(written on Monday)
So yesterday my papa went to go pick up a friend from a neighboring village. The two came back to Emua in the evening and the three of us went out for kava. So when the three of us were at the nakamal the friend told me he was a “kleva.” Basically, he’s a man that clears black magic from a person or place. At the time I didn’t really know what that meant or the role of a kleva in Vanuatu society. Is kleva work a hobby? We talked some more, I got pretty skunked on kava, as did they, and we called it a night.
The next day I awoke with a small kava hangover. At the time I had no idea that this would be a Mother’s Day to remember. As I drank my coffee and bread with coconut jam, my papa and his friend were talking again about black magic. As it turns out Emua is chalked full of the stuff. It was time to clear it out and William, the kleva was just the man for the job.
As I storion-ed (held a conversation) with William I learned that black magic is rampant in Vanuatu and basically, one man puts a hex on another man or causes him harm out of jealousy. William is part of the select few that dispose of the bad juju whereas there are evidently plenty of bullshit klevas in Vanuatu, posers if you will. They tend to give “great” men like William a bad name. I was then told that I was to go along to watch a clearance of black magic a few houses down. I was thinking little lady from “Poltergeist” type stuff. Well the three of us: Papa, kleva, and I go down the road, and we talked with a man outside his house.
A few minutes later my papa tells me the kleva has cleared the man’s house but the man has a sick wife and that will be tended too later. The whole time the kleva was in plain view: no arm gestures, chanting, etc. Maybe his presence was enough. Papa then tells me we are to go back to our house where the kleva is going to make up a special leaf tea to be rid of some more black magic. Alright let’s go! By the way this “O.K., I guess we’re going here or doing this now” stuff is my everyday experience in Vanuatu. We are very rarely plugged into what we can expect next. Shit happens and we just go with it.
Back to the story… Its starting to rain now and Mama has joined us on the porch as the kleva/ medicine man is giving us the spiel about the tea. Apparently it has about 5 ingredients and its rids you of black magic you already have and acts as a shield from future black magic that may come your way. I am then asked if I would like to partake in drinking the tea. Aw, what the hell huh? I’ve got a mild kava hangover, this guy’s got some tea that I think will help me feel better, and it fights black magic. What could possibly go wrong?
Members of my extended family are starting to come out of the pouring rain and settling on my host family's porch. The topic of the tea drinking has now become a kleva question and answer period about what the tea does, and I ask a few questions as well. We ask… How does it work? Basically black magic gleans off you or is pulverized before you ingest it! Where does it work? You’ve got blanket coverage throughout Vanuatu! If I’m pregnant and I drink it does my baby get coverage? You bet your ass it does! ...etc.
During this session I couldn’t get over the appearance of this kleva guy. He’s wearing a “Blind” skateboard shirt with ripped off sleeves, boardshorts, a dogtag necklace, and sporting some big Judeo-Christian tattoos. Your typical medicine man, right? To top it off he came into town with his girlfriend and sister-in-law that was rocking an Iron Maiden shirt.
My family, now 15 deep on the porch, awaited our cure from our pseudo-white trash medicine man. There was Mama, Papa, a few aunties and uncles, and a score of young children. I checked my watch and was excited at the prospect that this tea drinking was going to overlap with the time allocated for the day’s church service. Free pass baby! This keeps getting better…
Now Nate, my Peace Corps Vol cousin, just joined the group. He seems very confused about the scene on the porch. I fill him in on what I have picked up in Bislama thus far. Turns out he’s game for tea time too.
Now the time to drink the tea has arrived. They tell me I will be the first one to drink, “Well if you insist.” Once again, no chanting, just a wave of the hand over my mug. Down the hatch. The stuff tastes bad but its about on par with the unpleasantness of kava and I can bear it. Most of us have our mugs now and are cautiously taking it down. I’m about halfway through my mug when my mama tells me there’s a bucket outside the porch for me, should I need to vomit. What?! Nate and I exchange similar confused stares and I say, “Nate, is this shit gonna make make us hurl like Ipecac or something?” To which he replied, “I don’t know but I guess we’re going to find out!” We both get a good laugh and finish the “tea.”
About ten minutes later I feel it: that tingle in the throat glands. I head out to my aluminum bucket and manage out a few small spurts. I’ve got everyone’s attention at this point and they all are laughing at me. Great, I think, all these Ni-Vans are going to get a good show from the white man with a weak stomach. Then the full blown stomach eruption came. I’m puking like crazy, snot and tears are are streaming out of me, and the laughter is growing. In between stomach discharges I start laughing too and then yell out in Bislama, “Just wait, your turn is coming!” to the peanut gallery.
And so it did. All of a sudden people were scattering, hunkering over, grabbing for buckets. Pukefest 2007! It was like the scene in “Stand By Me” when everyone pukes on each other during the pie eating contest. After I had expelled all my stomach had to offer I sat, propped up by the wall of our outhouse, soaked by the still-pouring rain, sick as hell, but delighted that I wasn’t alone in my misery.
Once I got enough energy to stand, I stumbled over to the outdoor kitchen area and joined my cousin and Mama who gave me some play-by-play puke details I had missed. Apparently, one of my aunts was so overcome by the onslaught of vomit, she fell to the ground and was puking as she crawled along. My other auntie, thinking she had dodged the bullet, was mixing batter for lunch when the tea got her. Apparently, she held the mixing bowl while she yakked and stirred in between bouts of projectile vomit. Nate went to church was surprised nobody from the family had made it, until he too felt the gut calling.
We all puked in buckets because the kleva was to look at our puke and tell us, based on what he saw, if we had some sort of “sickness.” So, being a good sport, I waited for the kleva to come around to my bucket. I asked him what he thought as I pointed at my masterpiece. He mumbled something in Bislama about needing a microscope to tell. I then threw out a leading question to move him along, “I’m O.K. then, huh?” To which he replied, “Yes,” and walked away. When you ask a Ni-Van leading or yes/no question they tend to affirm whatever you just said or just say “yes”. What kind of a kleva tells you to puke in a bucket so he can analyze your sickness, and then tells you he needs some advanced Western science to be sure? Bizarre!
After about a half hour of resting, Dominique, a fellow volunteer from the extended host family, came to remind Nate and me that it was time for us to start cooking our Mother’s Day lunch for our host Mama’s. She reinforced the obvious, that Nate and I looked like shit, and we told her of her great luck on missing the festivities. Well, as we were cooking lunch, Dom’s mama, my auntie, had subtly clued her in that it would be nice if she too drank the tea so that the entire family would be free of black magic. Dom took it down like a trooper, puked a bunch, and slowly rejoined us in the kitchen.
Our family loved the spaghetti lunch we had cooked them, and the kleva, having been included in the feast thanked us for the meal. To which I replied, “Thank you for the tea.” When what I really meant was, “Thank you for poisoning me without so much as catching a buzz in the process!”
The real eye opener from this whole ordeal is the role black magic plays in Ni-Vanuatu life. They all believe in it immensely. The kleva is a profession and gets paid a handsome salary to go about his work. And this particular kleva has an impressive resume including black magic identification that led to the return of $50,000 in stolen money from a company in Vila.
I could go on for days about details of black magic I’ve learned or how a kleva becomes a kleva but there isn’t enough time. I will say a few things though: A kleva is chosen based on a spirit that visits him. This same spirit, in the form of a white man with long blond hair, gives the kleva power to carry out his duties. Yesterday, the kleva told my papa that the black magic was under the foundation of our house so they chiseled at one spot and found three burnt pieces of wood in the cement. I did not witness this or have not seen the spot yet. Also, the kleva has identified the culprits of a theft of a generator last year. The victim supposedly went to Vila today to report them to the police. Seems as if he’s got all the evidence he needs.
So…yes, crazy as hell, but at least if some of this stuff is true I drank the tea/poison to ward off invading evil. I’m sure there will be more later as the kleva has decided to stay in Emua for a week as demand has soared in these parts. Until next time…
So yesterday my papa went to go pick up a friend from a neighboring village. The two came back to Emua in the evening and the three of us went out for kava. So when the three of us were at the nakamal the friend told me he was a “kleva.” Basically, he’s a man that clears black magic from a person or place. At the time I didn’t really know what that meant or the role of a kleva in Vanuatu society. Is kleva work a hobby? We talked some more, I got pretty skunked on kava, as did they, and we called it a night.
The next day I awoke with a small kava hangover. At the time I had no idea that this would be a Mother’s Day to remember. As I drank my coffee and bread with coconut jam, my papa and his friend were talking again about black magic. As it turns out Emua is chalked full of the stuff. It was time to clear it out and William, the kleva was just the man for the job.
As I storion-ed (held a conversation) with William I learned that black magic is rampant in Vanuatu and basically, one man puts a hex on another man or causes him harm out of jealousy. William is part of the select few that dispose of the bad juju whereas there are evidently plenty of bullshit klevas in Vanuatu, posers if you will. They tend to give “great” men like William a bad name. I was then told that I was to go along to watch a clearance of black magic a few houses down. I was thinking little lady from “Poltergeist” type stuff. Well the three of us: Papa, kleva, and I go down the road, and we talked with a man outside his house.
A few minutes later my papa tells me the kleva has cleared the man’s house but the man has a sick wife and that will be tended too later. The whole time the kleva was in plain view: no arm gestures, chanting, etc. Maybe his presence was enough. Papa then tells me we are to go back to our house where the kleva is going to make up a special leaf tea to be rid of some more black magic. Alright let’s go! By the way this “O.K., I guess we’re going here or doing this now” stuff is my everyday experience in Vanuatu. We are very rarely plugged into what we can expect next. Shit happens and we just go with it.
Back to the story… Its starting to rain now and Mama has joined us on the porch as the kleva/ medicine man is giving us the spiel about the tea. Apparently it has about 5 ingredients and its rids you of black magic you already have and acts as a shield from future black magic that may come your way. I am then asked if I would like to partake in drinking the tea. Aw, what the hell huh? I’ve got a mild kava hangover, this guy’s got some tea that I think will help me feel better, and it fights black magic. What could possibly go wrong?
Members of my extended family are starting to come out of the pouring rain and settling on my host family's porch. The topic of the tea drinking has now become a kleva question and answer period about what the tea does, and I ask a few questions as well. We ask… How does it work? Basically black magic gleans off you or is pulverized before you ingest it! Where does it work? You’ve got blanket coverage throughout Vanuatu! If I’m pregnant and I drink it does my baby get coverage? You bet your ass it does! ...etc.
During this session I couldn’t get over the appearance of this kleva guy. He’s wearing a “Blind” skateboard shirt with ripped off sleeves, boardshorts, a dogtag necklace, and sporting some big Judeo-Christian tattoos. Your typical medicine man, right? To top it off he came into town with his girlfriend and sister-in-law that was rocking an Iron Maiden shirt.
My family, now 15 deep on the porch, awaited our cure from our pseudo-white trash medicine man. There was Mama, Papa, a few aunties and uncles, and a score of young children. I checked my watch and was excited at the prospect that this tea drinking was going to overlap with the time allocated for the day’s church service. Free pass baby! This keeps getting better…
Now Nate, my Peace Corps Vol cousin, just joined the group. He seems very confused about the scene on the porch. I fill him in on what I have picked up in Bislama thus far. Turns out he’s game for tea time too.
Now the time to drink the tea has arrived. They tell me I will be the first one to drink, “Well if you insist.” Once again, no chanting, just a wave of the hand over my mug. Down the hatch. The stuff tastes bad but its about on par with the unpleasantness of kava and I can bear it. Most of us have our mugs now and are cautiously taking it down. I’m about halfway through my mug when my mama tells me there’s a bucket outside the porch for me, should I need to vomit. What?! Nate and I exchange similar confused stares and I say, “Nate, is this shit gonna make make us hurl like Ipecac or something?” To which he replied, “I don’t know but I guess we’re going to find out!” We both get a good laugh and finish the “tea.”
About ten minutes later I feel it: that tingle in the throat glands. I head out to my aluminum bucket and manage out a few small spurts. I’ve got everyone’s attention at this point and they all are laughing at me. Great, I think, all these Ni-Vans are going to get a good show from the white man with a weak stomach. Then the full blown stomach eruption came. I’m puking like crazy, snot and tears are are streaming out of me, and the laughter is growing. In between stomach discharges I start laughing too and then yell out in Bislama, “Just wait, your turn is coming!” to the peanut gallery.
And so it did. All of a sudden people were scattering, hunkering over, grabbing for buckets. Pukefest 2007! It was like the scene in “Stand By Me” when everyone pukes on each other during the pie eating contest. After I had expelled all my stomach had to offer I sat, propped up by the wall of our outhouse, soaked by the still-pouring rain, sick as hell, but delighted that I wasn’t alone in my misery.
Once I got enough energy to stand, I stumbled over to the outdoor kitchen area and joined my cousin and Mama who gave me some play-by-play puke details I had missed. Apparently, one of my aunts was so overcome by the onslaught of vomit, she fell to the ground and was puking as she crawled along. My other auntie, thinking she had dodged the bullet, was mixing batter for lunch when the tea got her. Apparently, she held the mixing bowl while she yakked and stirred in between bouts of projectile vomit. Nate went to church was surprised nobody from the family had made it, until he too felt the gut calling.
We all puked in buckets because the kleva was to look at our puke and tell us, based on what he saw, if we had some sort of “sickness.” So, being a good sport, I waited for the kleva to come around to my bucket. I asked him what he thought as I pointed at my masterpiece. He mumbled something in Bislama about needing a microscope to tell. I then threw out a leading question to move him along, “I’m O.K. then, huh?” To which he replied, “Yes,” and walked away. When you ask a Ni-Van leading or yes/no question they tend to affirm whatever you just said or just say “yes”. What kind of a kleva tells you to puke in a bucket so he can analyze your sickness, and then tells you he needs some advanced Western science to be sure? Bizarre!
After about a half hour of resting, Dominique, a fellow volunteer from the extended host family, came to remind Nate and me that it was time for us to start cooking our Mother’s Day lunch for our host Mama’s. She reinforced the obvious, that Nate and I looked like shit, and we told her of her great luck on missing the festivities. Well, as we were cooking lunch, Dom’s mama, my auntie, had subtly clued her in that it would be nice if she too drank the tea so that the entire family would be free of black magic. Dom took it down like a trooper, puked a bunch, and slowly rejoined us in the kitchen.
Our family loved the spaghetti lunch we had cooked them, and the kleva, having been included in the feast thanked us for the meal. To which I replied, “Thank you for the tea.” When what I really meant was, “Thank you for poisoning me without so much as catching a buzz in the process!”
The real eye opener from this whole ordeal is the role black magic plays in Ni-Vanuatu life. They all believe in it immensely. The kleva is a profession and gets paid a handsome salary to go about his work. And this particular kleva has an impressive resume including black magic identification that led to the return of $50,000 in stolen money from a company in Vila.
I could go on for days about details of black magic I’ve learned or how a kleva becomes a kleva but there isn’t enough time. I will say a few things though: A kleva is chosen based on a spirit that visits him. This same spirit, in the form of a white man with long blond hair, gives the kleva power to carry out his duties. Yesterday, the kleva told my papa that the black magic was under the foundation of our house so they chiseled at one spot and found three burnt pieces of wood in the cement. I did not witness this or have not seen the spot yet. Also, the kleva has identified the culprits of a theft of a generator last year. The victim supposedly went to Vila today to report them to the police. Seems as if he’s got all the evidence he needs.
So…yes, crazy as hell, but at least if some of this stuff is true I drank the tea/poison to ward off invading evil. I’m sure there will be more later as the kleva has decided to stay in Emua for a week as demand has soared in these parts. Until next time…
