A roll of film lay unspooled at my feet, spiralling away like a loose curl. It was long exposed to the soft light that found its way in through dusty windows, fingers of eager plants stretching across their panes.

The world is shining out of you. You glow. Speaking about music, light spills from your eyes and lips and tumbles over onto me.

Tomorrow we’ll visit the mine. We’re going to go Panguna.” I feel a thrill of excitement at these words I had waited nine long months to hear.

We lived above an S&M nightclub that we were forbidden to enter. Urge was strictly boys only and we were a flat of four girls.

I’ve come to the conclusion that milk has white privilege.

In Buka, a nightly show plays out as lightning unfurls across the sky, its thunderous partner often missing.

Our trip began as many do in Bougainville: slowly.

“It will take about three hours” our guide Eric said with a sly smile when asked how long the first days’ hike would be.

Time doesn’t fly here. In fact, it can crawl slowly, like beads of sweat collecting between spaces. Alone insignificant, but together a pool.

I’m marvelling at how quickly hours have slipped into days have slipped into weeks. How the unfamiliar is quietly untangling and coalescing into a new routine.

I have been in Bougainville for just over three days. I sit here beneath my hardworking ceiling fan and listen to the sounds of children playing outside.

I’d like to think that I’m not a fearful person, that I’m brave and bold and up for anything. Sure there are certain things that I won’t do: like bungee jump, or go on a rollercoaster, or be sans seatbelt in a taxi in Taiwan.

Give me a once over and tomboy is never the first word that comes to mind. Nor am I claiming to be one or saying that I am deeply in touch with my masculine side.