Drinking Kava on Vava'u

On boarding the "Orange Vomit"

Some drink rum and Coca-Cola, others drink kava. Where is Vava'u? What is kava? I'll tell you an old travel yarn as I visited Tonga 26 years ago.

So Vava'u belongs to Tonga. I had been staying in a small guest house in Nuku'alofa on the main island Tongatapu; the island sees some yachties because of the natural harbor. One afternoon it had been raining and guests and the daughters of the guest house where siting on the porch looking onto the surf. While the girls where arranging their hair, I was reading in the Lonely Planet guidebook. I realized that I had two choices to get by boat to Vava'u: the Floating Coffin or the Orange Vomit as the ferries were nicknamed. Vava'u is a Tongan island about 400 km North.

 

 

Unloading at Pangai

I took the Orange Vomit. The nickname comes from the orange paint of the ship and … wait until we cross the open sea. I dashed on board and had been lucky to get a seat next to a Tongan gentleman suffering from elephantiasis, most probably caused by Wuchereria bancrofti, which is a human parasitic worm. I didn't take a seat on deck, which could have been more romantic, but with the weather forecast predicting rain, the deck could be wet. It took about 24 hours to get to Vava'u. The sea had been rough and most everyone excluding myself vomited; I had doped myelf and didn't eat on board. In the evening we stopped at the island Ha'afeva and in the middle of the night at Pangai on Lifuka Island, where agricultural equipment had been unloaded, which made the vessel lighter and therefore the rolling increased. When we reached Vava'u the rain hadn't stopped, so part of the fields and meadows had been inundated. The people on deck were all soaked to the skin. Moreover they had can and other provisions in cartons, which were useless now. Later I had been soaked to the skin, too.

 

 The Orange Vomit in the natural habor of Vava'u
Note the color of the water caused by the heavy rains

 

I've found a small guest house to stay and after installing and drying myself I asked the landlady, where I could drink kava. She said there could be a chance on the following evening.

Kava is made from the root of piper methysticum. The root is grinded and soaked in water and later passed through cloth. The drink has sedative, anesthetic, and euphoriant properties; a bit like beer but with the hangover. The word kava is Tongan as well Marquesan and means bitter; Hawaiian is 'awa, Samoan is 'ava, but in Fiji (Melanesia) it's called yaqona, on Vanuatu (also Melanesia) malok, and in Pohnpei (Polynesian exclave in Micronesia) it's called sakau. Moderate consumption of kava as a water-based suspension of kava roots has a low level of health risk. Extraction of the root with organic solvents to produce exportable herbal medicines lead to health concerns because of skin rashs and hepatotoxicity, which for instance caused a ban in Germany during the early 2000s.

The next day came and I went to the hall, where the evening meeting was taking place. It had been organized by the Wesleyan church. I sat with Sayad, the principal of the school, Makisi, the minister, and Viseka, and the Chief Minister ot the Free Wesleyan Church on Vava'u; no other foreigner, yachties don't go there. We were drinking kava and talked or listened to the music. The combo of two guitar players and one banjo player were performing songs of the pacific, also Hawaiian songs and even Rum and Coca-Cola. I found out that Makisi knows Reverent Jovili on Suwa (Fiji), whom I had met during an other trip to the Pacific, as Rev. Jovili had been his teacher. A very cheerful evening, which I still like to recall.

During the next days I took a plane back to Nuku'alofa, where I had left my baggage, and from where I flew out to Samoa later.

Links and References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava

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