last updated 03-20-2010
English Explanation

OOOOM PIET- where, when, why, how and what

what is Oooom Piet- a charity or what?
and why and how did it start?
(to be skipped if you don't like meandering thoughts)

Oooom Piet is the, right now, most active branch of the "16 september stichting", a small family foundation that was started in 1994 with the 16 september pers in order to publish a short 'novel of ideas' by Wil Mannesse, "Bevrijdingsdag", about Liberation and the liberation of some people in and the city of Heerlen, in the Southern part of the Netherlands- when the Allied Forces liberated that region a number of months before the rest of the country shook off German occupation.
The 16 September Foundation tries to approach misery, illness and death in playful and creative ways.16 September is a family birthdate- and the name Alexander/Alexa lives on in the original Alexander Nicolaas Klusmans (gret)grandchildren in Leiden, Salem USA and Johannesburg South Africa.Playing with ways to combat pollution, poverty and urban decay and focusing on children and education are important parts of the family adat- customary behavior.The family, especially Mieneke Klusman-James and the four young children having to cope in the Dutch East Indies when Alexander Klusman's son Jean Klusman was a POW in Japan during WW II enhanced this trait.
Oooom Piet was created in order to give the initiator of the foundation, Lexa Jaffe-Klusman, who had to leave Indonesia when she was four, a chance .to develop new connections with the country from which she was uprooted 50 years earlier. Indonesia was at that time still referred to as 'the Indies' in her colonial family. All members of the Klusman-James family survived WW II, but the struggle for independence right after was gruesome. So they left for the Netherlands in early 1946 and learned to live without servants and in a cold climate.
It was very good for Lexa to go back there on a vacation and find the Indonesians were very open to friendship and collaboration with a woman with such a background. They clearly appreciated her efforts to avoid the traps of neo-colonialism, her eagerness to learn their language and to get to know their way of life, her willingness to share money and responsibility- her dislike of condescension. Having money in relative abundance remains a problem. Ah well- we have ro accept limitations- even if that is hard!
Oooom Piet tries to help, but refuses to become a charity. We try to channel funds to people in Indonesia who need them badly.through trade - whose rules we sometimes play with by deliberately overpaying or undercharging. In our little shop nice customers have frequently responded by insisting on paying more than our regular price.
When money is not just handed out, but people work or supply goods so they earn what they get, they can feel absolutely free to use their money whichever way they see fit. If someone is ill or needs school fees it is likely that it will be used to pay for medical care or education.
But we have often found priorities in this country with such different social and religious structures are only understandable to us after the fact. Who would never have thought that the large sum needed for a tooth filing ceremony or for having a ngaben, a ritual cremation, now rather than wait for the cheaper group cremation, is what is felt to be needed most urgently? We ourselves, after more than a decade of intimate contact with people on Hindu Bali, were surprised, but very happy that the loving daughter had felt free to spend her hard-earned money this way, so her mother need not stay under ground and have to dwell with the netherworld's demons any longer.
In our native Indonesia the colonial period is referred to as "the period of the Dutch occupation". We don't quite agree with that term, but our Indonesian friends have a point. The colonial period was certainly a period of racism and unfairness, with power and money firmly clung to, if need be through military violence, by the small Dutch minority.
Discrimination was made into a fine art. In my family we call that 'counting the droplets'. Not only the color of one's skin, also the thickness of one's accent in Dutch, the exact level of one's education and occupation were counted. People who were more obviously of mixed blood got half the wages of so-called totoks, purebred Dutch.
Race is not merely a social construct- it is a construct that socially has many tangible consequences. To this very day, and more and more so, it sometimes seems, in the Netherlands and the Wealthy West. Sharing is harder when there is less to share- or is it? The less money our friends have, the more willing they seem to help and be helped by friends and family. It is the ex-poor who seem to have the biggest problem with sharing at times- the way some people who once were discriminated have a harder time with 'others' living in their country.
What did I say about a family emphasizing education? Schoolteacher's blood runs thick in our veins- my apologies!

Oooom Piet- a non-profit family business

"Oom" is Dutch for uncle, and Lexa inherited the starting capital for the Oooom Piet import business from her real Oom Piet, her mother's brother. It started in 1997 with a small stand at the Tong Tong Fair in The Hague, then still called the Pasar Malam Besar. That fair is a kind of kumpulan, a big annual get-together of people with roots in the Indies-Indonesia, and of those somehow interested in that country.
Oooom Piet fitted right in with the other stands in the Indonesia Pavilion. But it also stood out- people stopped to count the number of O's in our name and the colorful Balinese kites drew many customers- as did, even that very first year, our specially designed jewelry and clothing. Flour sack shirts, earrings with fan coral picked up on the beach. And the bebek rice spoon- a replica of the duck spoon Lexa's mother, Mieneke, got from her and oom Piet's brother Frits who had gone back to Indonesia after the war and brought it from Bali in 1949. Lexa also has a little wood-carved deer he brought, and she remembers roasting his green Indonesian coffe beans in a frying pan.
Objects carry histories, and people often have told us they are buying stories at Oooom Piet almost as much as objects.
In 2008 Rosanne, a major in visual cultural anthropolog at Leiden University, made an in-depth portrait of Oooom Piet and his niece as an example of 'material culture'. If you want to hold on to your roots it is nice to have objects that connect you with your country of origin, and her documentary shows how many customers come and water their roots by buying a creepy-crawly toy for their children or grand-children, or honor their ancestors by wearing traditional Indonesian clothes to their wedding..
People also enjoyed our low prices for these authentic goods. Oooom Piet does not want to be a charity- it is a non-profit business- and it is good to know that money spent on something nice to give away- or to keep and enjoy, is also helping people in Indonesia earn an honest penny.
We had Indonesian helpers and Dutch friends and quite a few relatives who, as it should be in an Indies family, of course supported Lexa's family business, even if it meant coming from the U.S. and working hard instead of having a relaxing vacation. The second year there Vinni, 'just a friend we met in Bali' came from Denmark especially to help and in 2009 we even had a daughter's friend's husband from Cameroon getting his first impression of Holland as a worker for Oooom Piet at the Tong Tong Fair. The Oooom Piet family is blossoming on facebook even as Oooom Piet is no longer needing so many helpers since it is withdrawing from shop and big fairs.

Oooom Piet- cut back to size, but full of plans for the future

The Oooom of Oooom Piet is really the mantra aum which is frequently heard at temple ceremonies on Hindu Bali, where we have our Indonesian headquarters. It stands for destruction- rebirth- and protection of new life.
Oooom Piet is based in Leiden, and In 2001 we opened our own little shop there, meant to be a haven for people uprooted in the late '40-s or in the '50-s or even '60-s, after the colonial era had ended. When we closed the Mom and Dad style corner store in 2009, almost eactly 8 years later, we were touched by how many customers tried to help us sell as much as possible during the three months of our fall clearance. Many kind words were spoken and stories exchanged of little children on their very first independent shopping trip to the 'little shop on the corner' with a coin or two tightly in their little fists. Some children came with their mother or father who were not allowed to leave because they wouldn't say what they wanted before having seen and touched every single mysterious or just colorful or even scary item in the shop.
Adults also were used to browsing and just happening on something irresistable. So much so that Lexa's deep desire to for once be able to show off the Bali boxes, batik and ikat and other beautiful materials,the battery-free handmade toys and masks, the specially designed silver jewelry, the children's clothes in style before closing the shop was strongly resisted. Wheel chair clients and mothers with children in buggies enjoyed the space, but most customers seemed to not mind hardly being able to move without knocking something over. They were not just tolerating the seeming chaos- they had gotten to feel perfectly comfortable with it.
When we had just opened some mothers had a hard time when the shoplady told their children to 'look with your hands- not just your eyes'. For toys and most other handmade goods, the feel of something is as important as its looks. So is scent- many people commented on how they felt transported to our communal native country or the time spent in Indonesia by the scent of cloves and akar wangi, scented root, and more, that met them when they entered.

Oooom Piet in Indonesia and Komang's pondok- a special homestay

So the shop is closed. And the Oooom Piet stand at the big Eurasian Tong Tong Fair will be much smaller again in 2010 and not return in 2011.
But Lexa does want to go back to Indonesia, where she was born and where she has rooted again after a leave-of-absence of almost exactly 50 years fom her native country. She likes the mountains and the animals, flowers and trees. She enjoys the children and the food, but mostly she is happy to know she may be richer than most of her friends- but they are friends, and relations are based on equality and the joy of working together on making and selling nice things and making the world... let's say: not the worse for it.
So even if she would like to get to know about other cultures and see other countries, especially those countries where the majority get significantly lower wages than we in the Wealthy West are used to, she is not done yet with Indonesia. People in other countries also make beautiful and funny things. Lexa is very impressed with the handicrafts of Vietnam. She really enjoyed the friendliness and sense of humor of some of those resilient people, surviving by making beautiful embroidery and handicrafts and selling those at the Tong Tong Fair.
In Indonesia and China and, when we were young and camped wild in former Yugoslavia, we have often found that people with little money open up their hearts very easily and show great tolerance and generosity to strangers. We have already been invited to Vietnam and China and Morocco, but this next of Lexa's 9Lives can still wait for a little while. We have many plans for projects in Indonesia and will use the money from selling off our stock to get those projects started. The spring 2009 container will be Oooom Piet's last and we do not intend to import a lot anymore, but we have friends in whose containers there probably is enough room if we need some.
And then there is Komangs Pondok Mimpi- a dream cottage indeed.
Not just Oooom Piet's purchaser Lexa, also a number of members of the extended Oooom Piet family have been made to feel very much at home in some tiny villages in the middle of tourist trap Bali, in Belahpane Kaja- a place most Balinese even don't know where to find, but where Komang has used the money he was paid for working hard for Oooom Piet to build a wonderful house looking out over terraced sawah's, ricefields. This is not just for himself and his wife and son, but guests are welcome to stay there and learn how to play the bamboo rindik or paint the beautiful flowers Komang loves to grow or just r-e-l-a-x and feel warmly welcome.
Of course one is expected to pay- Komang used to be a chauffeur, but when tourism dried up after the turbulent fall of the Suharto regime and later the Bali bombings and other perceived or real trouble he looked for other sources of income and even sold his car. A great loss to the family, as Komang could always be depended on to drive a sick family member to the hospital when needed. By building the house he not only invested his European wages wisely- he also shared the money with friends and family who helped him build it.
There is much for us to learn from a society where granny and grandpa from the mountains are brought home to spend their last years where they grew up and to be cared for by family, rather than being left to professionals.
In our Western world many old people spend long years not so cosily together in god's waiting-room- with relatives rarely there, pets not allowed. At Komang's old family compound, right next to where he built his new house, there are not just old people, one also shares the yard with babies and chickens- and many friends and relations always drop in. There is lots of tea and coffee and banter. Relatives are giving each other a pijit- a massage, when someone has a headache or sore joints. The women are using their quieter moments to make offerings and sweets for the many many temple ceremonies. Grandparents are responsible for keeping the little children from being unhappy. Older children are lugging around their baby siblings and neighbors
It is a good place to be and we think of it as our home in Bali.
If you'd like us to connect you up with Komang in Bali, just send a mail with your info.

religion as reality- notes from an agnostic

Often the local priest's temple bell summons people to the sanggah, the Hindu house temple, for a special home ceremony. It is a reminder to put on sarung and kebaya, the pakaian adat or traditional clothes that express respect for the religious aspect of what is often mostly a social affair. At the end Lexa also gets an extra sprinkle of holy water, tirta, and some extra biji, grains of rice- because the regular priest knows she has trouble making the rice stick to her forehead.
In Kota Gede in Middle Java much about the social set-up is the same in the kampung, the living quarters we stay in. But there Lexa- oh well- let's just say "I" and start over:
I live with Muslims there and have learned to enjoy a number of Ramadan customs. When Wafiq invited me to break the fast at the neighborhood mesjid I borrowed a scarf from his wife Ifa. The mosque is temporarily housed in a school building, as the old mosque is still in the process of being renovated after the 2006 earthquake that did so much harm in the Jogjakarta area. The women had cooked enough for everyone and I was warmly welcomed by young and old. Many salamaleikums came my way. And yes, please take more pictures- what about me and my baby son?
I have clearly pleased people, even highly educated and not-so-strict muslims, by making the gesture of fasting along with them for a few days. At earlier Ramadan fasts, even in East Lombok, home to many extremists, I was never pushed into participating. I was just treated to tea or coffee and a snack because "We have them ready for after breaking the fast tounight, but you don't need to fast now!" I was invited over a number of times, even though I had had regular food all day, for the festive breaking of their fast with special drinks and fruit, and dishes prepared with special care. I was curious about the experience of fasting and it turned out to be rather easy- as long as you manage to get up at 4 a.m. to drink and eat enough then to last you for a while.
I witnessed a deeper dislike of terrorism amongst my Balinese and Javanese friends and acquaintances than one might perhaps expect in a predominantly muslim country. Muslim panatik is not what most Indonesians think highly off. Tolerance and forgiveness come much more naturally to them, even if they feel deeply hurt by cartoons not showing due respect for their prophet Muhammed. They are embarassed by their fanatically violent countrymen and feel they give non-believers the wrong idea about their faith.
Our deeply religious and always somewhat rebellious younger friend Herry Lahamid, who lives in Holland with her Dutch husband and their little son, only started wearing a head scarf recently. She claims this is because of what the Koran tells her, but we suspect she also wants to show people that there are Muslims and Muslims. Only recently have Herry and I felt we had to make a statement about something we used to take for granted. We used to feel religious beliefs were a private matter. It is a bit like my late friend Mr. Loose, an art historian who wrote his thesis on the wood carvings on choir benches in German Roman Catholic churches. But after Hitler had made being Jewish like a curse and he had to flee to The Hague, he went to the nearest synagogue and registered as a Jew.
So much for that.

some of our plans for the New Oooom Piet

We also have some more practical and direct worries. We worry about the money needed to send smart and hard-working kids to high school or perhaps beyond. An extremely intelligent Indonesian girl I know was very lucky and got scholarships and is now at university- to be a doctor, according to her proud and loving uncle. She herself told me: "No Lexa- I'm just going to be a midwife." Oh well- she will no doubt be a very good one. But what about less practical but equally intelligent kids? It is really good to hear about the much higher wages teachers are paid in Indonesia these days. I used to do some teaching there myself and was shocked at the low standards, but in September 2009 I visited a grade school on Nusa Penida where I felt things have gotten much better.
But stiil- spring of 2009 on Flores one smart little boy had to stay home from school until the stores opened. His new shoes, just bought with the money his father had gotten for driving us around were too small. His old ones had been tossed. And you are not allowed to enter school on flip-flops- they have to be those expensive shoes.
Another problem can be the distance to the nearest school. If Mommy has no moped and Daddy is gone very early every morning in his truck, it is hard for an eager 5-year old to go to kindergarten. Too far to walk, too expensive and too tricky to go by bus at that age. So we are dreaming of little pre-school programs which will combine generating some money and helping kids with low-income parents acquire pre-school-learning.Tteaching letter recognition and some basic Indonesian through songs and some number and general skills. For older children we are thinking of English songs- letting the caretakers use cd's and picture books so that spelling is connected with that illogical pronunciation that is so hard to master for Indonesians.
We like giving our products and projects names. So our recycling project we are calling "9 Lives", and our Child Labor project we have already named Pay for Play- a name which is a challenge for Balinese- grown-ups as well as children. F- and p-sounds are one sound to Indonesian ears as it makes no difference to the meaning of Indonesian words whether you use one or the other.
We know that for teenagers finding paying work is often the only option, and we have seen how that work can be a rather fun thing to do for young boys when they have no way of going to school in any case. Uniforms and books are too expensive- feeding them is already a problem for parents, and they usually go to a work place as a group, all from the same poor village.
But these days there is often just no work to be found.
We find sit-down toilets and an enclosed wash area quite practical. But we remember clearly- and feel somewhat nostalgic about- the kind of camping-out feeling we used to have in the late 1990-s, when we first stayed with local people in our native Indonesia. At that time a hole in the ground and a public mountain stream and thatch roofs and no tiles still were the norm on Bali- leave alone poorer islands. For us the esthetic pleasure compensated for body comforts, but now that our bones are stiffer we are more accepting of all these new-fangled 'improvements' that we used to abhor as taking the authenticity away and ruining the ecology. Wood-burning fires are once again used a lot- the economic crisis and the rise of fuel prices made the choice easy. But actually modern solar panels would probably be environmentally better.
So during the first trip there in a long time during which we needn't feel pressured by having to fill and ship a container- with goods not really needed since both our shop and our house were cluttered with all Oooom Piets abundant stock- during this brief but very full trip we felt very liberated. We could go back to spending time with children and thinking up ways of recycling packaging and stimulating self-help. We bought wares from an old lady who had never learned to write but knew very well how to add without the use of a calculator. She runs a corner store meant for her own neighbors, rather than the places we had gone to recently. All so as to be economic and efficient we had been buying large quantities from big shops with cell phones and computers and other practical tools- but without the pleasant scent of the good -?- old days.

Tong Tong Fair- worth a detour -or even a special trip!
The Hague, 19 - 30 May 2010, right next to Central Station

The former Pasar Malam Besar, now called Tong Tong Fair, is where Oooom Piet started in 1997. This very special event is not just multi-cultural but also multi-faceted. The Grand Pasar offers shopping as a kind of world travel experience- with great bargains! Many people just come to shop or to enjoy the wide variety of sweet or spicy Indonesian snacks and food. At the Cooking Theatre you can learn how to cook Indonesian dishes yourself. Others come for the music and dancing, or the lectures, theater and workshops: the Tong Tong Festival.
Perhaps best of all- you get a chance to be part of a huge Eurasian kumpulan, a grand annual reunion of people with roots in the Indies or an interest in Indonesia.
More on Oooom Piet at the fair when you double-click the P for Pasar Malam-Tong Tong Fair or the site of the Tong Tong Fair. You can also get an English version.

what we sell and where- the net, home and fairs

Oooom Piet has never accepted mail orders, but in April of 2008 , Marleen and Cissy, friends and helpers, opened OPWarungWeb. Warung or, in Indies spelling, waroeng, means a small shop, so Warung Web is a webshop. OPWarungWeb offers you some of Oooom Piets most suitable items for sale by internet. Marleen and Cissy have decided to become independent of Oooom Piet and its wares and will open a new webshop, simply called WarungWeb, without the O and the P for Oooom Piet. We shall probably continue OPWarungWeb ourselves.
OPWarungWeb will not immediately have an English version, perhaps not even the possibility to have items mailed to you, especially when it concerns orders from outside the Netherlands, but sabar aja!, wait and see, be patient. The favorite expression of Indies and Indonesian people is plan-plan- slowly-slowly, so don't hold your breath! But at least there will soon be a place where one can see many of our wares systematically ordered, priced and clearly described.
Many products have been made specially for Oooom Piet, with an emphasis on natural materials and traditional techniques. For now we shall try to tell some more right here and now about the items we have and sell. See below.
If you want to visit and browse at our home- please let us know by mail or text us and we'll tell you when is a good time for us. You may also try to reach us by phone, but we have found. that does not always work
We will announce special days for home sales, Silver Sundays and a variety of workshops when we have managed to empty our spacious home a bit after selling off of our surplus stock at the Textile Festival in Leiden end of March, perhaps at the Orchid Fair at the Botannical Gardens in Leiden as well, beginning of April, and of course at the Tong Tong Fair in May.
Cok will be staying with us for a while before and after the Tong Tong Fair, where she will be sewing kebaya's once more, and we are planning on some shop/cook/eat workshops with her in our kitchen as well.
Please check our site for updates or mail us if you want to be told about these events and shopping occasions by receiving mail about them.

textiles- batik, ikat, songket- and other special fabrics

We are proud of all the different kinds of handmade fabrics we have been selling for years now.
We try and support the art of batik and ikat-making by buying beatiful pieces of these cloths that may have been meant to wear but are such a pity to cut up and sew with. So we sell our best pieces of ikat, from Sumba, as well as the most exclusive kinds of handmade batik, as wall hangings.
But we also sell pillows and pillowcases, bed covers, albums, boxes and books using batik- mostly prints- and other special fabrics.
Of course we have clothes made with them as well, which we think of as 'timeless fashion': clothes for all ages and sizes, from tiny baby to XXXL. Next to our own designs we enjoy selling the standard kain panjang and sarung, the wrap-around and tube skirts still worn all over Indonesia. More and more often the generation born in Holland but with roots in Indonesia like to wear these. The women combine the traditional batik skirt with the equally traditional kebaya, both off the pasar-rack and made-to-order at our stand at the Pasar Malam Besar, the annual fair in the Hague. The men are a bit more hesitant about the batik or lurik skirts, but often come specially for the great variety of batik shirts that are also very popular with modern Indonesians.
For those new to Indonesian textiles we'd like to share some of what we know about their background and the techniques. We are not true experts, but over the years we have learned quite a bit, especially when visiting the makers- not only weavers,also dyers, people who stamp the batik or write it with a pen-like funnel, people who tie offf the yarn for an ikat. And then there are salespeople and books.
First of all batik, cloth decorated with the wax resist method, both tulis, 'written' batik, and cap, where copper stamps are used to apply the wax.
We have batik from Yogyakarta and Imogiri and Solo, on central Java, as well as from Java's north coast: Cirebon, Pekalongan, Lasem, and Tuban. Tuban is distinctly different, as they apply the wax to handwoven cloth made with handspun cotton, as opposed to the high percale cotton used elsewhere.
We especially like batik Madura, from the island to the north east of Java where we briefly stayed with an extended family of batik makers. On Madura the dyes are brushed on rather than soaking the cloth in one or more consecutive dye baths. This technique is also used for Bali batik, known for its bright colors and bold designs. We have kimono's and bed covers made with this batik tulis, that is to say that the big flowers are painted on by hand with a canting, a funnel for the hot wax. We also have batik cap Bali, with the wax applied by a copper batik stamp- animals and other small motifs. We use this batik for children's clothes.
-ikat, cloth with the yarn tied and dyed before weaving, so that the pattern is already visible once the yarn is on the loom. Often a body tension loom, so the weaver has close control. We have big hinggi from Sumba, sold as wall hangings, and selendang, scarves, and sarung, tube skirts, from Flores.
In Tenganan on Bali they have double ikat, called endek gerinsing, used for special ceremonies. Very few pieces can be made as the dyiing process is at least as time consuming as the tying of the yarn. But we try and buy one piece each purchase trip.
In Tanglad on Nusa Penida, island off the shore of Bali, they make cepok, which is also a ceremonial cloth.
On Bali they have one word for 'handwoven' and 'ikat', ndek. As they do on Java, where the word islurik, a cloth used for men's sarung, tube skirts, and the traditional striped jackets still worn in the Sultan's palace. Much ndek and lurik has stripes woven into the fabric using the ikat technique. The word ikat means 'to tie'- in this case the yarn for the weft, on Sumba they make warp ikat.
-pucuk rebung, made by crossing two shutlles with different color yarns to make a pattern of bamboo shoots, and more special techniques from the weavers of Pringgasela, in east Lombok. Reminiscent of tecniques used on Timor.
-supplementary weave using silver or gold yarn from near Bukittinggi on Sumatra and Gelgel on Bali- as with gerinsing: not always available.

wayang- shadow and stick puppets- and topeng- masks

-wayang golek, stick puppets with carved heads and 'real' clothes
-wayang kulit, leather shadow puppets, very refined puppets with the gods and other characters from the Ramayana stories, and other puppets, both animals and common folk, needed to tell the stories of Kancil. Kancil is the Indonesian version of Brer Rabbit crossed with Robin Hood: a clever and naughty little deer that outsmarts everyone, even tigers and crocodiles. If you want to see a full set: the children's museum of the KIT in Amsterdam let us buy them for them from Pak Ledjar in Yogya, one of the very few dalang, puppeteers who specialises in wayang kancil.
-wayang kulit by the late Balinese dalang Ketut Klinik and by his nephew.
-just to show the difference we also have some puppets made of paper, goat leather or wood. We are still hoping to import wayang rumput, puppets made with straw, which young cowherds make in the fields, and which are now used in modern, experimental dance theater by Ki Slamet in Solo
-painted wooden masks, such as used for wayang topeng, mask theater, or wayang wong', people theater, used in mask dancing by the dalang himself.
-Balinese masks: both unpainted and painted frog and 'barong' masks
-paper masks to put your whole head into- or to use as decoration

jewelry

We have gold- a little, and gold plated temple jewelry from Bali, and silver- a lot!, and super-cheap costume jewelry as used by dancers. As well as bracelets and necklaces with coconut shell and other cheap materials, especially for the younger crowd.
We are well-known for our brooches in animal shapes and for our large selection of filigree, a lace-like Yogya specialty. We also enjoy selling a special kind of pendant, blandong, little boxes meant to ward off evil by letting the baby wear one filled with a piece of its own umbilical cord- although in the Western world seen as the perfect new-mother gift- and another Bali baby gift: anklets with little bells.
Many of our earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces and hangers we design ourselves, in collaboration with the silversmiths of Bali and Yogya. We have a weakness for semi-precious stones and amber and simple shapes. The stones and beads we buy from Indian and Afghan colleagues at the Pasar Malam Besar, the big fair in the Hague, or at the Pasar Burung, the bird market on Bali.
We also sell hooks to make your own earrings, string, wire and silver locks, as well as strings of sweet water pearls, agath and mystery materials from the sea and beads of sterling silver, coconut, bamboo, bone, and other materials.

toys

When we had just started some people thought we were a kite shop. We still sell both fighting kites and glasan, the special cutting string needed to bring your opponent's kite down.
But we specialise in Balinese kites, hand-made of parachute nylon on bamboo frames, waterproof (except for the glued-on details). Some easier to fly than others, all very decorative. If you hang them outdoors, but don't want them to fly, tie them securely!
We have toddler push toys and colorful animals on a string, singing spinning tops, noisemakers, mini pots, pans, dollhouse furniture. Many are made with recycled materials- cans, old exercise books, plastic cups.

books, boxes, cards and paper- and materials for arts and crafts

At Komang's home in Belahpane family and helpers make books, albums and picture frames with bean pods, banana bark and leaves and sand, and with our special textiles.
In Ubud we buy reams of handmade rice chaff paper and strong paper with pineapple and bamboo fibres. In Yogya we buy golden silk cocoons and a kind of parchment-like sheets made with those cocoons. Shredded these cocoons are meant to be used by paper makers- but we hope they will inspire many other uses. We sell lontar palm leaves which we have used here in classroom projects. From Sulawesi we have just imported big sheets of tapas, beaten treebark, a favorite with felt makers. At the Book Art Fair in Leiden people count on us for the little sheets of pure copper and for other natural materials which can be used in arts and crafts or simply as decoration.

what DON'T we sell?

We could go on and on- but let's just list some of what hasn't been mentioned yet:

-wood-carved animals- cecak, lizards, monkeys, bats and other creatures
-cutting boards, serving spoons and forks specially designed and carved for us in Pejeng, Bali by Komang Wir
-temple decorations as used in Hindu temples, such as offering standards and boxes, vanes, curtains and borders stencilled or painted with prada, gold.
-kitchen utensils: stone mortar and pestles, bamboo and wooden ladles, huge steel wajan, the Indonesian type wok, sateh grills and fans, teapots, kettles, coconut graters, knives. Oil lamps, dry-season-baby-showers, shoemakers needles and yarn.