This morning we took out our coffee to the little dock in front of our garden. It was already sunny, but the air was still fresh with dew sparkling on the grass and the flowering shrubs around the house. Behind the house the coconut trees, acacias further up on the slope and pinetrees high up on the steep mountains were gleaming in different shades of green.
The next neighbours live a few kilometres away, there’s no road on Taravai, no boat traffic and the only sounds are the wind in the palm trees, the gentle lapping of waves on the white beach left and right of the house, the occasional crowing of a wild rooster (there aren’t many left, the previous occupants of the house caught and ate most of them…), the raucous calls of some herons (maybe a neighbourly dispute) and of course the purring of our cat who loves to roll around on the dock holding her belly into the morning sun.
Sometimes a little black tip shark swims by, occasionally greater crested terns splash with plunge dives into the sea — otherwise it’s all quiet here in this little paradise. Perfect? Almost, just don’t forget to put on a thick layer of mosquito spray and try not to stand on a road of fire ants 
In this place without mobile phone connection, internet or television it’s easy to forget about the crises and problems that go on in the world out there (or at least dispel them for a while)…
