KAVA !

You haven't experienced the real Fiji until you get down on a hand-woven coconut mat on the floor and drink kava with the locals.
Only Greg has had this so far, drunk out of a coconut shell (didn't seem to affect him much!)
Kava is made from the dried ground roots of the kava plant, a relative of the pepper plant. When we went to the market there was a whole floor devoted to selling bunches of huge stick-looking bunches of it.
Nowadays the root powder is put in to a small bag that is thoroughly kneaded and squeezed in to water. The result is a muddy-looking liquid which apparently tastes like dirty water. Yum!
Traditionally, the roots are thoroughly chewed and the masticated result (and lots of saliva) are spat into a kava bowl to be mixed and drunk by everyone. The saliva starts a sort of fermentation process. You are offered a coconut shell full, you have to clap your hands once, drink it down in one go, clap your hands three times and say 'Bula!'
It is a legal intoxicant and the effects are the numbing of lips and tongue, talkativeness and a sense of well-being..your eyes become light sensitive and you then feel sleepy, unlike alcohol you have no after effects.
Scientists have recently discovered that it inhibits cancer cells! Perhaps we should drink it regularly..