My beautiful Pele Island morning routine

When living life at village pace, without electricity, it's pretty natural to go to bed early.  9:00 pm was a late night, I was often in bed by 8.  This leads to waking up early, a great thing when your morning trip to the latrine takes you past a beautiful white sand beach with an unobstructed view to the east over the ocean.  It became my routine on Pele to sit under a coconut tree next to the ocean for one or two hours each morning, watching the sunrise.  Gypsy, the family dog, would come and sit with me - more often than not, she'd try to climb up on my lap.  For some of the time I'd be alone, but at least one or two people would come and sit next to me and chat - going to sit next to the beach to look at the ocean in the morning was a very normal thing to.  Never before in my life has watching the sunrise been a regular part of my routine.  Each sunrise was different.  As the sky got light, activity would start on the beach - the village motorboats were making their daily trip to Port Vila, and people would come down to the beach to see off friends and family who were leaving - either for the day to sell fish, or coconuts, or prepared food in Port Vila, or for longer - school vacation was drawing to a close and several students were off to boarding school.  After the sun was up, the boats had left, and it was solidly day I'd finally get up off my bench and walk slowly back to my house - at island pace - to eat breakfast and start the day.

Pele was special, and beautiful in every way.  A perfect introduction to Vanuatu.  It's time for a new adventure on a new island, however - I've finished a good week in Port Vila, and tomorrow morning I'm taking a plane to Malekula, Vanuatu's second biggest island, to spend the week learning from some volunteers there!  There are worse jobs. Plenty new stories and photos to come.

Boats waiting for their passengers

Rain starting to fall in the distance - I watched it come across the ocean before it reached me.  

My morning sitting spot

Family members (and Gypsy the dog) waving goodbye to some of the older children heading off to school.  My host mama is the one in a blue dress.