There I was...

There I was... parading with my BAPPEDA office friends and thousands of Sasak at Nyale Festival this Wednesday in Kuta. Nyale takes place every year in February in commemoration of the Princess Mandalika who, a long time ago, when faced with a cohort of enamoured princes who all wanted to marry her, threw herself into the ocean off the rocks at Pantai Seger.

She thereby forestalled the possibility of war between the rivaling and potentially discontented parties, and ensured that she would be there for everyone and always... in the form of the waves that roll in and out of the beaches bringing in swarms of Nyale worms once a year. The Nyale worms are the corpses of little spaghetti-like oceanic creatures that, after spawning out at sea, get washed onto shore on 1 or 2 days a year. If you think about it, geo-biologically speaking, Nyale is really quite a remarkable event. A good Nyale harvest (the Sasak like to wade into the water at dusk and collect the worms) is also said to herald good agricultural harvests for the coming year.

Note the mascara on me.

We were all lined up and ready to stroll in procession But we had to wait two hours in the sun until the Vice-Buppati arrived. The costumes were very hot. When I saw the masquerade of small kids strolling through the finish-line some 3 hours later, I felt so sorry for them, they were so tired. Although we were all pretty tired due to the heat and long wait, the parade was actually really fun. There were even parashooters falling from the sky.

I grew up in the Rhineland, and the Nyale parade yesterday and the vibrant energy on the street reminded me a little bit of the "Karnevalszug". But yesterday, I couldn't help noticing comically, how we were more people in the parade than we had spectators.