Kava

Kava is a staple drink in Tonga. Typically, anything and everything that has Tongan men in attendance will include the drinking of kava. Being a man in Tonga, I partake by default, and have had it dozens and dozens of times in the past year and eight months. The effects are similar to alcohol, which is why, in the Pacific, beer is sometimes called "European kava." However, while it slows physical coordination, it leaves the mind clear to think. You're physically sleepy, but mentally alert. There's also an increased sense of sense of calm, sociability, and camaraderie, which helps to explain why men here break out the kava bowl at every social event.

Despite all this, I didn't feel that kava deserved more then a mention here (until now). That's because Tongan make it weak. Want to try some yourself? Mix one part dirt to twenty parts water, dissolve in a couple of those cough drops that numb your tongue, and drink a cup every ten minutes for four hours. I've had as many as fifteen shells full (that's right, actual coconut shells, cause I'm cool) yet felt only a mild effect.

Kava has always been a part of Pacific culture, but the use of kava has changed in recent times. In a large way, it's become nationalizing. I don't want to get into a whole thing here about colonization and decolonization and the reason there are so many coups in the South Pacific. The main point of all that is that people and culture vary widely island to island within the borders set by a bunch of European map makers. So many islanders today are trying to look to the things that unite them rather then divide them, and the consumption of kava is one such unifier. In Micronesia, the kava shell even appears on the state’s flag!

So in Vanuatu, kava drinking has become part of the national identity, and kava bars (called nakamal) there are more popular then alcohol bars. And in Vanuatu, kava is different. I'm not clear on if its the age of the roots, or the way it's prepared, but kava in Vanuatu is potent. Troost, one of the authors I mentioned last post, was knocked near-unconscious in Vanuatu by two shells of kava. A friend of a Japanese teacher at my college was temporarily paralyzed by the same amount. So you can appreciate it when I tell you that I had six shells.

In hindsight, five would have been enough. But despite it's weakness, Tongan kava seems to have built up my tolerance. So, after two shells and a wait of twenty minutes with no apparent effect, I was ready for more (with no risk to my wallet, since each drink cost about 50 cents Canadian). And twenty minutes was also more then enough time to make some new Ni-Vanuatu friends who were happy to learn that I was not (as I appeared) Australian. Those darn Australians! My Ni-Vanuatu friends had a much higher tolerance then I, and they had a truck, with which we went bar hopping Vanuatu-style.

Neighbourhood to neighbourhood, sometimes across the street from each other or even four to a corner like gas stations in Canada, were nakamal in Vanuatu's capital Port Vila. Each evening, when it begins to get dark, the owners light red lamps to show patrons that they're open for business. Some that we visited were actual bar-like structures with tables, tin roofs, and food for sale. Others were little more then a woman sitting in her yard mixing a plastic bucket full of kava. But somehow my new friends knew which nakamal in each neighbourhood was the best (measured by the kava's strength, I think), and when it was time to move on to another.

To prove your manhood, you're supposed to drink the entire shell in one go, not sip it like an expensive beer in a dance club. That was never a problem for me, much to the delight of the serving girls. Oh yeah, in Tonga, it's still taboo (oooo) for women to drink kava, but its slowly becoming accepted for women in Vanuatu (though I never saw any who were drinking instead of serving). I downed a third and a fourth in quick succession. but held off on my fifth until late in the evening. Finally I downed it, and was surprised to find that I was still conscious and not paralyzed. So much so that, after being dropped off at my room at the end of the night, I decided to take one more "for the road" at the nakamal across from my hostel. Big. Mistake.

Somehow, I made it back to my room, and even took a bite of some Chinese takeaway I got. I turned on the TV, and lay down for a wide-eyed hour of French television. I vaguely remember a fear-factor type show that included two "little people" as helpers, a master samurai jail keeper, and Merlin (the sorcerer of King Arthur's court). I spent six more nights in Vanuatu, but never had more then five shells of kava again!

And if you're looking to try some kava, these days it's available from Amazon.com.  This one, from Tonga, is quite potent kava of the "vanuatu" variety.  Gather some friends, a pair of pantyhose, a bucket, and you're good to go!

Vanuatu

Fiji was alright, but I went to Fiji mostly because, before coming to Tonga, everyone I had to talked to in Canada said (once we had established where Tonga was) "the Pacific? My [any family member] went to Fiji!" That and then in Tonga, most Tongans told me something to the effect of, "yeah our country is OK...but you should really go see Fiji!" So I felt like I had no choice but to check it out. But the country I was REALLY looking forward to visiting was Vanuatu. Where!? I've met British here in Tonga who had never heard of Vanuatu, and it was in THEIR empire! Some background:

Two of my favourite travel writers, Paul Theroux and J. Maaten Troost, visited Vanuatu during their time in the South Pacific. And a new favourite explorer of mine, Captain Cook, had also visited and written extensively about what were then called the "New Hebrides." After reading the accounts of these three men, I was determined to see the islands with my own eyes.

When Cook visited the New Hebrides, he wrote, "the people of this country are in general the most ugly and ill-proportioned of any I ever saw." What a jerk! But what really interested Europeans was Cook's description of the people's paganism, barbarism, and cannibalism. John Williams was the first missionary there. He had played a major role in bringing the Wesleyan faith to Polynesia, but as he stepped off his boat in the New Hebrides he was promptly clubbed and eaten. The competition was on - Cannibals 1, Christianity 0. Soon missionaries from both the English Presbyterian Church the French Catholic Church and were flooding in to the islands. They were followed by British and French settlers, who became frustrated by the lawlessness in a country that neither Britain nor France was willing to adopt as a colony. Finally, after a series of attacks and murders in the New Hebrides committed by both natives and Europeans, and an increasing German presence in the South Pacific, Britain and France agreed to jointly rule the colony. In 1906 the New Hebrides became the first and only place where these two worked together in one colony, and the result was about as awkward as you can imagine.

Ni-Vanuatu (citizens of Vanuatu) I talked with, who lived through this condominium government, said it was all extremely confusing. Instead of actually working together, the British and French competed and doubled up on everything. There were two school systems - one British and one French. Two hospitals, two police forces, two sets of laws, two courts, two postal systems! At one time, the height of flag poles was measured, to make sure the French weren't flying their flag higher then the British or vise-versa. Real confusion came when British insisted on driving on the left while the French drove on the right! I made that last one up (or did I...).

Things finally came to a head in the 1970s when the British were determined to unload the last of their colonies while the French were determined to keep all of theirs. In the end, the British convinced France to pull out of the New Hebrides and the country became independent "Vanuatu" in 1980. The British promptly disappeared, as if they had never been there, leaving a lot of Ni-Vanuatu wondering if the fight for independence had really been a good idea. While France gives some aid to the former colony, things appear much better for nearby New Caledonia which remains a part of the French empire.

Now with a history like that, I knew I'd enjoy myself. But just in case, I also planned to go to the rim of an active volcano, visit to a remote island that all but worships Americans, and take plenty of powerful yet legal narcotics (true story). How could Vanuatu be anything but awesome?

Britain and France, united only by their fear of der German Kaiser Wilhelm II!