Photographs I Never Took: Made and Nyoman. Mas. Bali. 2016.

I stayed in Mas with a couple called Made and Nyoman. Their two teenage boys attended school in Kuta. I spent the week with them, sitting with Nyoman as she wove leaves, and learning Indonesian from Made. After I left their home, I realised I never took a photograph of them. Feeling guilty and upset to have not captured the memory of them, I didn’t know what to do, and felt their memory would be lost forever without photographic proof. This essay is a written photograph, images captured in Google Docs with a brain that could be likened to a disposable camera — each reproduction of the photograph will be printed differently. What you see through the lens will not be what is reproduced, it will be altered, and you never know how it will look.

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Made Glenok wore glasses for reading and carried an Indonesian-English phrasebook. A tall man, who in his older age is stooping slowly. Bandy legs, flat wide feet and a patience. He is a komodo dragon wood carver. His rough hands slapping me on the back each time I learned a new Indonesian phrase reflected the years spent carving. He was kind, and spent a lot of time with me on the balcony discussing rituals, trees, butterflies, geckos, or eating papaya. He noticed small things — he brought me a cushion to sit on when I sat on the hard tiles. He was shocked to see me standing in the rain.

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Made and I went for a walk to the rice fields behind ‘Bali Classic’ tourist venue. The sun was setting, heat haze rose from the rice paddies. We walked along pointing out different vegetables and ducks, standing to one side of the small paved path to let a scooter past. The path hit a bend and we stopped. Kites in the sky silhouettes against thick rising cloud, the tip of a mountain in the distance, rabble of ducks feasting on bugs in paddies. Pink cloud stillness, rice paddy wonder.

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Each time I spoke to Nyoman Glenok she would be weaving plants for ceremonies. She fed me treats each morning, and each evening we exchanged the night-time ritual in Indonesian. Nyoman was short, a round face and glittering eyes. On the last night of my stay I developed a sudden fever. Fever rising, I went to Nyoman to pay for my stay and explain in pidgin Indonesian I had a fever. Translating took effort, the sadness I felt to be leaving their company overwhelmed me, and I burst into tears. Nyoman held my face in her hands and kissed my tear-stained cheeks.

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Nyoman smiled with her voice. A grin spreading over her face was always coupled with an onomatopoeic noise, the smile a voice of it’s own. “Nyooaaaa” she would smile, wrinkles around her eyes doubling, eyes sparkling, grin on her face. This smile greeted me when I finally emerged from a somnambular fever lasting 14 hours. The fever hit late the previous night, and I awoke, hot, sweating and in terror, to see a cockroach climbing over my ankles. I flicked it away and slid out of bed onto the floor and lay, a sweaty pool on the cold tiled floor. I lay there until my sweat dried. I looked up to see the cockroach creeping over the roof, over the mosquito net, looking for another way in. ‘That cheeky little shit’ I thought, lying limply on the tiles. In the morning Nyoman’s smile greeted me “nyooaaa.” She smiled in triumph to see her patient finally broken free of fever and standing, blinking in the mid-morning light.

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Nyoman would sit at the table and weave leaves into small baskets for canang offering. She weaved during the afternoon and into the evening, sometimes with help. Everyday new canang offerings would be placed in front of the temple, shrine, doorsteps, dozens of tiny baskets were made daily.

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Made and I began morning English-Indonesian lessons over my morning cup of coffee. We would sit on the balcony, Hano the dog nearby, with our translation book and pens and paper. Made taught me phrases, and I would write each phrase down. We would then discuss the words within the phrase. He was a very patient teacher and rewarded with a big smile and thumbs up when I grasp the phrase.

He taught me useful phrases, or at least, phrases he thought I should know. “I am enjoying my time in Bali” and “I like Bali coffee”. This ‘Bali positive’ tilt on the lessons meant I learned to say I liked everything about Bali. Was this deliberate, Made? At least he was correct to teach me positive phrases, they have all come true throughout my time here.

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When I fell sick, Made force fed me coconut water. Three litres of coconut water. He kept pouring the water from the coconut into a drink bottle, and sat with me, anxiously watching me slowly slip. He cut the coconut open, and proceeded to spoon feed me coconut flesh. I felt my ego take a hit; I was sick, not infantile, and persuaded him that I could still feed myself. He did not seem convinced.

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Made would wake early each morning and sweep the yard. I would lie in bed and listen to the scrape of the wicker brush over tiles, grass, stones. Stepping outside, Nyoman would be walking about the compound with the canang offerings, incense smoke trailing behind her.