This will be a quick-ish one.
I’ve been slacking. To recap—after Costa Rica, our quick Christmas visit home to Gig Harbor became a three-month restructure of our business, then extended into a year. On January 12th, 2023, business solid, my husband, myself, and our two girls packed our too many belongings and arrived in Bali, Indonesia.
For almost a decade, we’ve planned to slow-travel the world, spending six months to a year in each country, learning along the way. When we finally left, I doubt most of our family or friends believed it would happen or agreed with our choice. We get it. We were taking our girls to a faraway land few had been to. There were a few well-intentioned comments about the girl’s education, safety, and suggestions that perhaps we were running away to an island where we would find the same problems only with palm trees.
Currently, our home country is not where we want to be or raise our girls. I won’t go into the reasons in this post, but here is the thing—despite everything horrifying in the news, family differences, and outrageous living costs in the US, we didn’t realize until we arrived in Bali that one of the biggest things we were missing/craving/seeking in our daily lives was kindness.
The Balinese people are incredibly kind. Not just when something goes wrong or someone is hurt or in trouble, but every day, in all things. It’s part of their being. Some expats will grumble, stating ulterior motives or that they know one guy…I don’t care. Everyone worldwide has crap going on or reasons for acting a certain way. They could choose kindness to achieve it, but most don’t. The Balinese do, and it’s wonderful. Yes, I’d be more likely to buy from you if you’re kind. We appreciate it every day. Servers at restaurants, government officials, taxi drivers, the pushy ladies on the beach trying to exfoliate the top three layers of your skin with a beach massage—all act with kindness.
Of course, Bali has its problems, but I’ll take these problems any day with the kindness, and palm trees, that come with it.
I promise more about our journey—hospital visits, gorgeous food, kitty adoption, scam artist stories, and more pictures than you can probably stomach soon.
Sunshine Dunning 