Just Let The Kava Sing

My first experience was memorable.  Rob and I were invited by another couple to share in some of Vanuatu’s best.  We’d never done this before, but we trusted the intuition of these new found friends and decided to give it a go.

We drove down the hill and met them just behind Wilco Hardware and then followed them up the hill on the other side.  We had been in Vanuatu a couple of weeks and we weren’t quite sure where we were headed.  We ploughed through potholes, the size of bomb craters.  It was before the Toyota Prado.  The low clearance of the car we were driving meant it grounded a few times on the deep ruts caused by Vila downpours cutting into the steep coral surfaced roads.

We turned a corner and our friends parked along side a tall hedge.  It was a beautiful night.  The only light apart from that coming from the billions of stars above was from a single naked red light bulb on a pole sticking out from a tree just opposite us.  We followed our friends across the road, through the gate and down the path towards the glow of the dim light coming from the window of a small traditional hut just ahead of us.

With the light bulb now on the other side of the hedge and the tree canopy blocking out the sky, we were enveloped in darkness.  As we walked along the path I became aware that we were not alone.  You couldn’t see them, but you knew they were there… in the darkness – silent, but definitely there. 

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see that the garden was arranged in a way that formed these little alcoves all along the path.  There were people in them, but it was only the occasional shuffle or mumble that gave them away.

We carried on toward the hut.  Just before we entered, though, a horrendous noise erupted from the bush behind us.  It was the deep guttural sound of a man preparing to hoick.  Then he spat, followed by a few “peh, peh” as he tried to get out the last of whatever the terrible thing was that he had in his mouth.

This gave me no confidence that I would be able to go through with it.  Let’s face it this was not my scene.  We entered the door.  There was a woman behind the bar, but no one else inside.  We took a table.  We chatted the typical small talk of those who had just met and then it was time.

Thomas asked if I wanted a 50 vatu or a 100 vatu.  I chose the cheaper since I still wasn’t sure I wanted to do this.  Rob, being Rob, jumped in boots and all and ordered a 100 vatu.  We went up to the bar.  The woman ladled the appropriate amount into the glass bowls and we headed out the back door into the darkness.

The liquid ladled into the bowls looked like it had just come from one of the many potholes we had passed through on the way.  It was a greenish muddy brown and certainly didn’t look like something you would want to drink, unless of course, you were into drinking from sewers.

Out back and facing a chest high hedge, our hosts explained it was the custom here to drink it all in one go.  So, I tilted the bowl back and immediately thought, “What the hell am I doing?  Am I completely mad?”  The taste was foul and what was worse was that I couldn’t take it all in one gulp.  I had to gulp two, three, four times and with each gulp another wave of that taste went over my tongue.  And, I had the half size!

I now knew exactly why the guy behind the bush was hoicking.  There is no way to describe the taste of kava.  Some people say earthy.  Others say it tastes like mud, but then can you really trust the opinion of someone who has recently been eating mud? No, the taste is indescribable really.

Although the mud analogy is not a surprising one considering the kava here is green kava, that is straight from the ground.  Kava is found through out the Pacific, but generally it is dried and later mixed with water something like a tea.  In Vanuatu, the fresh roots are ground up – in places like Tanna that grinding was traditionally done by chewing and spitting, but we won’t go there – then placed in a piece of material and squeezed into a bucket of water.  The resulting liquid muck is sold in half coconut shells in measures of a full shell or half shell.

All everyone can really agree upon is that it is not a good taste.  So, one might ask why is the national drink of Vanuatu such a foul tasting concoction?  Well, it is not for the taste.  It is for what follows after you manage to keep it down.

Kava produces a mild high.  By the time we got back to the table to gobble up the peanuts that were there to kill the taste, my lips and tongue were going numb already.  The world kind of slows down with kava.  You mellow and life just happens around you as you sit in your own headspace.  It’s not alcoholic.  So, you don’t get a hangover the next day, although it makes some people like me very groggy in the morning.

For ni-Vanuatu kava is a tradition.  It played and still plays a big part in custom ceremonies and its traditional uses are as varied as the 100 language groups that make up the country.  In most localities kava was for men only and even today in the outer islands its use by women is frowned upon.

Following independence in 1980, kava came out of the solely traditional role and entered the popular culture.  Kava bars, like the one we went to for our first kava experience opened up and today there are well over 100 kava bars or nakamals just in Vila.  Kava has replaced alcohol as the drug of choice in Vanuatu and since it mellows you out rather than hypes you up like alcohol can, street violence on a Friday night has really dropped off over the past 20 years.  Of course, I wasn’t here then so that is second hand, but I feel a lot safer walking the streets of Vila on a Friday night than I do the streets of Wellington or Auckland.

For the typical expat kava drinker, kava is viewed more or less as legalised marijuana.  Don’t get me wrong, the ni-Vanuatu treat it as a social drug as well, but with a long tradition of use it’s nothing new, it’s just there.  Expats treat it like a drug.  This is probably best illustrated by the lingo.  In Bislama, ni-Vanuatu will say some one is “drong long kava” or drunk on kava, where expats are likely use the word “high”.  Where we say, “Did you get a hit yet”, ni-Vanuatu will asks, “yu harem kava”.  “Harem” means feel or hear, which leads to some asking, “If you can hear the kava singing”.  The expat kava culture has also added the word, “kavahead”.

Probably the best example of the expat drug culture approach is to go into one of the stores that sells dried kava on a day when the cruise ship is in town.  The yabbos that arrive here from Western Sydney and Queensland head straight to these stores.  They pick up the tourist packages of dried kava in little decorative baskets and ask the nearest staff member if “this is good stuff”.  Wanting to make a sale, the staff member says, “Yes, of course.”  The tourist makes the purchase, looks around for the coppers and discretely slips the little pink or blue basket into his bag.  You can just see him going back to his cabin with his mates, locking the door behind them and then trying to smoke the stuff.

For ni-Vanuatu, kava is just something to do with the boys on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, … night.  That is the pub scene I’m talking about, its not the kind of thing you’d do sitting in front of the telly watching a rugby match.  Although, thinking about it, it might not be a bad idea.  For those of us that don’t see the point of getting all excited about little people running back and forth across the TV screen, life would be a lot quieter if the couch potato fans were zonked on kava.

Speaking of zonked, kava can zonk you big time.  Generally, one or two shells will get the kava singing to you and smart people stop there.  Experienced drinkers can go on to three or four shells. 

The place is full of stories of over zealous expats on kava.  One friend of ours loves to tell the story of her first experience.  Since I don’t have a Haitian-Miami accent I can’t really do the story justice, but she tells how she went to her first kava bar.  She is one of the few people who say they liked the taste, Rob is another.  So, she had her first shell and loved it.  She said, “Whao, this is great.  Give me another.”  She had another and then another.  Her story usually stops with four shells, but her husband says it was more like six.  Completely legless she was taken home and put to bed and there she stayed for four or five days.  She was so sick she could not get up and she hasn’t had another shell since.

Fortunately, Rob and I are a bit more moderate in our kava drinking.   We go to kava probably only once a month and it is much more for the social setting than for the “hit” or to hear the “singing”.  It is a very social event.  Kava is taken in the evening and loud music and bright light are definite no-noes, so you have your kava and then sit down and have a chat with whomever. 

When we first arrived we tried a few different kava bars, like Mickey’s, Ronnie’s, and The Northern Light.  All have different atmospheres and different types of kava.  Depending on the island it comes from and how it is made, kava can have different strengths.  In my experience Maewo kava is the strongest, but ask any ni-Vanuatu which is best and he or she will tell you it is the kava from their island.

Over the past two years though, we have settled on two particular kava bars, Bob’s and Friday night kava at the University of the South Pacific (USP) Campus.   Bob’s is on the lagoon and you have your kava over at the bushes, rinse your mouth out and then sit on the deck over the lagoon.  The sun sets behind the hills on the other side  and it is a fabulous setting for the end of the day.  The sky glows in oranges, yellows, pinks and purples as the palm trees turn to shadows.  It is a great place to take visitors

USP has a different ambience.  It is an end of the week work thing, but friends of employees and students, like us, are welcome too.  We go there largely to catch up with a few friends who are pure kavaheads.

I can’t say I’ve ever really gotten into the stuff, but that will save me from the kidney stones, dry skin and slow mornings associated with the heavy kava drinkers.  It’s a great social event, though, so we will keep going occasionally. 

Hey.  Yeah man, how’s it goin’…  Yeah, I hear it singin’ tooooo….

[Note:  This tale was first told in early 2001.]

Copyright 2001