Growth

I didn't write one speech for today. I didn't write two speeches. I didn't write three. I wrote four speeches. The last speech was thrown out this afternoon. This speech that I'm speaking to you has been written in the last hour or two.Basically, this piece is an accumulation of me and where I am at now. It's me. It's me being in the soup. The soup is about one meter, sixty-two high, and it's thirty-six and a half years old. It's been simmering for thirty-six and a half years. It's the story of me not being ready. It's the story of how are we ever really ready in life. And it's the story of how we came to be here. It's a story of who I am. Who I am. I'm Australian—far out! I've been told I have to say that at least.I arrived here right before COVID-19 hit. I was here for five weeks, and I left for two weeks, and I came back, and COVID hit. It's been a pretty insane journey since and a journey that I haven't been ready for. I come from a working-class family. I come from a family with two kids, two adults, a house that my dad built. I'm a Libra. I'm a vada/petar. There's a lot of air going on in here. I dance. I am a social worker by background. I'm an A+ blood type.I'm here, and I'm figuring out every single day. I come from a lineage of women who have experienced quite significant mental health issues. My mom was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was fifteen years old. And at the time, we had lots of social workers coming to visit our family. I watched what they were doing. They would come, and they would sit in with our family, and they would drink cups of tea. I looked at them, and I thought, Wouldn't that actually be really fun to just drive around all day, visit people, drink cups of tea, and help them feel better.So fast forward a few years. I'm twenty-two, and I'm knocking on the door of a family's home. I don't know what I'm walking into. A man opens the door—a man I've been working with for a little while. He's yelling and screaming at me, holding a cup of coffee that he's shaking like this. And the coffee's almost splattering everywhere. His child, the ten-year-old, is screaming in the hallway. And I walk in with my pile of paperwork. With the paperwork that's already filled out saying that I'm removing that child. I sit down in the living room with the dad beside me and the paperwork between us. I say to him, "This is what's going on." And he bursts out into tears. He says to me, "I'm trying the best that I can, and I don't know what to do anymore." And I say to him, "Is there a way that we can work together?"I wasn't ready for that conversation. And I wasn't ready for any of the conversations that happened like that, that continued on from that time. My mom, for over twenty years, my whole adult life, has been in and out of mental health facilities. We have spent Christmases and Mother's Days visiting her in mental health facilities. And I haven't been ready for any of that or any of the conversations that have come with that.Fifteen years fast forward. My cousin is now graduated as a social worker. And she says to me, "I don't know if I'm cut out for this." I say to her, "You know what? None of us are. Basically, all we can do is look at what's in front of us and take the humanity from it and find a way to turn it into some kind of magic and to create something better with it. We can't be ready for this."Fast forward another couple of years. And I'm at work. I'm sitting at my desk. A young person calls, and his debutante partner for that day has pulled out as a deb. She's not doing it. He's like, "That's it. I don't care. I'm not doing it." This is something that matters to this young person more than anything else. He has spoken to the children's commissioner and said, "This needs to happen for young people like us." My boss gets off the phone, and she says, "What are we gonna do?" I put a post on Facebook. And I say, "Who do I know who has a white dress in this size and can get it to me within three hours." A girl contacts me straightaway and says, "I not only have a dress, I have a tiara, and I have jewelry. I'll have it to you." Within three hours, I'm at a venue surrounded by all these teenage girls with white fluffy things everywhere. And I'm getting my hair and makeup done, watching a video on my phone of how to learn these dances. I wasn't ready to be a debutante at thirty-three years of age. And I wasn't ready to be a debutante that day.A couple of years later, I'm with a group of young people, and we're preparing for a massive event. I've got young people, a row full of young people, who are preparing to share their personal stories. The people in the audience are ministers. They're commissioners. They're politicians. One of my young people, she runs out of the room. I run after her. I stand in front of a toilet cubicle, and she's behind the door. I hear sobbing. I ask her if she's okay. She says to me, "There is no way that I'm going out there. There is no way that I'm sharing my story. There is no way that those people in that audience are gonna listen. And this matters to me more than anything. And I can't deal with the fact that they might not hear what I've got to say." I take this in, and I go, "Hmm. They're not gonna hear you from behind a toilet door."I hear the click of the lock, and the door opens. She stands there in front of me. And she's like, "How's my makeup? Are my eyes okay?" I hand her a tissue, and I'm like, "We can sort this out." She's like, "I have no idea what I'm gonna say. Like, what do I do?" I'm like, "We can sort that out. Fix your makeup. We'll be right." And she comes out. I ask her what she's most passionate about, and straightaway, I know that she's ready because the fire in her heart is what's going to deliver the message that she needs delivered. Anything else is a bonus on that.When we started this, Colleen asked us, "What is the story that you are most afraid to tell?" The story in this that I'm the most afraid to tell is the story of what comes next. It's the unwritten story. It's the story that I'm not prepared for and the story that I'm not ready for. It's the story that I don't have the answers for. And I can only prepare myself for that so much. And I don't know if all of these experiences and all of this life journey has prepared me enough for that. And there's nothing that I can do about that but just keep taking another step, knowing that I'm not ready for that. The story that I'm not ready for is the one that I will one day tell when this woman sweeps herself off her own feet and carries herself away in a way that she could not even imagine. And that all starts by being here.Thank you.

I'm about four years old. I remember that time. My grandfather woke me up very early every morning, and he'd tell me, "Gede, go and wash your face. We will go soon." After everything is ready, he took the equipment he had—hand knife, dirty rice bag. That was all our equipment every morning. We were going to the jungle and the rice field after that. He leaned down and told me, "Gede, jump on." As a four-year-old kid, he always put me on his back. Sometimes he put me on his shoulders to make me comfortable. As a kid, that's the only dream that kid has. We went into the jungle, played in the mud, played in the water. But that's not how the story will begin.Along the way, we passed many other farmers—young farmers and old farmers. Along the way, my grandfather always told me stories of his life, how he lived, how he struggled to keep the family alive with hard work—physical work. And at that time, I really wanted to know the purpose of him telling me these things. It seems like he wanted to tell me very early. He said I wouldn't always be on his back. And "Life will not be easy for you soon when you grow." And I realized quickly, too, that I will not always be there on his shoulder or on his back. I saw many people working and working at the age of seven years old, eight years old. I know I will be there soon doing those things. And the reason why my grandfather always told me about life, about being strong physically, about working with the hands, about putting everything on the head and being responsible for your family.Time flies so quickly. When I was six to seven years old, all changed. All things turned to me then. Seems like what I'd imagined a few years ago happened very soon. I saw myself needing to wake up every morning. So I realized something very important—why my grandfather always woke me up so early. He wanted to train me to not always depend on people to wake me up. So I got used to waking up every morning so early, taking my hand knife, taking my rice bag. Exactly the same as he did.So as a kid, I went to primary school, and every kid had a bicycle. I asked for the same to my father and my grandfather. The way they treat me is so different. "Gede, you will have that, but you need to do something. I will give you one cow to take care of. And then one day, when you keep and take care and treat this cow well, you can make this cow fat, and we will sell it. And some part will be used to buy your bicycle." So us kids were motivated, fully motivated every time, every morning before going to school—not going too far from home because we are living in the forest in the countryside of our village.So there's so many sources of cow food we can get. I got that cow food, gave the cow food, gave the cow a drink. Of course, speaking a little bit with the cow! I said, "Cow, grow quickly so I can ride my bike by your sacrifice. So now you are my boss because I'm sacrificing my time every morning for you. And one day I will sell you to get my bike, so I can go to school with it and save my uniform. So I don't use my feet and wear out my shoes because the time is coming." I have just one hour or forty-five minutes to get the food.You know why I must go that early in the morning? Because when I'm back from school, I'm not doing the same as many other kids in my village. There are two parts to the village. There is the center. And then the outside of the village or the countryside. I'm not one of the kids who lives in the center with a parent who can provide everything because tourism has come since the 1960s to our historical village. So I'm living behind the door, born from a low-class farmer. So that's how it goes.After I'm back from school, I need to take off my uniform very quickly. My mom says, "Gede, you know where your father's working?" "No. Where, Mom?" "In the corner of the village, two kilometers from here. Change your clothes. Run. Help your dad." I even didn't get lunch. You know what my father's job is? He's Spiderman.He's a coconut climber and harvester since a very early age, like me in my story. Every day of his life, he climbs many coconut trees on people's land and property. Drops the coconuts. And then my role is after school I bring some food for him. We have lunch together there. And then the new story begins. So my role is to collect all the coconuts he drops with his friend from the trees. Picking them up one by one and then putting them in a place where he orders. The job is not done yet. The place where we harvest the coconuts is almost three or four kilometers inside the jungle. And then in my village, there were no highways as we were an old village. So they parked four kilometers away. And then the next job is to collect those coconuts and carry them to the truck.Don't be shocked, guys. Now you realize why I'm not tall like you guys. I got pinched a lot by coconut grass in my head and on my shoulders. So night comes. In that time, I wasn't sleeping with my parents. Our house has a very small space, and we don't have so much room. We have several rooms and a kitchen with a fire stove, still using a wood fire. And it burns every night to keep us warm. I was sleeping with my grandfather in the kitchen. So we took the coffee wood every afternoon and burned it, as coffee wood gives constant fire and warmth for the room. And then, every night before we slept, he always put his right hand on my forehead and started the story to forget the big day we had—all the work we'd done. So he always told me about how to struggle in life, how to keep my spirits up, how to keep motivated. "Look straight, find what you want to reach in life."But in the same time, I always said to my grandfather, "I'm a young and small kid, seven years old to eight years old. I'm a normal kid." I'd compare myself to every other kid in the village. Some other kids had good bicycles. When they went back home, they played with marbles. They played other things. They played what we call Tactic or they used sticks made from wood. I'd ask my grandfather, "Why are you forcing me to work? Why are my parents forcing me to work?" I know that it's with a good purpose. But you know how he replied? He holds me by my forehead strongly, and he said, "Gede, don't blame anybody for what you feel now. Don't regret any of it and how life treats you hard today. It will impact you in your future. Maybe you are not as lucky as other kids today not having what they have got easily. You're doing hard work since an early age. And that will have a very good impact. You are the one who will carry on this family in the right way. You will be strong in your knees and carry all the problems of this family on your back. And you are the one who will be changing the family situation in the future."And that same conversation day by day, every night the same. When I'm complaining those words are coming. Until one day, I stopped complaining and just did it because I know that they're coming every time. And I know that's for the good of me. He always said, "Life is a mystery. When I'm gone, you will grow. And you will realize and say thanks when I'm in heaven." That he always said, every time we went to sleep.Time flies. 2011. I graduated from the Vocational School of Tourism—amazing for a kid living somewhere with no phone, nothing. Just playing with the cow, speaking with the cow every day. Sometimes I met my friend just for a few minutes before my grandfather called me. "Gede, take a shower in the river. Don't speak with your friend. We have something to do."So I had all those plans in my mind of how to escape from this situation and change my family life. By going to Denpasar. You know, it's not the USA. It's not Europe. But it was a big thing for me at that time. So I say, 'Denpasar.' It's my European version. You know why? Because the kids living in the forest, in the countryside of the village, in the same situation as me were thinking of going to Denpasar because it's the capital where all the money is, where all the hotels are, where we can get sources of living to change our family life. But new things are coming. I'm facing two big problems. How to go. And my mom's permission.Normally other parents will say, go, but in this case, I'm Balinese, and I don't have a brother or sister in this family. So I'm the only young guy. I have a cousin, but he married early and never went to school. Actually, he stopped going to school. So I am the one who graduated well in that time. And my mom always said, "There are so many fields to work in the village. Why do you need to go to Denpasar? There are so many people can get jobs around here. Why you need to go there?" I know the reason why my mom said those things. Not to hold me from going or stopping me from escaping from this village. She wanted me to stay with her. She had a big fear. That the only one son she has, who will be responsible for the family, will leave her and maybe a fear of the city because she never went. She was uneducated.And she was thinking I would lose my way in friendship. Maybe take drugs or have to get married early because of a mistake with a woman. That often happens now in Bali. But I said to my mom, "This is my dream. I want to chase my dream, changing our family situation." And then suddenly, a few days later, I get a call from my friend Made, which changed all the story. He called me in the morning. "Gede, you still want to go to Denpasar?" I said, "What?" "I will go in two days. Are you in?" Okay. Now the real challenge is coming. What I needed to say. And I said to Made, "I will use my gentle voice with her. I will go." And I said to Made immediately, "Yes, I will go."Stepping up to my mom's room, she sits in conversation with my dad. And I said, "Sorry, I'm interrupting. Mom, this is gonna be the last conversation we have about this argument. A friend called me, and I need to go to Denpasar in two days. All the papers required, all my clothes are ready. I will go." My mom looked me in tears, and she said, "Okay, I cannot hold you back anymore. If that's your dream, as long as you can keep yourself safe, you can go."And the tears story is coming. Everybody knows we are coming from the low-class of farmers, but the good thing is we are really good in family relations. I didn't have money to help my friend to buy the petrol. So my mom took her small savings from her candy box to give to me. My auntie gave money to me. My uncle came giving some money. And then my grandfather gave me some money. And the one who's strong and the tough guy in the family, my dad, which I never expected. He was crying. Yes. He always treated me hard, like, "Gede, don't let that go. Take that, do that." But in that time, he's crying. In that moment everybody gave me a big responsibility by giving that money. And I believe in their mind, "This guy will change the family and give that money back in a different amount."I carry that responsibility as I have all the basics; I'm strong after working, have good shoulders to carry any problem. A top childhood taught me to be strong in my personality, strong in mentality and physically, to hold any problem, to carry any problem.Finally, we went to Denpasar. Lively. Not that friendly yet. For a jungle kid, it's not easy to get a job in the city. We needed a connection, someone we knew. Trying from one hotel to the other hotel. The power of patience. They refused in many places. And I said, "No problem, Made. We will try." Made always complained like, "Oh Gede. This is so hard. Let's go back to the village." "Wait, we sacrificed so much to come here. We had so many arguments before we came here." And then one day a friend called me, another friend. "Gede, there is a big company opening recruitment for employees." And I said, "Where?" I wrote by hand and brought my papers.Then Quiksilver, in collaboration with Savrical Bali, built a big store in Nusa Dua and hired me in the warehouse for three months. I worked so hard, and a new recruitment came for a sales promotion boy. I'm climbing. I got that position. I worked so hard. And I got a quick promotion from my boss, but life is still a mystery. Four years seven months, or almost five years. After all those feelings I get in the city, I feel this is my life. I got friends. I got money. I paid off debts of my mom's from the lender by sending money every month. But June 2015, everything began. I think this is the reason why my mom never liked me going to Denpasar. I got a call from my dad. My mom had a big problem with her health.And I'm the only one guy. Like he said, I will be responsible. Like my grandfather said, I will be responsible for the family. In that time, I'm facing the biggest decision of my life. What do I need to do now? I'm happy with my life in the city. You can imagine for a young kid who went from jumping to seeing clubs, many women from other regions. I did not see them a lot in my jungle. Honestly! I saw so many Australian girls. I was even working with them. Listen to my language. You can imagine where I could find them in my jungle!So this is a big problem at that time. These are the people I love most is the problem. There is no other woman I love more than my mom with all that she sacrificed for me. I need five months to think. I don't sleep well. My work capacity is going down. My boss asked me "What happened, Gede?" I said, "My mom is sick. I love my job, but I love my mom." So finally, with the support of my friends, they said, "Anytime you want to come back, the door of this store is always open." So I decided to go back to my mom. And then I imagined since I've been in the city, I needed to prepare myself to go back to that jungle, but that's not hard for me. It will not be so hard. That's where I began my childhood.I went back to the village. Everybody looked at me with my new Quiksilver T-shirt, Ripco shorts, Havaianas sandals. And you know what? Some Balinese joke with us when we're back from Denpasar. "Hey, boss, when you go back?" "No, I'm not going back. I will stay. My mom is sick." The first week was so hard. What to do? I'm here. All my skills don't work here. I tried to find a job nearby. That's still hard. Everybody's got the same problem as me.So one day I'm standing in the big door to the village when a guy from Holland approached me. His name is Harold. "Hey, young man. Can you tell me what is behind this door? I see just a jungle. Is it a cemetery?" "No, that's where I live. If you think that's a cemetery, I'm a zombie. "You wanna come in to check?" "Yeah, I'm interested. I want to see." I said to him, "You will like this place. The center is just eight hectares, and the rest is nine hundred hectares, sir. We have rice fields. We have people weaving. We have people making baskets." And in that time, he told me, "You are doing a good explanation, and you have such good English. Where did you learn?" "I practice. I never did a course or anything. Even listening to something in bed is so hard." So I said to him, "What do you think?" "You can do something with it if, as you say, you don't have job." So this is what my grandfather said. Life is a mystery.So I started thinking about what Harold said and then created something, which I'm still doing today. So I built a trekking activity which explains all the history of my village, which is the oldest village in Bali. It exists since the eighth century, and then a new mystery appears. So the trek I'm using is the one I used to hold the coconuts, to bring grass on my head for my cow. I'm using that same track today for trekking.So since I was a kid, my grandfather always said, "Life is a mystery. We never know what will happen." So whatever I've done as a kid, I can use for something in the future. So for the trek, normally I'm climbing, I'm working hard, with a heavy weight on my head. Now I'm using it to earn something. I even teach some of the young community to do the same trekking as me, and then we do it. I train them to do the same to earn money, train them in English, build their confidence. And we can do it. We are not just kids in the jungle. We can do something.I'm therefore beekeeping with my cousin in the jungle, which I'm doing today as the next story. And then something happened really big for myself. I was elected to be the Youth Community Leader in my banjar because of all my ideas—everything. I'm not proud of myself for that, but the people are proud with what I'm doing. So I said to them, "I'm not leading you. We will share the direction, how to do everything. I am not a leader who gives you orders. Let's find direction together."So we created something. We created trekking activities speaking a lot about the equality between the outsider and the original who lives in the center. Not all people like me, honestly, because I speak a lot about that. I'm really happy with this thing going well. The honey is going well. I'm helping my cousin with marketing to people that start to come to the jungle, tasting our honey, buying our honey, doing basket workshops, got enough hours coming. And then we never imagined that would come, this big, epic story. For Bali. Everybody in this room knows we got a big hit. We hang on and depend a lot on tourism. I cannot lie about that. So at that moment, I start thinking again. What to do?A few weeks later, my friend from Canada—her name is Suzanne—she often comes to Bali and really loves Bali and been to my bee farm, which I'm developing with my cousin, calls me. Life is a mystery. She tells me, "Gede, I remember your honey has a medication purpose and an old historical Balinese medication with a natural base. Why don't you join with the things I'm creating together with my beautiful friend, Colin, with my inspiring friend, Made, and Steve—Stephen McCluff. And then I said, "Yes, I will join in with your purpose."I went back to my ancestors' village nearby Slove of Monagune, where my grandfather originally came from. Every time I go back there to pray in ceremonies, I see so many people have these hives, these black beehives. So I said to Suzanne, "Yes, I will be involved in this Togetherness Project with the spirit of togetherness and make an income sustain an income for my community in this village and my ancestors' village.I went to Ubud to speak with Steve and Colin and brought some product and put this beautiful stuff in Bags of Hope. The coffee from the north, the recycled bag from North Gianyar. There are some herbs from my friend Futu. They are beautiful weavings—the process of which had been laying down for twenty-five years and woke up because of COVID-19. So we are in the same team with the spirit of togetherness.And then, after a few months working, this thing goes well. Many people came to support and remembered all about our purpose. So this is what I say. Life is full of mystery. We never know when we are doing something hard in the past, it can create something beautiful for our future and supply strong knees, a strong back to hold everything, to show to people that we can.I can feel a togetherness spirit in this room. You are very kind to have me here, and I hope this pandemic will pass soon, and we will meet in a different situation—in a good situation. Let's keep the spirit of togetherness, and let's spread it. Hold each other's hand. The solution is there. Life is good when we are together. Thank you so much. I'm Gede.

Thank you. Thank you for letting me see you, the deeper imperfect, perfect parts of you, not just the paradigms of the world you were born into. And I gotta say it takes my breath away. And sometimes we speak because we have nothing to say. No words needed, though, because presence is your essence. And essence is your beauty—the only kind of beauty capable of bringing a warrior like me down to his knees.For as long as I can remember, the way that I got love from my mother was when I got good grades. You know, the problem was that I rarely did. In my best year, I was a C+ student. It wasn't that I was dumb or uninterested. It's just that no one took the time to acknowledge that I was different. You know, not like the other kids who sat up straight, did what they were told, and got a kick out of getting gold stars. And it was all good until I turned nine.Then my elementary school, P.S. 211 on the east side of the Bronx, the boogie down Bronx in New York city, started sending home progress reports, basically saying that I was failing. I don't know what got into my mother that night. She must've been contemplating it the whole way home. She stormed into my room with her leather belt and then proceeded to beat me. And she threatened me if I didn't get my act together. And she pleaded me to be more like my sisters Taisha and Clarabelle, the ones who were everything I wasn't. You get beat one time, two times, three times you cry. I cried. You get beat ten times, twenty times, fifty times you learn to block out the pain. Cry? What's that? I got beat a few hundred times. When that happens, you learn to laugh. You learn to build an amor that says, “YOU CAN’T HURT ME.” My mom saw this. So she just started beating me with the metal part of the belt. I cried. It hurt like hell until it didn't. Now, the boy isn't a boy—the boy is a man. And I would be lying if I were here to say that it still doesn't hurt like hell.So God, tell me what's real. Tell me what's fake. Why is everything about you a fricking debate? What's the point of love? Because every time I've shown it, it's only brought me pain.Right after I dropped out of college . . . (College? That was my father's idea). . . I wanted to be a marketer, a storyteller who changed the lives of people through products that I believed in - business being my vehicle. I have my dad to blame for this. When I returned back home from university, one of the first places I went was to visit my cousin. Historically, a safe place for me to be me. It's also where my aunt and my uncle lived. Moments after finding out that I dropped out of college, my aunt looked me directly in the eyes and said, "You'll never be anybody without a college degree." I immediately laughed because I thought she may be right.So God, tell me what’s wrong. Tell me how to feel.One day, I kid you not, I walked out of my house where I was living on the beach, and I go for a walk. While on the walk, I see my outrageously beautiful German girlfriend with long blonde hair in the darkest corner of the beach, cuddling another man, stroking his chest so gently. And I would be lying if I didn't say I wish it was me. I heard they were dance partners. She said it was nothing. I found out months later she cheated on me. So my God, tell me if you’re real, why do I hurt? Why is there pain? Why does everything good always have to fade? I hope it’s cool I’m being real with you. I just want to let you in. My God, I’m calling. Are you listening?Dear Pedro, my child, I'll keep this brief. You need gratitude. Maybe just a sample. There's reasons for my actions, even if I never showed you. I remember when you were five years old and proclaimed to me that you wanted to be free, that you wanted to be a vessel for me. So I gave you the grace of not one or two but three motorbike accidents that left you with permanent tattoos, left you crippled for weeks at a time, so you can contemplate who are you. I gifted you chronic back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain. My son, did you really think that these were coincidences?How insignificant that these moments that you were having a hard time surrendering to now become. Can you remember how that changed some things? How grateful and present and resilient you magically became? My son, do you need me to go on? I can do this all day. Just look at your hands. Three crooked fingers. All the times your hips and knees will lock up for no apparent reason. The too many toe bangs to count, the headaches, the migraines, the heartbreaks, the toxic thoughts, the two emergency surgeries, the asthma, and random blackouts growing up that left you hospitalized for weeks at a time, divinely orchestrated to help you live into your destiny and allowing the infinite wisdom you already have inside of you to pour, pour, pour out of you into a limitless cup of pure potential. Pedro, it's time you woke up. My son, I know you're confused, so why don't you take a seat and let me pray for you.My prayer is that you live your life in such alignment that at any moment, you can hear the words that you have a week left to live, and you would not do anything differently because you are already full. It's why I keep taking things away from you that you think you need to show you where you're not free, to show you where you're not capable to lead. So my son, when I make things hard for you, just know this is me celebrating you. Stop wishing things were easier. Wish you were better. Let the moment take you to a level of depth that you've never been. You are growing from this experience of life if you choose, and to quote Napoleon, "Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die daily."My child, my prayer is that you bring a sense of alignment into your world that is bar none. That you be the exception. And if things keep coming into your life that are outside of your control, just know I'm giving you a gift. You are growing at a different level of depth than most people will ever go in their life so that you, you could be the person who leads. And I'll let you in on a little known secret. You can't take people to places you've never been. So go and penetrate the world, my son, with all you have to give and allow it to penetrate you back at your deepest core of being because you are so beautiful and you are complete, and you are the beggar you meet on the street and you are inclined to be. And I pray to God that you will be free because I want you to run and feel the grass on your feet. Hi, my name is Pedro and I'm waking up.

In 1969 I was a little girl in South Sumatra in Palembang, and my father was CEO of a big company. But at the time, parents would spend time to have lunch with the children. So my dad would go home at twelve and have lunch with us, all the children. And then he would go back to the office.And in my surrounding neighborhood, there were still forests, there were still rivers, and there was still a lot of poor people. There was a beggar who would come from house to house, bringing ragged white sacks, and each house would give him a cup of rice. Not money, only a cup of rice, so maybe he would not be starving. Of course, he would come to our house too. And my mom would prepare a special plate, with a special glass, and special food for my father. That's how we respected our father—special food for him.I saw the tukang minta-minta—the beggar—come and the cook would go with a cup of rice. But then I saw the food on the table, and I thought, Oh, he might be hungry. Why don't I just give it to him? So I put it in a big tin can. I put my father's food there with the rice, with the fish, with everything for him, and gave it to him. And I can still remember his eyes like disbelief and sparkling. That old man, now I still can imagine his face. So he ate there, but when my mom found out, she was confused and furious because there was no food for my father. There was no restaurant. There was no café. She had to cook and said, "You don't do that again because we can give a cup of rice, but not your father's food."I did the same thing the second day. And I did the same thing the third day. On the fourth day, maybe my mom thought this little girl cannot be told. So she told the cook to hide all the food on top of the kitchen cabinet. I was so small. I couldn't reach it, so that food was safe.I had my own lunch. What did I do with that? I gave it to him. And my mom said, "Maybe you don't understand Bahasa Indonesia. Which part is it that you don't understand? Do not give food because we give rice." And I was not sad. I was not angry. I was just feeling like I felt him, and my mom said, "No lunch. It's okay. You can give yours, but no lunch for you." I was not crying. I just walked to the neighbor and, you know, went into the kitchen talking. I had a very, very, a very loving neighbor, Basri. And they fed me. "Have you had your lunch? Come, come, come eat with us." So I had lunch at my neighbor's, and the big sister was a dancing teacher. So after lunch, I got a free lesson in dancing, and I danced. I danced and danced. My mom didn't know about it because she's like, "Oh, she finished her lunch." And that I had then gone to my neighbor.And I still remember that feeling. And I'm happy that I could keep that feeling because then I became an activist. I was the chairwoman of the Legal Aid Foundation for Women and Children. And I also established Kapika, the independent commission against corruption—like the Indonesia Corruption Watch. With the feeling of that little girl, I knew that in my heart, I'm an activist and I had a long career. I was in investment banking. I was in the biggest advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson. I was in first class on planes, in hotels and everything. But I knew deep in my heart I've never stopped wanting to become an activist. That was my story in 1969.And 1999. This is what I want to share with you. I went to Durban, South Africa, for the OECD conference on anti-corruption, so delegates from all over the world were there. I went with Professor Emil Salim, the former Minister of Environment. He became an activist after retirement. And I helped him to prepare the presentation. 1999. We did the presentation with slides so he could do it with his handwriting. And I was the one who suggested him to use slides with his handwriting. And he would talk in the plenary session. The plenary session was the biggest session. There were like 2,500 delegates there. There was James Wolfensohn, at that time the director of IMF. And the president of Transparency International. There was also the CEO of OECD and, of course, Nelson Mandela because it was in South Africa.And Prof. Emil said, "There will be the plenary session. And after that, there will be questions and answers." I said, "Oh, I really wanna ask a question. How do I do that?" "Sit next to me," he said. There would be hundreds of hands. So after the plenary session finished, there would be questions and answers. And "Okay. Who wants to ask a question?" I raised my hand like hundreds of hands also, but Prof. Emil was right. And somebody said, "That girl." "Me from Indonesia?" I was so happy but also shocked. Oh, I better have a good question because maybe they chose me because first I'm a woman. Second I'm from Asia, from Indonesia—very famous at that time because we were the champions of corruption. That was 1999, just one year after Suharto stepped down. I think, Well, this is my chance. So I raised my hand, and they asked, "Okay, who do you want to question?" I said, of course, "Nelson Mandela." I said, "Mr. Mandela, would you share with us what were the biggest obstacles when you became president? What do you think was the most difficult thing?" Because we know he won awards for housing when he put all the people from the slums into housing—he won so many awards.He then said, "That's a good question, Miss Irma Hutabarat." I was so happy. My name was mentioned! And he answered, "I have built schools. I have built housing. I have built infrastructure, but the most difficult thing, and the most important thing to me, is to heal my people. They have a lot of wounds, anger, insults, disappointment, you name it, from apartheid. And it's not easy to overcome that. I can't build this nation if they are not healed because they're not ready. So that's what I did. I sent a psychiatrist, a psychologist, public figures, and the people in each and every village would pay special attention to the wounded person that was allowed at that time." And I realized that he's not only a big name, but he has a big heart.And the evening after that, there was the closing party, the farewell party. And everybody was there. I was there too. And somebody came to me and said, "Miss Irma, what about you? You were the one who asked the question. Would you like to dance with Nelson Mandela?" "Do you want me to answer? Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course I want to dance with Nelson Mandela," and he escorted me and I was dancing. I was dancing. If you asked me how I felt, I saw a very compassionate person—peaceful and very gentle. And I was dancing with him. I felt honored.And I remembered my childhood. I remembered my mom before she died. She told me, "Now I understand you. I shouldn't have punished you because you were a kid. You've got a golden heart. We had lots of food on the table. Why would I punish you?" And that was the nicest thing that I heard from my mom. "And yet you learned how to dance?" She didn't know about it. And I told her that the punishment was like a blessing in disguise. So when I was dancing with Nelson Mandela, it felt like I was dancing with life. And this is the message that I want to give to you all—keep dancing, keep dancing with life.