Life as a GROG FARMER - Washing & drying kava roots 🇫🇯drinking GREEN Yaqona! FIJI VILLAGE LIFE

What is yaqona / kava / grog ?
(wiki)
Kava (Piper methysticum: Latin 'pepper' and Latinized Greek 'intoxicating') is a crop of the Pacific Islands.
The root of the plant is used to produce a drink with sedative, anesthetic, and euphoriant properties.
Traditionally, plants are harvested around four years of age.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Collecting the kava
02:55 Washing the kava
08:20 Prepare the bundles for drying
13:10 To the drier
13:40 Drying the kava
15:25 HOW MUCH IS KAVA WORTH?
20:10 GREEN YAQONA
21:30 Scraping the yaqona
26:15 Straining the green yaqona
31:05 Drinking GREEN YAQONA

Fijians commonly share a drink called grog made by pounding sun-dried kava root into a fine powder, straining and mixing it with cold water. Traditionally, grog is drunk from the shorn half-shell of a coconut, called a bilo. Grog is very popular in Fiji, especially among young men, and often brings people together for storytelling and socializing. Drinking grog for a few hours brings a numbing and relaxing effect to the drinker; grog also numbs the tongue and grog drinking typically is followed by a "chaser" or sweet or spicy snack to follow a bilo.

In this video the boys of Nayarabale Youth Group are returning from the farm with their harvested roots. The roots are then washed, dried on the wood fired drier, or in the sunlight, and then pounded for drinking, or to be sold, and exported as part of the youth group development programme to earn money for the village.
At 20 minutes Isikeli decides we need to drink the fresh “green” yaqona…

Nayarabale Youth Group
The Nayarabale Youth Group are a 40+ group of young men that have utilised the surrounding land and invested heavily into planting yaqona plants to provide a source of income to themselves, the village and to lead village, church and school projects.
The group was formed in 2015 and now have over 70,000 yaqona plants, and plant a further 25,000 each year. They have also planted 1000 each of yasi plants, pineapples, and taro.
The harvested yaqona is sold locally in Labasa, and also Viti Levu - but now also exported overseas - earning approx $500,00 FJD each year.
From this successful initiative the group have been able to purchase a carrier truck for the village, a Toyota LandCruiser for the youth group enabling easier access to the surrounding farms, and more recently extended the village hall, and built 8 homes for married members who still lived with their parents in the village.
The group also donate approx $45,000 each year to the village and families of children in primary, secondary and tertiary education.

#fiji #yaqona #villagelife #realfiji #nayarabale #cakaudrove #vanualevu #grogfarmer #teamfiji

Dedicated to Nayarabale Youth Group 👍🏻