NOVEMBER 8, 2014 |  ALEX MEETS WORLD

        In 1996, it was easy to get drugs in Bali, Galle explained, and he should know. He used to use and sell drugs, and he, now, spends six days of his week, nine to 1:30, working as an addiction and H.I.V. counselor at Clinic Kuta One to stop people from continuing to make the same mistakes with drugs that he did in his youth.

        Galle started smoking when he was in high school in Surabaya, his hometown. He drank arak, smoked marijuana, got high on headache medicine pills, all of which he bought along with cigarettes and food from the money he made on the newspaper route he did every morning before school. Galle remembers how he had to switch from living at his uncle’s house to his grandmother’s house as he got kicked out for smoking and starting fights.

        Galle’s father died when he was young, and his mother remarried and left Galle to go off and find work in the auto service industry to help pay for Galle’s schooling. Because his mother worked so hard to fund her son’s education, she was always quick to anger whenever she learned that her Galle had been playing hookey.

          “‘I’m looking for the money for you for your study,’” his mother would chastise, and on some days, Galle’s teacher would go to Galle’s front door and command him “‘Okay. You must go to school.’”

        However in spite of all his mischief, Galle did well in school, and in 1994 when Galle moved to Bali, it wasn’t with the intention of peddling drugs. Galle finished high school in 1993, and he went to Bali to continue his studies at Udayana University in Denpasar.

          “[Doing drugs was] my hobby before,” Galle said, but also, “my hobbies is in the arts,” and so Galle went to Udayana to help develop his skills as a painter. However, only a year passed before he had to drop out. He didn’t have enough money to continue paying his school fees, and so life led Galle to Legian Street, the main strip of Kuta where he lived from 1996 to 1999.

          Even back when Galle lived in Kuta, it was busy with tourists like it is today. All up and down Legian Street were hawkers selling anything from handicrafts to heroine.

          “Before [in the nineties], Kuta is like Texas maybe in your country,” Galle described. “Yeah. You can, sometimes, you can smoke [marijuana] in the street.”

          With no more money and no more chance to continue his education, Galle decided to capitalize on Kuta’s tourist market, and so like everyone else on Jalan Legian, Galle set up a small, wooden, street stall, where he sold necklaces and bracelets among other tourist trinkets, his own original paintings, and drugs.

          “Sometimes,” Galle recalled. “We stand up in the street, and then, ‘you like necklace? Hello. You like necklace, bracelet?’ Sometimes, say ‘hello. You need marijuana?’” Galle laughed at the memory.

          He didn’t offer drugs to just anyone though. Galle knew how to pick-out those who would want to buy.

          “I know the character of people. ‘Okay. You like marijuana?’

          “‘Yeah. You can get?’

          “Then, I go, and I pay with my friend.”

          Most of the drugs on Legian Street, Galle said, are fakes: wax that feigns like flavored tobacco and parts of trees that mimic marijuana, but “when I sell, if good price, I give real,” Galle said. “When tourists buy very cheap and many blablablabla,” Galle would direct them to another hawker, who would sell them the fake product.

          Galle, also, sold ecstasy, which he cut with a knife into different designs like the Playboy bunny.

          It was a successful business. Galle could sell 40 thousand rupiah worth of marijuana to a tourist for 100 thousand rupiah, and he made about 100 dollars per gram of flavored tobacco. Often, Galle got the chance to smoke the drugs along with his customer.

          The necklaces and bracelets Galle would buy for three thousand rupiah and sell for between 10 to 15 thousand. In addition, Galle gained further income from giving tours to foreign friends he’d make around Kuta. Though the money was not regular (“sometimes, we get the customer, sometimes no”), it was good.

          “Before, I have more money [than I do now], but all the money is shit you know,” Galle said. “This money is easy for get but easy for go you know because I take drug. I have one million. I go to discotheque. Maybe tomorrow, finished, but this time, I have like salary not so much, but I’m enjoy with my family, and I’m not scared with the police. [My business is] legal. Before, it’s illegal. Now, it’s legal.”

          Galle smoked cocaine, heroine, marijuana, shisha or flavored tobacco, but all of it, except for cigarettes and the occasional beer, Galle quit after getting married and having the first of his two kids.

          “Then, I make planning for my life,” he said.

          In 2001, Galle joined Australian Aid’s drug harm reduction program to train for a job educating people about H.I.V., and now as a counselor at the clinic, Galle acts also as an adviser.

          “When my client get a problem, this counselor is no only just talk about H.I.V. Sometimes, problem from the family also ask about me. Maybe have problem with the wife,” Galle said, and he gave domestic violence as an example. “Also, come to me, and then, what I can do? I no give solution, but I give many solution. I give to them, and then, they just choose.”

          His other clinic duties include distributing methadone to recovering heroine addicts and giving out condoms and sterile needles and alcohol tissue to clean the skin after a drug injection.

          “I see all my friend. The drugs they use heroine, and then, many friend like sick like H.I.V. but don’t understand information. I am lucky,” Galle reflected, lucky that he didn’t get sick.

          To compliment his work at the clinic, Galle, whenever he is asked to do so, gives personal testimonies to school children about his experiences with drugs as a part of a program put on by the Badan Narkotika Nasional (BNN), the Indonesian National Narcotics Agency.

          “‘Drug is shit,’” Galle tells the students. “‘Drug is no good for you. Drug is make somebody get H.I.V.’”

          But although Galle believes in his work, he cannot continue to live off of his income from the clinic. He makes only two million rupiah a month.

          “It’s not enough man,” Galle said. “I live in Bali.”

          Previously, Galle moonlighted at a villa after clinic work, making an extra three million a month, but now, he has no other job and is looking for something that can sustain him, help his family, and provide a service to others. Social work, he said, or a job at a N.G.O. like GreenPeace are examples of the type of work Galle is interested in finding.

          Galle’s contract with the clinic expires at the end of this year, and he is undecided about whether he’ll renew it.

          “I’m already boring in the clinic,” Galle said. “I want to study, and I want get money. Is my life. You know? Study and get money.”

          If he has the chance to return to school, Galle would want to finish his art education and learn about health.

          In the mean time, as Galle searches for that perfect job, he makes extra income spear fishing in Nusa Dua with a friend of his from Spain. They make one to 200 thousand rupiah for two to three hours’ work, and they’ve just invested in a couple of boats.

          Also, Galle and his friend are starting a business importing ceramic from Spain to sell to Indonesian hotels and villas. At the moment, they are looking for a one to 200 million rupiah investment to help them buy the material to get started. Galle believes that he will make a lot of money from this business.

          “I never have lot of money,” he said.

          Since falling on hard financial times, Galle’s wife has left him.

          “My wife don’t like me anymore because I’m poor,” Galle said. “I have nothing. She don’t like me because I have nothing, because I like many friend, I like social, and I poor. I have no house. I have no nice car.” Galle laughed.

          In the divorce, Galle’s wife got custody of his children, a son who’s nine and a 10 year old daughter. Aura and Dimash live with their mother in Surabaya, where Galle only has the chance to visit them about once every two months.

          Galle has a new girlfriend now.

          “But I don’t know if she like me or not,” Galle said. “Because I am poor. I have nothing.”

          If Galle ever got a lot of money, he said he’d like to use it to help orphans to fund their education.

          Why?

          “I don’t know,” Galle said. “It’s my feel. I like help for the people, but I’m poor. I know about people have money and people have no money, cannot do study. You know? Understand what I mean? And I care for them. You know? I don’t know. It’s my life, so it’s many say like ‘ah, you is crazy. You know? You have nothing. What you doing you do like that?’ It’s okay. I’m enjoy it. I never ask about money with you, and sometimes — yeah. I don’t know. I cannot talk anymore about that. It’s my life.”