I grew up on an island outside the coast of Papua New Guinea, called Bougainville. There were no shopping malls, cinemas, fancy restaurants or much of anything to be short. A day would pass where I would just visit my friend’s place and we would use our imaginations to create these wacky scenarios to enact in. Or a day would be spent visiting the beach or just going playing in the backyard with my dog. In the case of television, we had just the one television channel, called EMTV, em meaning “That’s tv”. However, I never once felt bored with the apparent lack of entertainment.

These days I am bombarded by television channels, shopping malls, cinemas and movies to watch, computer games, and the internet. There’s just too much to do. Ironically I feel more bored and unsatisfied. I have an abundance of computer and video games to play, an abundance of books to read, movies to watch and channels to surf. Yet when I get a spare moment from work, I don’t know what to do. I play a game for a couple of minutes and would rather be doing something else. Perhaps the plethora of activities have left me with a short attention span, which reminds me of an article I read detailing how social networking sites will spawn a generation with an even shorter attention span. The short updates (i.e. Facebook status or twitter), is slowly taking over but that’s another story. However it seems counter-intuitive that we feel more bored with the increase in activities to do.

I would rather be devoid of this new era of entertainment. I would rather just live in the land of far far away and enjoy one thing at a time. It’s hard to keep track of so much information. People may view a country lifestyle as boring and uninteresting, but there’s a certain appeal to it. I would rather sit under a tree enjoying a book, than sitting in front of my computer surfing the information super highway. I would rather just concentrate on one thing at a time to fully digest on the one thing. Simplicity is a beautiful thing.

I don’t remember how the conversation about Bougainville started, but there I was talking to a colleague about its natural beauty and how uncorrupted the place was due to it separateness from the rest of the world. Bougainville is where I grew up and the place my family moved to when I was only 1 year old. I have very fond memories of the place and I can’t remember anything bad from the place. Even when the war started and we had to evacuate I didn’t feel scared. Perhaps that was due to my naivety as a kid, but I definitely think it was also associated with the environment in which I grew up. Like I said, all memories were pretty much positive.

I always enjoy talking about Bougainville (despite the negative connotations of the name in Australia [for the uninitiated look up Bogan in Aussie slang]), because my memories of the place were so perfect. I can always remember how sincere the locals were every morning when greeting us. Our workers were always happy and everyone just smiled. The beach was just down the road and we could always enjoy a majestic sunset, although at 4 years old I would hardly appreciate such beauties. On occassions we would visit Loloho, which to me will always be the most beautiful beach in the world. The water was crystal clear and you could swim with an abundance of sea creatures, although my dad would argue that that was a good thing since he stepped on a sea urchin and needed to go to the hospital. It was a simple life that I loved.

I never did understand why we had to leave; all I knew was that the BRA started this war. And as a kid I would just do as I was told. I still remember gunshots at night and the helicopters, although I don’t remember being scared or worried. It was only until recently when I talked to a friend who asked me about the documentary, Coconut revolution. I had never heard of the documentary and after some googling, I became very interested in watching it seeing how little I knew about Bougainville and the BRA war. I managed to find a copy and it was an eye opener. I understood the cause of the war and came to respect it. Deep down I think I was angry at the war because it made me leave my home, most of all my belongings and my dog. But after seeing and hearing about some of the unjust that was happening, I am happy something was done. Although war is never the perfect solution, I can see why it broke out. Years of betrayal and corporate irresponsibility from the large mining companies would brew the anger that would drive a war.

I do wish that I day I can visit Kieta and Arawa again. It would bring back so many fond memories. To this day, it is still the only paradise I know of.