One of the most striking sights of a town in the Papua New Guinea Highlands is the sheer number of people who seem to be doing nothing in particular.

They mill around storefronts, wander about street corners, sit clustered in markets or bus stations, either playing cards or chewing betel nut.

We saw a mass of people crowding around a store window, pushing one another to look above the heads of those in front. When we took a closer look, all we saw was a man painting new lettering on a store sign.

It was the most interesting thing for them at the time.

Who are these people who seem to have nothing better to do? First, we must understand that most people in PNG are subsistence farmers, and, as such, do not have jobs. They grow their food in their gardens and receive clean water from the mountain. What they don’t eat they sell at a market. Once they made their kinas for the day, which they use for soap, cooking oil, and clothes, they don’t have much else to do.

“In your culture, time is money,” one of our guides told us. “But here, that’s not the case.”

But there’s a darker side to this. Most of these meandering souls are men. There’s plenty they could be doing: helping tend the gardens, mending their ramshackle huts, spending time with their children, helping them with schoolwork. There are numerous opportunities to make more money, to start businesses, to be a leader in their communities.

But they choose instead to fritter away their hours gambling and smoking with their friends.