^st time climbing, they like playing Roblox, durian, strawberries, and mango are their favorite fruits, and their ages range from 8-10.

It was so fun to get them on the wall, despite not having any shoes.  Two of them were naturals, and I hope they get the opportunity to keep practicing.  Every time I made it to the top, they all cheered (I never felt so recognized).  By the time I had to go, they had included climbing nomenclature into their vocab.  Chants of “let’s GO” and “You got this” were cracking me up as I struggled through a crux.

I had to leave in order to get back to the conference by 17:00, and about 15 minutes before I left, some teenagers and a coach showed up to start training.  Three of them train speed and three of them train bouldering.  They were laughing at the interactions between my new friends and I, especially when they heard these little 8-year-olds passionately yelling, “Lets GO!”.  I chatted the team up a little, but my ride showed up and it was back to the conference!

Once back at the hotel, I ran up to change back into conference attire and then ran back down to the ballroom for the awards ceremony.  I was just on time, and despite earning a new flapper on the boulder wall I was ready to clap in support of all the winners.  Sitting at a table with no expectations, I hear my name called.  I won the award for best presentation within my category (Future of Higher Ed) at an international conference.  I was taken by surprise, the guy sitting next to me had to tell me to go accept the award.  After the fact I was offered several notable invites in countries ranging from South Africa to Thailand.

While the award was very gratifying, it pales in comparison to the connections I made at that climbing wall.

In Bali, the notion of Karma is widely embraced, and if that idea is correct, then I must have done something right along the way, because this was a good day!

Climbing and Philosophy, it doesn’t get much better than that!