Reasons why I love living in rural Sulawesi:
No alarm: Unless I need to be awake really early for a work excursion, I wake up naturally anytime between 7am and 9am. It is such a luxury to never have to set an alarm and just wake up when your body naturally wants to.
Have time for breakfast: I always eat breakfast I can’t function without it but here I can take as long as I want to leisurely make and eat breakfast every single day. I can cook up eggs or porridge or whatever I feel like. Even having two courses if I feel like some fresh mango or pineapple after wards. Having the freedom to start my day slowly at a relaxed pace and having the time to reflect is really rare.
Having time to do…nothing: I have literally spent whole weekend days laying around my kost (like a mini apartment) reading, writing, listening to music, watching a tv show, gazing out at the mango tree or simply day dreaming. And if anyone asks about your day they agree it was a day well spent.
The family of three black cats that hung around my garden for a few weeks and then disappeared.
The puppy that bounded through my garden one day, running through the vines and hiding behind trees terrified of me but I who found chewing on a discarded piece of pipe later on.
The unmanaged, overgrown garden that I have at my place with mango, banana and papaya trees that I hope is left and not changed.
The random tree house that the owners built for the workers during construction that now sits empty at the front gate.
The neighbourhood children who play soccer across the road from me on a concrete and dirt field fringed in by big banana trees who didn’t notice me for the first two weeks and then suddenly realised I existed. I came home one day to find them all sitting on my driveway wanting to catch a close up glimpse of me and to invite me to play soccer.
The lovely many who stopped his bike to help me carry the 20L/1 gallon drum of drinking water as I struggled up the hill with it to my place.
The view over the jungle covered mountains that I have from my garden with palm trees and red roofed houses in the foreground.
Riding my motorbike: having gotten over my initial fear the freedom to zoom around and take in the sights as I please is such a good feeling.
*this post was originally published on the blog morganhannah. you can read the original here*
The Eco Backpacker 