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The author discusses the question of leadership in Kragur. In the 1970s, some villagers blamed many of Kragur's problems on lack of strong, centralized leadership, which they believed were key to the strength of the wealthy Yuropian countries of the world. Ironically, the more Kragur gets entangled with the wider world, the more leaders and would-be leaders proliferate, thus complicating the choices they face about which direction to lead. Catholicism has also confounded the leadership situation by providing opportunities for leadership to people without the credentials of a kokwal, particularly women. The author talks about the importance of leadership in addressing various problems in Kragur, including those relating to land, money, social relationships, electoral politics, women, and religion.

In this chapter, the author narrates his experiences from his first trip to Papua New Guinea (PNG). In 1975, the year PNG gained its independence from Australia, the author went there to do research for a PhD in cultural anthropology. He had been to PNG in 1973 for three months on Manus Island and nearby Baluan Island as an assistant to Ted Schwartz, his professor at the University of California, San Diego. This time, he was with his first wife, who had a BA in anthropology. The author recounts the physical challenges that he and his former wife encountered in PNG, including mishaps and diseases that forced her to go home in a sorry condition within about three months of her arrival. He also met Stephen Umari and Agnes Munbos, a Kragur couple who had taken him me under their wings shortly after his arrival. In 1998, he spent about two months in PNG as a lecturer on an American Museum of Natural History tour of the country. Here he expresses his longing to return to Kragur.

The author reflects on his return to Kragur in 2008 and how the village has become part of the modern world. He first shares his views about electricity and other modern amenities in Kragur as well as their benefits to local residents and admits that many of the things he likes about Kragur are things many villagers would be glad to be rid of. He then discusses education in Kragur and suggests that Papua New Guinea's economy has not produced enough jobs for those who can read, write, and juggle numbers to absorb all of Kragur's bright young people. He also talks about his aversion to working under orders and by the clock, a sentiment he shares with the Kragur people. Finally, he describes Kragur villagers as modern people, particularly in the economic sphere, and emphasizes the moral dilemmas of modernity.

The author recounts his trip to Kairiru Island and the scorching heat he endured there. He took a leave of absence without pay from his job and headed to Kragur, where he spent May and June of 2008. He said the trip was emotionally and physically demanding due to blistering heat; temperatures on Kairiru range between 75 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit (25–35 degrees Celsius). Kairiru is fewer than five degrees south of the equator. The author also talks about his hike to Iupulpul, a historic mountain for Kragur people and a deeply nostalgic one for him, and how the heat bothered him. He discusses the link between Kairiru's climate and global warming, along with the dry season that Kragur people usually call makatalal. Finally, he reflects on his visits to Wewak and Moresby as well as the Kragur people's hospitality.

The author discusses the art of wu wei wu—“doing without doing”—and its significance to his anthropological research in Kragur. He first explains why he wanted to go back to Kragur and says he kept a mental list not only of people and places he wanted to see and things he wanted to do, but also of things about which he was especially curious. He then considers what the people of Kragur call a cargo cult, in which they would petition the spirits of their dead and in some cases, the Virgin Mary, to send them money. He also expresses his interest in learning about other dimensions of Kragur life and describes how the Kragur people feel about his two books, Hard Times on Kairiru Island and Village on the Edge.

In this chapter, the author shares his views about whether Kragur is a poor village. He takes note of some of the signs of poverty among Kragur villagers, from going barefoot and cooking over open fires to lack of indoor plumbing, bathing in the stream without soap or towels, and using only the glow of a fire to light their houses because they can't afford kerosene. However, he says a stroll through Kragur leaves one with more mixed impressions of the material richness of the people's lives. There is no doubt that the general welfare of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) people leaves a lot to be desired. According to the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report for 2009, PNG ranked 148th out of 182 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI). However, the HDI doesn't into account access to land, starving in the streets, or simply getting enough to eat. The author also compares the general physical well-being of urban and rural people in PNG. Finally, he discusses water, sanitation, and health in Kragur.

The author explains how Kragur ancestry allows village chiefs, such as Kitok and William Pileng, to acquire high hereditary status. He first discusses the importance of family ties, mainly by descent through males from a common male ancestor (patrilineal descent), in questions about land. He then talks about his research on how kinship and leadership were related in the traditional system, noting that some Kragur people started to use the title of chief for those who qualified as ramat wolap. He also considers the importance of clans to Kragur people and the secret details of Kragur clan ancestry and concludes by describing a project that he helped launch to record knowledge of clan ancestors; this project was called the wok bilong straksa (“work of structure”) or simply straksa wok (“structure work”).

The author talks about the meetings he had with several knowledgeable men representing different Kragur clans to discuss their ancestry as part of the straksa project, with particular emphasis on the rights to magic that were passed down within clans. The discussions focused on the line of male ancestors leading directly to the current Kragur clan members, but there were disagreements over where to draw the line between the earliest laif man (Tok Pisin for living or mortal people) of the clan and what some of those gathered called spirit man (Tok Pisin for spirit people). Some of the men were also eager to record stories about their ancestors' exploits, such as clearing and planting land and acquiring rights to other kinds of property. The most important rights passed down within clans, however, are rights to magic. The author also considers the relevance of ramat wolap and kokwal as well as tumbuna save as the primary source of clan status.

The author discusses the 2008 elections in Kragur and Wewak. When he arrived in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 2008, all the people of Kairiru and other area islands were in the middle of a campaign for the office of president of the Wewak Islands Rural Local Level Government. During its many years of governing the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, Australia introduced elections for positions of local, regional, and national leadership. The author talks about the evolution of the PNG governmental and electoral system into Western-style elections, focusing on changes such as the use of campaign posters, the introduction of limited preferential voting, improved methods of moving polling teams around rural areas, and more voter education.

The author talks about the 2008 local elections in Papua New Guinea. Based on his observations, the author believes that the Kragur people and the government election officials from Wewak managed the elections very well. The elections for ward councilors and Local Level Government area presidents were supposed to take place nationwide at the same time as the 2007 parliamentary elections, but they were postponed until 2008. The author arrived in Kragur in 2008 when the campaigns leading up to the elections, scheduled for early June, were under way. He discusses the public campaigning by candidates, the day of the elections, the counting of the votes, and the results of the elections. He also describes the aftermath of the elections, with particular reference to protests and accusations of irregularities.

The author narrates how Kragur villagers went back to their normal activities after the 2008 local elections. Some villagers appeared to welcome the break from routine brought by the elections, but didn't seem to care much about the results. While the public events and private drama of the elections went on, people still had to attend to all the ordinary daily chores. According to the author, the general pattern of work in the village hadn't changed a lot from the 1970s. Women were still involved in harvesting and preparing food, washing dishes, and gathering and breaking up firewood. Meanwhile, men still took the lead in things that required a lot of sitting and talking. The author also talks about his encounters with people in Kragur asking him for advice on how to get into tourism. Finally, he considers the attitudes of Kragur villagers toward sorcery.

The author discusses the attitudes of Kragur people toward religion. He talks about the role of religion in Kragur villagers' experience of the modern world and how they have used religion to try to control money. Papua New Guinea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but its preamble also acknowledges the widespread influence of Christianity when it speaks of “our noble traditions and the Christian principles that are ours.” About 96 percent of PNG's people are affiliated with a Christian denomination, with Catholicism having the largest number of adherents. Most of PNG's people were Christians, but a lot of Kragur people don't really care what others think of their religious identity. The author describes Kragur people's religious life, including their belief in God and the Virgin Mary as well as their charismatic worship practices.

The author reflects on his last days in Kragur. A couple of weeks before the author left Kragur, villagers started inviting him for farewell meals, and a few broached the idea of putting on some kind of a send-off event. Needless to say, his departure was accompanied by public spectacle. There were songs with gestures from a group of schoolchildren, speeches from a couple of local leaders, a tribute to the retiring school headmaster, and a buffet of local food. The author discusses his activities during the last week of his stay in Kragur, some of the special requests as well as going-away gifts he received from villagers, and his trip to Wewak. Finally, he reports on his arrival in Washington, which signals his reentry into normal life a metropolitan environment.

The author recounts his final trip to Kragur in 2011, staying there from the beginning of February through early March, for some unfinished business. He had finished organizing the clan history information that he started in 2008 and putting it in neat digital charts with the help of a fellow anthropologist. Then he mailed copies of each clan's chart to its straksa project participants, asking them to check the charts for errors or omissions. When he returned to Kragur, he brought paper copies of linguist Richard Wivell's lexicon of the Kairiru language and his book describing its grammar, to be given to villagers. The author talks about mining and its impact on Kragur's water supply, along with local political issues such as health care financing. He also discusses some of the changes in Kragur and in Papua New Guinea more generally, including the proliferation of mobile phones and the launch of massive liquefied natural gas projects.