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
9 Comments:
oh my goodness you dont know how true you are in what you just wrote!!! i went to the solomons in dec 04 to jan 05 and there really is a whole lot of young men standing around. the topics of conversation is exactly what you pointed out. i know some boys over there who are just like what you described.
i have never laughed so much at an article because i've witnessed it firsthand. this is great good on ya. keep it coming.
Good on you mate for creating this website but i really think you should change the (black)Colored background. It's weird !
i just want to say, that u got the mean of "Honiara" wrong. It does not mean "young men standing around".
It really means facing the North eastern wind. thats all i want to point out to u. i think there are other things that u are wrong about, but i do not have the time to tell it now, maybe sometime later.
reading thru the processes of the kwaso manufacturing...felt sick to the stomach, i have a close relative who is suffering from the effects of marijuanna+kwaso..have been told that in effect, his life is over...if only they knew what they were drinking..would that make a difference?
u write of the reality of honiara now, and i commend u for that.keep up the good work..will keep checking for more later.
Hey wantok,you paint a garbage picture about Honiara. Hope you will paint another art- gallery type of Honiara soon. Remember there are two sides of a coin. Hope you learn what the term Honiara mean soon. Its 'facing the north easterly winds' and not the one you posted. This wrong interpretation itself cast a doubt on the validity of your article and probably any other on this particular website.
Thanks
Can anyone send me a picture or pictures of the Solomon Islands Vistors Bureau staff??
People like to paint pictures of the Solomons. You my friend took a photo. And to those correcting the meaning of Honiara, as it was used in the article, if you would have read it properly you would have seen that it was intentionaly done to make a statment.
Keep it up dude, good on ya
Very clever interpretation of "Honiara". Sure, it's not the actual meaning, but you nailed it with "Young men, standing around"! Ah, the art of being a "masta liu" in Honiara; it's not for the faint of heart! =D
have to update the meaning of "honiara"... its moved beyond just young men - more soon!!
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