At five years old Juliana Ni Wayan was carrying bricks on a construction site in Bali to support her family. Now she is married to her Prince Charming and living in Wollongong with three children of her own.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Affectionately known as Jules she runs her own restaurant and catering business called Balinese Spice Magic, feels like Cinderella and describes a Wollongong women who helped her two decades ago as her Fairy Godmother.
Juliana grew up as the only child of a lower-caste family in Bali where she worked hard to support her parents. She met Elle and Garth Peters while they were holidaying in Kuta in 1999 and a chain of events started that changed her life.
The Peters family often holidayed in Bali. But when Juliana took care of their their children Grace and Grant at a kids club, a long friendship began. During another holiday in 2001 they invited her to visit Australia and learned she had placed second in Bali's equivalent of the HSC which won her a hospitality scholarship in Jakarta. But supporting her parents was more important to her.
Mrs Peters investigated ways to bring her to Australia to study. Her family said yes and she did a tourism and hospitality management course at TAFE. It was like a dream come true for the young woman who loves helping others. So much so that when the Peters family called to warn her to stay away from Kuta after the Bali Bombing, she was already in the midst of the drama. She went to the site and then to a hospital where she helped move bodies for days and answered mobile phones when friends and relatives of the victims began calling from Australia. It was hard but she wanted to help as much as she could.
After TAFE Will Mitry, who met Juliana at the Uni Bar while studying environmental science, followed her to Bali where they got married and had one child before returning to Australia so he could finish his degree. He is happy to live in Bali but she sees more opportunities for their children in Australia where they can also enjoy a childhood. She did in admin job at university and started doing market stalls with traditional Balinese food before starting a restaurant in Keira St where she regularly dances for diners. “I am very lucky. And I want to pass my tradition on to my children. I live some of my dream of being a child through them. I get to be a big kid with them.”
“We are so lucky here. We have the mountains, the sea, the lake and the people are like those from my village..very welcoming.”
