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span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">Delight: Drumming for joy, performers from the Senang Hati Foundation give it all they have during a wedding at the Tampak Siring restaurant. An odd assortment of artists, jewelers, musicians, poets and even a champion weightlifter have teamed up and gone into the restaurant business.

The Senang Hati Restaurant in Tampak Siring — just down the road from the Bali Presidential Palace — opened little more than a year ago and is, says its cooperative of owners, doing well, so well the restaurant hosted its first international wedding on Monday when Koren Lewis from Sydney and Papua New Guinea-born Benjamin Duigi tied the knot against a backdrop of orchids.

In full Balinese wedding regalia, right down to lipstick and eyeliner for the groom and a river of gold bands encircling the arms of the bride, the couple and guests ate and made merry under canopies of paku pipid, or decorations made from coconut leaves, in the restaurant’s gardens.

Now this may come as little news: There are dozens of wedding venues across the tropical tourist island. The difference here lies in the history of this one odd cooperative.

Each of the members has a severe disability; between them they have almost the full complement of possible physical disabilities. And that is where the idea of cooperation comes in.

According to the restaurant’s manager, 35-year-old Ayu Made, who has since childhood been confined to a wheelchair from a polio infection, the group plays to each other’s strengths and accepts their varying limitations.

“Some of the chefs cook from wheelchairs. Others who may have limited use of their hands simply chop up vegetables slowly — some of us might be able to do a job fast, and others more slowly, so we just plan ahead,” says Ayu.

Smorgasbord presentations get over any concerns people may have in the wheelchair table waiting department, adds Ayu of the restaurant that developed quite by accident a year ago.

“The idea developed when we had some guests to the [Senang Hati] foundation here. We prepared a meal for them to lunch with us and they then gave us some money — a donation to offset expenses. After that we thought why not make a business, we can sell our food — the guests all said they liked the food, the tempeh and tofu, and as they were vegetarians they said it was perfect,” says Ayu of Senang Hati Foundation’s foray into the restaurant game.

“Some of the cooks are in wheelchairs, others are amputees, some are on crutches, so from all of these people we work together and we can achieve this. Some of us are cleaners, others are waiters, we have different jobs for different people,” says Ayu of the restaurant that is open for lunch on Monday, Thursday and Saturday.

Given that many of the Senang Hati Foundation members have training in different branches of the arts, the restaurant also holds performances during lunch.  

Kintamani-born brothers Rudi and Wayan on Monday performed a masked dance, with 12-year-old Wayan stealing the show with his range of expression.

“I can’t walk,” says Wayan in perfect English. He was perched in his wheelchair next to his older brother, 23-year-old Rudi, also wheelchair bound.

“I had polio as a kid, but Wayan was born like this,” says Rudi. “It’s not hard for Mom and Dad because we can do anything,” pipes up an irrepressible Wayan of his farming parents, who both brothers say are very proud of their achievements.  

Wayan studies English at the foundation and is very near fluent, while Rudi is a jeweler. Both young men say being able to perform during events at the Senang Hati restaurant does more than boost their confidence, it proves they are born of those “who can”.

“Here at Senang Hati we don’t get a lot of donations to support the foundation so we all work, it’s one
of the reasons we opened the restaurant, and we also sell our products, paintings, jewelry, lots of things.