Dear Agatha, Bad Advice from Paradise

Absurd advice columnist Agatha Callie spent years on the Paradise Island of Bali where she wrote a popular satirical column. For over thirty years the island has been a magnet for expats foolishly seeking the ultimate earthly paradise. Being a recovering expat fool in Paradise herself, Agatha knows just the kind of advice these people need. She published her hilariously excoriating, controversial yet bizarrely poetic column in the Bali Sun Newspaper from 2002 – 2006. This book is a collection of those columns and a must read for anyone curious about life on a swinging tropical island.

Have you ever dreamed of getting away from it all and living carefree in a tropical island paradise? Many years ago I was a terrified single mother working in New York City. My baby had been coming to the office with me but my boss’s tolerance ebbed away after she threw up on the computer keyboard. I began reluctantly interviewing prospective nanny candidates. I asked one particularly unkempt candidate – she resembled Mrs. Bates from Hitchcock’s film Psycho - if she had children of her own. Her reply was that she used to. When I inquired further and learned that all five had all burned to death in a fire something in me snapped and I made my plans to leave. My wonderful friend Magdalena had first acquainted me with images from the beautiful Bali so I went for that tropical dream; strapped a pack on my back and boarded a plane for Bali, Indonesia with my seven month old daughter hugged tightly to my chest.

Over the years I’ve observed a few basic types that migrate to paradise and set up housekeeping. First you have the expats who have been “stationed” on the island as hotel general managers, chefs, diplomatic or embassy representatives, country managers for NGOs and the like. There is also a large contingent of castaways from the Hippy Trail of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. Many of these started out as either rich kids travelling on their parents’ largess or small-time smugglers traversing the eastern hemisphere. Then there are the types that cashed out back home and went for it, selling everything, quitting their jobs and buying a one way ticket. One of the largest groups is comprised of wounded souls running away from dysfunctional personal lives, whether a bad divorce or those who, for a myriad of reasons, are incapable of forming a romantic liaison in their home country. Finally, we have a claque of international fugitives hiding out or on the lam. It makes for an interesting social life.

You’ll find each of these demographics fondly represented in the following compilation of my advice columns originally published in the Bali Sun newspaper. Inspiration for my column struck in late 2002 over a cold Bintang beer at the Cricket Club. I got talking to one Mick Catoni, an Irish Italian Australian, about the ridiculous exploits of the local expat population in paradise. It was firmly concluded that they all stood to benefit from a dose of my sage “advice”. The column was instantly popular and even inspired a couple of censorship attempts by the outraged expat burghers of paradise. The editor had to put up with demands to hand over all the editions in circulation, knock back bribery attempts and field several indignant calls to stop publishing my column. Thanks editor John Kelly for resisting the pressure!