If the rain, the mud, the dust, the heat, and the sheer boredom didn't get you down, it was the unrelenting routine of working ten hours a day six days a week. Was it any wonder we all dreamt of escaping down to Kieta for a scent of the big wide world beyond?
Once we had, by hook or by four-wheel-drive, hitched a ride to Kieta, our first stop was the waterfront shop of Greens, a veritable Aladdin's cave of desirable merchandise, from t-shirts to bilum bags to postcards depicting Highland 'meris' suckling their babies on one side and a pig on the other. Then it was time for liquid refreshments at the Kieta Hotel, or the unpretentious yacht club, or, much, much later, Arovo Island.
Kieta had a population of just over a thousand then. There were thirteen trade stores, a supermarket, the ubiquitous Breckwoldts, cinema shows at the Kieta Club and the nearby high school, two hotels (including the newly opened Davara at Toniva), a deepwater harbour, three banks and enough traffic to cause city-style congestion.
What's left of it today? Nothing! Except for the memories which will stay alive for as long as we stay alive! Looking back on all this and scores of other exotic places, I find myself thinking, "I can't believe I did all that!"
