Today in Bali is Nyepi, the Day of Silence. The night before Nyepi, there are big parades all over Bali. So while today is completely quiet, no cars, motorbikes, airplanes, music, etc... last night was loud and crazy. Kids and teenagers all over Bali have been spending the last month or so making big, grotesque figures. They're called Ogoh-ogoh. They're made of paper machet around a bamboo frame. They're about 10-15 feet tall, and they are paraded around and then burned in order to scare off any evil spirits. A lot of people don't actually believe that last sentence, but they still follow along in all of the Ogoh-ogoh activities.
People from our neighborhood started to congregate on the main road about an hour before the parade started. It's a really festive time (think your local Christmas parade). We take our kids home before the actual parade starts, because it can get a little scary for little ones. As the parade goes on, the figures are shaken and rocked around until their arms and heads fall off, the teenagers carrying spin them around and rush them towards any group of kids in order to scare them.
Most of the ogoh-ogoh resemble something like the small picture at the bottom of this post, bloody and grotesque. I wouldn't recommend clicking on it to make it bigger if you have little ones around.
