Getting Stoned with Savages

by J. Maarten Troost

  “It doesn’t look very appetizing,” Sylvia said. “It looks like muddy water.”

  “Wait till you taste it,” Patricia added. “You’ll wish it was muddy water.”

  Clearly, this was different from drinking wine. With kava, one didn’t admire its lush hue, or revel in its aromatic bouquet, or note the complex interplay of oak and black currant. This was more like heroin. Its consumption was something that was to be endured. The effect was everything. What concerned me, however, was not the taste but the possibility that this bowl of swirling brown liquid may have had as one of its essential ingredients the spit of unseen boys, which, frankly, I found a little off-putting.

  “That’s the best way to prepare kava,” Dirk said. “It’s very strong that way. There is something about chewing the root that really releases its strength. But here they simply grind the root to a pulp, and then they squeeze it through a sock and mix it with water.”

  A sock. I was beginning to realize that kava is like the sausage of the Pacific. One didn’t really want to know how it was made.

  I watched the Ni-Vanuatu men imbibe their shells and was struck by how different the culture of kava was here compared with elsewhere in the South Pacific. Kava is found on most of the islands of Melanesia and Polynesia. It is typically consumed communally, with men gathered around a large bowl, and a host passing a single shell among his guests. No formal event in Fiji or Tonga occurs without kava. But mostly, kava is used as a social lubricant. It is not uncommon for men in Fiji to spend an entire day around the kava bowl, shooting the shit, as it were, as they consume upwards of thirty shells. It’s different in Vanuatu. No one drinks kava during the day. Not even the kavaheads, the true addicts. It is taken only around dusk and into the early hours of the evening. And more interestingly, I thought as I watched a man take his shell and wander away from his companions, one drinks kava alone in Vanuatu.

  “What you do is this,” Dirk said. “You take your bowl and find something nice to look at—the sunset, the stars, the trees—something poetic. Then, with that image in your mind, you take the kava all at once.”

  “And then what?” I asked.

  “Then you listen to the kava.”

  “And try not to throw up,” Patricia added.

  So instructed, we each found a space of our own. It was not hard to find something poetic to admire. The sky was streaked with crimson, and a fresh breeze stirred the banana trees. The sailboats in the harbor bobbed in an alluring manner, and looking down from afar, I understood the appeal of just lingering here, in Port Vila, far from the continental world. A sailor had once explained to me that crossing the Pacific was the psychological equivalent of going to war: days and days of unrelenting tedium punctuated by moments of sheer, horrifying terror. Many had planned to circumnavigate the world, but after their experience in the Pacific—and from the Panama Canal to Vanuatu is a very long way, a journey that takes some boats two months to complete—some sailors found their ambitions deflated and chose, instead, to remain where they were, floating on their boats, savoring the splendor of sunset from the enchanting confines of Vila Harbor, lending their boats to the exotic, tranquil vista that I now stood contemplating, kava shell in hand. I closed my eyes, retaining the image in my mind, and brought my bowl to my lips. The odor was earthy and peppery, almost toxic, a bitter brew, and to send it down my gullet seemed unnatural, as if defying a hard-gained evolutionary warning trigger, the one that says that this is surely poison. I managed to swallow half the bowl before my stomach protested. I paused for a moment, asked my gut to refrain from sending the kava back up, because that would be really embarrassing, and when my stomach complied, I finished the remaining kava, emitting a groaning, squinting, incoherent curse, as a child might when forced to swallow acrid medicine. I returned my bowl to the kava shed, dimly noticing that it was taken and rinsed in a bucket of murky water, then stacked with the other bowls, awaiting the next user. Had I refreshed my hepatitis shots? I wondered. I couldn’t remember.

  “That was absolutely vile,” I said a few moments later.

  “Awful,” Sylvia agreed.

  “Here,” Patricia offered. “Have some gum.”

  “Good kava today,” Dirk said. “Very smooth. I find that, after a bowl of kava, a cigarette goes very well. Want one?”

  I took the proffered Rothman’s and, noting Sylvia’s sidelong glance, immediately felt a solidarity with Dirk as we tended to the demands of our addictions. We spoke idly of work and the mysteries of Vanuatu, and it wasn’t long before I felt suffused with a pleasant calmness, a contentment with my world. I wasn’t certain whether this was attributable to the kava or to the inarguable fact that I was in a pleasant place, in the company of pleasant people, and that I was on the whole rather pleased with my world, sober or stoned. A blue twilight had overtaken the last embers of sunset, and the first stars of the evening appeared above Iririki Island. More men had arrived at the nakamal, and I half-expected to hear a hearty clamor, like that found in a bar after work, the happy foolery and repressed griping of people finally released from their obligations. But instead the din became ever more muted as the kava did its work.

  “Another shell?” Dirk asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  Patricia declined another, but Sylvia, the trooper, was up for another half shell. It was my turn to pay, about two dollars for a half-shell and two full shells—considerably less than the cost of a single beer in one of the bars that lined Father Lini Highway, to say nothing of the cost of a beer in one of the resorts. I could carry only two bowls at a time; returning for mine, I was met by a Ni-Vanuatu man who was, like everyone else, clad in shorts and flip-flops.

  “Hello,” he said. “Where you from?”

  “I’ve just arrived from America,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said. “My name is Sam. I thought you from Australia. Not many people from America come to Vanuatu. Only Peace Corps. Are you Peace Corps?”

  I admitted that I was not.

  “Tourist? Not many tourists come to the nakamal.”

  I explained that I wasn’t a tourist either, and that I was here, in his land, because my wife had a job here and I had followed her. “That’s what I do,” I explained. “I follow my wife around.”

  He thought this was very funny. “How many shells you have?”

  “This will be my second.”

  “Two full shells already?” He emitted a low whistle. “Maybe you will have two-day kava.”

  “What’s two-day kava?” I asked.

  “That’s when the kava talks to you for two days.”

  “Like a hangover?”

  “No,” he said. “Not like a hangover. Like a dream that doesn’t end.”

  “But in Fiji,” I noted, “people can drink thirty shells a day and still be alert in the morning.”

  “But this isn’t Fiji kava. This is Vanuatu kava, from Pentecost Island. It is the best in the world. Very strong.”

  I asked him what his home island was.

  “I am from Pentecost Island,” he said.

  Of course, I thought. Kava grows on every island with a hill in the South Pacific, and in conversations with other islanders, I had yet to meet anyone who didn’t champion the supremacy of their own island’s kava. In a nation a little more than twenty years old, an islander’s primary loyalty was always to his home island. We each took our shell and sought a moment of poetry. The kava did not go down any easier this time. I still found it wretched, but I endured the bitterness because I think it’s important to experience other cultures. And if it would get me stoned too, so much the better.

  Soon we all found ourselves seated on a bench, chatting companionably with the nakamal’s other patrons. Or, rather, Sylvia and Patricia were chatting with the nakamal’s latest patrons. Those of us who had had more than a couple of shells had become strangely mute, as if lost in some distant reverie. I was happy to note that I wasn’t the only one who had lost the urge to speak. This wasn’t from any la
ck of sociability on my part. Indeed, I was beginning to feel as one with all.

  Sam was seated next to me on the bench. He turned to me and said apropos of nothing: “America.”

  It wasn’t a question, just a word, an image, an idea, and it hovered between us for a long moment, enveloping us. We silently communed about this thing called America. “Yes,” I said finally, after we had exhausted the topic. There was nothing left to say, and we sat there happily, in a shared dream, feeling the slow drift of twinkling stars moving across the sky, until a thought occurred to me, which I shared with Sam.

  “Vanuatu,” I said.

  Sam inhaled deeply. “Hmmm,” he said. We pondered this for a long age, the nuances of Vanuatu, its essence, its magic. We breathed the scent of the islands, the thick tropical air, the sea, the vegetation, blooming flowers and rotting fronds. I stirred my flip-flops around in the dirt. A plume of dust. The dust of ages. Yes, the dust of ages. “Yes,” said Sam at last, satisfied.

  I was beginning to feel a bond with Sam. He was my brother. “Sam,” I said. “Would you like another shell?”

  He would.

  I felt heavy. My steps were ponderous. “Are you all right?” I heard Sylvia ask. My wife. I felt the years together, the history, us. I loved her. “Splendid,” I said, aglow, and I shuffled on with Sam to the shed.

  “Tank yu tumas,” Sam said.

  “No, Sam. Tank yu tumas,”

  Bislama, I thought. The language of poets. I took the bowl, a full shell. There was a light on the horizon, a flickering white orb. It was moving away from me. No. Toward me. I stared at the light. Come here, light. I drank the kava. I felt suffused with light.

  I sat on the bench next to Sam, my brother. Smoked a cigarette. So sweet, this tobacco. Very heavy to lift this cigarette. I am, I thought. I am. Here. There are others. Such good people. They are my brothers. There is no time, no such thing. There is now, and it goes forever, on and on. Backward too, to the past. So heavy, this cigarette.

  “Another shell?”

  A voice. Whose voice? Dirk’s. A good man, Dirk. He is my brother. “Yes,” I said. Let us fly on.

  Cannot move feet. Why do you not move, feet? Will speak to legs. Legs need help too. Push up with arms. Yes, standing now. Must get from here to there. Legs not moving. Why will you not move, legs? Ah, happy now. No need to move legs. Here is Dirk. A good man, Dirk. “Tank yu tumas.” Difficult to speak. Shall stop speaking. Here is the kava. There are the lights, stars, my brothers. Good kava. Very smooth. Can sit down now.

  Have missed bench.

  Here is the dirt. Shall rest here. Dirty, this dirt is. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I am one with the dirt.

  Who is this lifting me? Why, there is Sam. Hello, Sam. Can you hear me? Yes, you can. We are brothers. Thank you, Sam. There is my wife. Love her so. Shall tell her when mouth works. She is speaking. Go, she says. No, no, cannot go. Cannot move legs. Stay we must.

  There is the moon. I see you, moon. Beautiful moon. I am watching you. Do you see me? I am one with you.

  Still feel very heavy, so heavy. Shall sleep now.

  Who is this carrying me? Hello, Sam. Hello, Dirk. My brothers. Do not carry me. Just let me lie here. I will be one with the dirt.

  World is moving much too fast. Lights. Darkness. Lights again. Many more lights. Am inside a car. Do not like cars.

  Here is my wife. Here is my house. No, no. Do not turn on lights. Lights must go off. Yes. The bed. Good idea. Shall just lie here for a moment. Am dreaming. Very strange dreams. Would like to wake up now. Cannot wake up.

  IT WAS TWO DAYS before I returned to Earth, and many more before I ventured to another nakamal. I felt like I had been mugged, taken unawares, slugged from behind, and now I was wary. It had been a slow descent, nothing at all like a hangover, just a lingering sense that I was in a place far, far away, in a world of my own. “I asked the people at work,” Sylvia said. “And they said you had way too much kava. You should have stopped at two shells.”

  “Well, maybe they should put a warning label on their kava.”

  Not that it would have made any difference. I had had five shells. There is nothing quite like knowledge gained through hard experience. No one expects his local drug dealer to affix labels on dime bags: WARNING. SMOKING DOPE WILL GET YOU STONED. It was all about balance, calibrating the intake of a narcotic so that it produced a desired sensation. But what I had achieved—gross inebriation, semiparalysis, hallucinations—was, from a traditional Ni-Vanuatu point of view, a desired outcome. Vanuatu is a world of rituals, magic, and sorcery. There are spirits and ghosts. Dead ancestors aren’t quite as dead as they are in the West, and from time to time they drop by for a visit. The artwork of Vanuatu—headdresses adorned with the plumes of hawks, carved tree ferns, decorative tam-tams, or wooden drums—was, to my eyes, evocative and otherworldly. But in traditional Vanuatu they are not at all otherworldly. There is no distinction between the temporal and the spiritual, the physical and the metaphysical. This seems odd to the Westerner, accustomed as we are to the rigid distinction between the spiritual and the material. But in the West, we don’t have kava. Drink enough kava and you too will hear voices in the wind. For this reason, in most villages in Vanuatu, kava was not a daily libation. It was reserved for ceremonies and rituals, and it is then, when you are good and stoned, that you might hear dear departed Uncle Al speak to you from the beyond, encouraging you to dance like a cosmic rooster.

  In Port Vila, I was learning, kava was something else entirely. There were hundreds of nakamals scattered throughout town. If one wanted to chat with the minister of agriculture or any other high-level government official, there was a very good likelihood of finding him at Ronnie’s nakamal, near the parliament. This was a favorite nakamal for expatriates, but as time went by, I came to prefer my local nakamal. Our neighborhood was typical in its peculiarity. On one side of a gutted dirt road, the side that offered a view, stood the lavish homes of Westerners, spacious villas that hummed with air conditioners, nestled behind high walls and electronic gates, guarded by rottweilers and German shepherds. On the other side of the road were the modest bungalows of Port Vila’s civil servants, each containing an extended family, perhaps even two extended families. Interspersed throughout the hilltop were the dwellings of land squatters, shanties built of wood and tin. Our immediate neighbors were land squatters from Tanna Island, and like so many other compounds on our road, in the evening their home became a nakamal. It was really quite extraordinary. During the day, their land was alive with women and children, friendly, energetic little people with the coolest hair ever. They were like Rasta munchkins, sprouting frizzled blond manes. I had thought that blond hair was limited to those of European stock, but it wasn’t at all unusual to see children with blond plumes in Vanuatu, though not adults. In the evening, however, they were nowhere to be seen as their home was transformed into a nakamal, one of a half dozen that appeared in our small neighborhood. Each evening toward sunset, hundreds of red lanterns were turned on in front of the nakamals throughout Port Vila, signaling that the kava had been prepared and they were open for business.

  “I think I’ll go meet the neighbors,” I said to Sylvia one evening after I noticed the beckoning red light.

  Sylvia looked at me dubiously. “Moderation, okay? I can’t carry you by myself.”

  I had little inclination to leave the planet again—well, perhaps into a low Earth orbit—so when I appeared inside the neighbor’s shed, I asked for a sensible half-shell of kava. Stepping outside, I had a view of our house just down the hill and, beyond, the green eminences sheltering Mele Bay. I noticed that the fruit in our papaya tree was about to ripen and that it wouldn’t be long until we’d have another bushel of bananas to gorge on. A lush country, I thought. I sought my moment of poetry and downed the kava, which once again tasted dreadfully toxic.

  “Me likem kava,” I said congenially to the bucket ladler as I returned my shell.

  “Kava blong Tanna,” he s
aid. And then I became lost as he spoke in Bislama at a clip far too fast for me to comprehend.

  “Me no save tok-tok Bislama quicktime,” I said. “Yu tok-tok slow-time, me save.”

  Well, some of it in any case. Bislama’s unique fusion of English, French, and indigenous words had a rhythm and logic that I found very appealing. The word for “pope,” for instance, was numba wan jesus man. But when spoken rapidly, and to my ears it was always spoken rapidly, Bislama was like gibberish, vaguely familiar but unintelligible.

  Inside the kava shed, we spoke some more in Bislama—he spoke neither English nor French—and I was led to understand that the kava from Tanna was the strongest in Vanuatu. It may very well be. I certainly wasn’t going to test the proposition, and this time I thought it prudent to wait a while before imbibing another shell. I took my place on a bench outside and chatted in the halting manner of someone unsure of whether he was making any sense. The other patrons, who were in various states of kava-induced bliss, were all from Tanna, an island known for cargo cults, kastom people, and for possessing the world’s most accessible live volcano. In Port Vila, fairly or unfairly, the people of Tanna had acquired a reputation as troublemakers. Indeed, just a few weeks prior, one of the regulars at the Office Pub, an Australian banker, had been brutally killed as he left the bar. The murderers were from Tanna. Much more typical, however, were break-ins, which is why a good many of the Westerners in Vila had turned their homes into fortresses.

  “Yu likem kava?” asked one of my companions on the bench. He appeared to be a little younger than I was and wore a beard and a T-shirt emblazoned with a rapturous Bob Marley.

  “Me likem kava blong Tanna,” I said. This was clearly a very satisfactory answer, and the others nodded agreeably.

  “Yu likem Vanuatu?” I was asked.

  “Me likem Ni-Vanuatu tumas. Me ting Vanuatu bugger-up.”

  My companions nodded sagely. I was, apparently, entirely of their way of thinking. The people were very good, they agreed. The country, however, was bugger-up.