The Western Pacific - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 389

By 3 p.m. Friday, we had enough impressions to last a week, and spent the next days de-
compressing in the familiar comfort of our floating home. It was during that time that we
got to know Tom, a quiet local who paddled over asking to borrow tools. It's not
something we do lightly when the nearest Home Depot is roughly 6,000 miles away, but
Tom was good as his word, returning the tools the very next day. In return, Tom invited us
to the late afternoon kava hour at the nakamal , the village meeting ground. That is to say,
he invited Markus; it's a boy thing. (Sorry, ladies, you'll have to miss out on drinking
mud-colored, mildly hallucinogenic liquid chewed and spit out by the two guys over
there. Shucks.) Markus described it as a hushed, ritual-heavy, Happy-Hour-meets-boy's-
smoking-club and council meeting. After all, people who lack Major League Baseball and
sports bars need their own release. Or do we North Americans have MLB and sports bars
because we don't have kava? Lesson 3: It's All About Perspective.