Here is a poem that my host mama taught me. Remember, Mami Esther doesn’t drink kava … and I do. Awo.

Kava kava kava

I spoelem hed blong papa

Taem we san i ko daon

Papa i ting abaot kava

Hemi no ting abaot edukesen blong mi

Kava kava kava

(Kava, kava, kava … It messes up Dad’s head. When the sun goes down, Dad thinks about kava. He doesn’t think about my education. Kava, kava, kava.)

Like I said … awo. True. Most volunteers in Vanuatu drink a lot of kava. Me too! Kava makes you feel great and the 5-7 p.m. drinking time is social, cheap, and a really enjoyable part of my day.  But kava is a social issue, too. You’ll hear about men who go out drinking kava until 10 or 11 p.m. at night, and they make their wives stay up waiting for them without eating their dinner. Or you hear about yangfala who spend all of their money on kava when there are other things they should save up for (like a ticket out of Vila.)

I thought it was clever.

One of my favorite photos of my uncle David

I just like this photo because this is pretty much what Lolo David does with his evenings. Jokes, chews kava, jokes, chews kava. This photo was taken in the main room of my host parents' house. So on the red tray are little pieces of kava root that have been cleaned. They're cut to about the size of french fries. You take a few at a time, chew them to mush, then spit them out into the bowl. Once you've chewed through all of them, you mix the chewed mush with water. Then you drain it through a piece of cloth to take the fibrous bits out.

It's disgusting. But it'll do the trick!

C/o Daddy Paul...

Once upon a time in August 2013, I went over to Buninga island to visit another PCV. Since Buninga is sorely lacking in kava (o sori), I asked Daddy Paul if he'd mind digging up a stampa kava for me to take over. (Dranks.) Daddy Paul said OK, as long as I took a stampa over for his tawi the boat driver, but he was concerned. How would I be able to tell which stampa was mine, and which was Lolo Joel's?

Yep, that's my name which got carved into the stampa with a knife.

Disgusting lovely water.

Doesn't that look delicious? / Dirty Water

(This picture is from Symbolo nakamal in Vila.)

To make kava, you dig it out, cut off the dirty bits with a knife, chop it up small, and then somehow get it all mashed up. At the kava bars in Vila, you use a grinder to make it into a thick paste. Afterwards, you mix in water, and then strain the mixture through cloth (or as here, panty hose) to get all of the solids out. The resultant mixture is brown-green, smells disgusting, tastes worse, and gets the job done. I think kava bars have to be one of, if not the, leading small businesses in Vila. They're usually run on a family or small community basis. Just about any nakamal you go to will be associated with some village or some outer island. The kava roots come from family members on that island, the kava and the 20 vatu food sale are done by people from that island, and a lot of the people drinking there will also come from that part of the country. 

Tongariki has nakamals in Seaside, Platinia, Black Sands, Tebakor, over by the airport ... Basically every place that people from Tongariki live, there's a Tongariki kava bar. It's a social club as well as a money making operation.