Food & Kava

So let me tell you a little about some local dishes. This certainly isn’t America – if you can’t tell otherwise you can tell from the food. I’ve yet to see a single obese Ni-Vanuatu man or woman which means they must be doing something right. Since there are no fast food places (not even in major cities) people are for the most part self-sustainable and live off the land. There is a big garden which is about 5 miles away which some people walk every day too where everyone in the village has crops that they grow. Mostly these consist of root crops such as mantioc and taro (two staples of usually every meal which I have grown very tired of, they taste extremely bland and people don’t seem to care too much about flavor over here) also island cabbage which isn’t bad and fruits galore. I used to think papaya (popo here) was an exotic fruit treat but now getting it every day I usually skip it. Every morning for breakfast I have tea and biscuits which are good and usually bread. I’m on a total anti-Atkins diet because this is the most carbs I think I’ve ever consumed but luckily I work out/run at 5:30am usually every day so hopefully it balances out. There’s really no way sleeping any later because of all the roosters or maybe my rat Rosa wakes me up gnawing at something in my room or it could be the 4:00am bell that the village rings for church every morning. Anyway back to food for lunch and dinner there’s usually always white rice and some sort of stew which isn’t bad. Every volunteer gets different food and I’m usually pretty lucky and we even have soda sometimes for dinner (without ice of course). Don’t forget – there is no refrigeration here. Everything is boiled or heated over the fire so everything is usually very hot. Sometimes for breakfast we even get apples and I had an orange the other day, also I tried a fruit called sour sop? No idea if that’s how you spell it but it was probably the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted and if I had to describe it I would say a mix between a strawberry, pineapple and orange it was crazy. My one friend Meg and her family usually make local bread quite often which is a huge ordeal because there are no stoves so you have to make this ‘island oven’ every time. That bread is so good and last time they even made coconut bread and I helped. You take coconut shavings and mix it with sugar and then put it in little dough balls (like dumplings) and then bake and voila – coconut bread.


Kava should most likely have its own post but oh well. Kava is really gross. There is no way I can describe it any other way. For those of you who don’t know it’s a root of a pepper plant and is a huge part of Vanuatu culture. Males usually drink kava every night and some of the female volunteers are allowed too as well. Kava is different every time you drink it because it’s always prepared differently. I’ll post up some pics but it looks like muddy water and tastes even worse. The first few times I had it I didn’t feel anything and then the last time I had two shells and I guess it worked. It’s like someone put out their hand and said – ‘sit, stay’ you just feel like sitting and not moving and totally relaxed. It made me kind of sleepy but for the most part it’s a way of people getting together to storian (gossip/chat). It made my stomach feel crazy the whole next day and then the next time I tried it I had only two shells and I couldn’t walk straight. It was the strangest feeling because it doesn’t cloud your mind like liquor so you’re in total control of your thoughts I just couldn’t walk straight and then it made me sick. I also felt like crap the whole next day so needless to say kava looks like one thing that I’m not going to do much partaking in. I’ll stick to Tusker (The beer with the Grunt and official beer of Vanuatu) thank you very much. Speaking of beer – I really miss bud light limes..

How to make Kava:
This is the kava plant

This is the roots of the plant

This is after you ground up the roots in a meat grinder and strain them through a shirt with water..it makes this lovely mixture!

And that's what you drink.



Ale lukim yu
P.S. As a footnote I also want to just say that it’s funny how all the volunteers keep talking about American food and how much we miss it I even showed some people Mama P’s apple pie I got to eat before I left and boy did that make everyone’s mouth water. Mama P if you’re reading this feel free to send some non-perishable baked goods! (Unfortunately mail here could take up to 5 months!)