Welcome to Honiara
Honiara - form the old Solomon roots "Honi" - which means "stand around" and "Ara" which means "young men".
Honiara.
Young men, standing around.
Actually not. But it might as well be, with the thousands of young men standing around almost every day. Its almost always what a first-time visitor remarks on.
Where? Everywhere - the market, the street, the storefront, the wharf, the pavement, the bus stops. Everywhere. Doing what? nothing. Well...just standing. And talking. Chatting with the occasional out-loud laugh. Often scrounging around for a smoke, or a chew of betelnut. That's pretty much it. Oh, they sometimes sit, too. And talk. About what? Relatives, that girl over there, last night's drinking session (if they're lucky). The next plan to get drunk. Or stoned. Alot of the young men in Honiara are getting stoned now. Marijuana mostly, but there are sure to be some trying other things.
Kwaso for example. It's pretty amazing what an idle mind can do with bakers yeast, sugar, old copper piping and used LP gas cylinders. Kwaso is what you get if you mix up some yeast with sugar and pineapple, leave it covered for a week, strain it through some old bread, then distil it. That's when the copper piping and LPG cylinders come in handy. Pour the filtered mixture into the cylinder, plumbed to the copper pipe. Light a fire underneath the cylinder and run water over the pipe so you get an alchoholic concentrate out the end of the piping. Kwaso. Costs five SI dollars a bottle. Not that I've bought any. But for 500mls of 60-proof, it beats the official local brew in bang per buck.
Problem is, the bang is measured in broken windows and noses, even a murder last month. Despite the police's best efforts it's still being made - a source of income for otherwise cash-challenged, acitivity-challenged youth, easy to make, easy to hide, easy to sell. And brewers even pay others in the community to be on the look out for cop raids. It looks to be worth their while. It isn't of course, but that's in the long run. Who at age 18 thinks in the long run?
So Honiara is stuck with kwaso for a long while. It fits too well with the situation to go away.
A lot like the young men.
Honiara.
Young men, standing around.
Actually not. But it might as well be, with the thousands of young men standing around almost every day. Its almost always what a first-time visitor remarks on.
Where? Everywhere - the market, the street, the storefront, the wharf, the pavement, the bus stops. Everywhere. Doing what? nothing. Well...just standing. And talking. Chatting with the occasional out-loud laugh. Often scrounging around for a smoke, or a chew of betelnut. That's pretty much it. Oh, they sometimes sit, too. And talk. About what? Relatives, that girl over there, last night's drinking session (if they're lucky). The next plan to get drunk. Or stoned. Alot of the young men in Honiara are getting stoned now. Marijuana mostly, but there are sure to be some trying other things.
Kwaso for example. It's pretty amazing what an idle mind can do with bakers yeast, sugar, old copper piping and used LP gas cylinders. Kwaso is what you get if you mix up some yeast with sugar and pineapple, leave it covered for a week, strain it through some old bread, then distil it. That's when the copper piping and LPG cylinders come in handy. Pour the filtered mixture into the cylinder, plumbed to the copper pipe. Light a fire underneath the cylinder and run water over the pipe so you get an alchoholic concentrate out the end of the piping. Kwaso. Costs five SI dollars a bottle. Not that I've bought any. But for 500mls of 60-proof, it beats the official local brew in bang per buck.
Problem is, the bang is measured in broken windows and noses, even a murder last month. Despite the police's best efforts it's still being made - a source of income for otherwise cash-challenged, acitivity-challenged youth, easy to make, easy to hide, easy to sell. And brewers even pay others in the community to be on the look out for cop raids. It looks to be worth their while. It isn't of course, but that's in the long run. Who at age 18 thinks in the long run?
So Honiara is stuck with kwaso for a long while. It fits too well with the situation to go away.
A lot like the young men.
posted by honiara at 6:49 pm
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