Alcohol + Ni-Vanuatans do not mix.
The only time Ni-Vans drink alcohol (for the most part) is on big holidays- Christmas, New Year, Weddings, etc. Because of this, it has been accepted, and expected for men to drink obscene amounts of alcohol at one time, become belligerently drunk, oftentimes leading to violence. The next day all actions are customarily forgiven and forgotten about, even laughed at by the locals. I like to compare their drinking habits to that of U.S. High Schoolers. They don’t know their limits or don’t care to know. They drink until dawn or until the alcohol is gone. The alcohol is NOT your typical beer or whiskey. It is high percent, sometimes home brewed, and sometimes made with something akin to lighter fluid.
The men talk about expecting to fight, to break things and act crazy. Responsible drinking does not appear to exist, expect amongst women who must stay sober enough to run and hide from their husbands.
This is why us volunteers are encouraged to spend the holidays together (or at least not alone).
Even still, I did not escape some uncomfortable displays of crazy drunkenness this holiday season.
Example 1: I went to a wedding with my apu-woman. We decided to go dance that night, which I felt comfortable enough doing since I was with my apu and other family members. But this did not deter drunken youngfella boys (between the ages of 15-25) from clumsily knocking in to me and attempting to grab and dance with me. I finally ended up dancing (more like swaying to string band music while waving my legs in a chicken-like manner)with a happy/goofy young drunk boy. It turns out there are some mellow drunks, but not many. The youngster and I were soon interrupted mid-sway by two rather large boys trying to fight. I narrowly missed being trampled by them as one swung an awkwardly drunken punch at the other. Every song after this was stopped prematurely from drunk boys messing with the band’s equipment or drunk boys trying to fight each other. Needless to say I was not having fun, especially since full up drunk boys were watching me. My apu and I walked home in the pouring rain.
Example 2: Two friends and I were sleeping in a guesthouse a couple days after Christmas as a group of us were making our way to Ambae to celebrate New Years. We were trying to get to sleep when a belligerently drunk man began to scream and knock in to things close to our house- way to close for comfort. We immediately locked the door, feeling even more secure in the bamboo house with a wide open window next to us. We all lay silently in the dark listening to the yelling drunk man, not knowing if he’d try to come near us or not. Eventually two young girls returned telling us that there was a “crazy drunk man” and a few minutes later they left us again- the three of us not quite knowing what was going on and trying to fall asleep, waking up to every small noise.
Come to find out, the man was a friend of mine’s Papa. His sister later told me when we were walking alone that when her papa drinks they have to hide all the bushknives from him. Then he chases the girls around (literally around the village and down to the ocean and back, trying to hit them. Afterwards he sat in his house wailing for a long time. In the morninig it was if nothing had happened. No apologies, no talk of what happened- all as forgiven.
(My apu woman later told me that apparently what happened was this: One of his young daughters was seen going in to the bush with a youngfella boy. Her papa was so angry and distraught because he didn’t want his daughter to be “spoiled”. So in his drunken state he wanted to go kill the boy and punish his daughter. Then he was depressed and upset about it and wailed all night.)
Example 3: The same man came to my village to celebrate New Years. In his dunkenness, the asshole and anoer papa of mine proceeded to kill and eat Click and Clack- two of my beloved chickens. I cried (luckily not in front of my family, who would have thought me insane) over the loss of my beautifully speckled, feathered friends. Mostly because of the disrespect and irresponsibility grown men display while drinking in Vanuatu.
RIP Click and Clack.
left to right: click, quack, clack next to my kitchen house
