Yu No Kick Part 14: Coconuts

When I think about Malekula, the first thing that pops into my head is invariably coconuts. As one descends in a plane into our airport, the only thing really to see are row upon row of slender coconut trees dotting a field of low-cut greenery. Malekula is the copra-producing capital of Vanuatu, which is about as dubious a distinction as being, say, the septic tank producing capital of somewhere. Copra is a vile-smelling agricultural product made by drying coconut meat over a fire. It's supposedly used to make things like soap, but I find it hard to imagine anything pleasant possibly resulting from it. Apparently copra used to be a hot commodity back in the day, as the British and French ran enormous plantations all over the South Pacific in order to make the stuff. These days, making copra completely by hand, as is done in Vanuatu, is kind of like mining coal with a pickax: it's a giant pain, the end product isn't really even all that valuable, and everyone else in the world uses machines that do the work about a thousand times faster. In order to ensure that no one in the country accidentally tries to make or grow something that might actually be exportable, the Vanuatu government jacks up the price of copra with subsidies to something astronomically above the actual price. And so, instead of growing things like kava or sandalwood, which actually fetch a high price on the world market, the vast majority of people on Malekula still grow coconut trees and spend their days tending their copra fires. I don't really know what the government does with all the copra it ends up buying at ridiculously high prices, but I suspect it gets chucked in the ocean.

The largest coconut plantation on Malekula is called the PRV (which is probably an acronym for something, but nobody seems to know what), and it encompasses Tautu, Norsup, and Lakatoro (basically, the entire area surrounding where I live). It is their coconut trees that you see from the plane as you come in to land, the runway cut from amongst the towering palms. It is their trees that line the road from the airport to the town of Lakatoro and it is their trees that dominate the landscape as you gaze out from the beach in Norsup. Coconut groves are striking because of how empty they always seem. Coconuts are a very no-nonsense kind of tree. They don't bother with such frivolities as branches and limbs, their trunks shoot single-mindedly upward, thrusting their palmy canopies right into the face of the sun, like a cheerleader raising a pom-pom. Their forms seem to somehow defy gravity. Most trees grow cautiously, their trunks thick at the base and anchored to the ground with a myriad to thick roots, but coconuts will have none of this. Their trunks are as slender at the base as they are at the top and when you see them lined up and swaying in the wind they seem decidedly alien and impossible. The thin, branch-less trunks leave a lot of space on the ground, however, so you can walk through a dense grove of coconut trees and feel like you're in a mostly empty field. Those serious about growing a lot of coconuts worry about rats climbing up the trees and eating the green coconuts. To prevent this, they wrap a sheet of metal around a small section of the trunk. Although the rat's sharp claws give it traction to climb up the bark of the tree, when it gets to the metal it can no longer get a hold. When these metal bands catch the sun as you drive by a plantation the unreal feeling is complete: row upon row of improbably slender trees rocking back and forth and glinting in the sunlight.

Unlike turning coconuts into copra, the actual growing of coconuts is the easiest thing in the world. Coconuts fall from the trees well-equipped to face the hazards of the world. These well-armored seeds can actually be hazardous to the unsuspecting passerby. Falling coconuts have been known to cause serious injury if they happen to fall on someone from a particularly tall tree, as it's sort of the equivalent of having a rock dropped on you from the top of a three-story building. I've even heard stories of people being killed by falling coconuts, which has got to be one of the more embarrassing epitaphs to have on one's gravestone. The fall of a coconut is proceeded by a loud snap as the fiber anchoring it to the tree breaks. Live in Vanuatu long enough and hearing such a noise has you instantly covering your head with your arms (the beginner's move is to look up upon hearing the noise to see where the coconut is going to fall, but pros know that by the time you're able to locate the coconut, it's most likely already hit you). It's not just people who are at risk from falling coconuts; drivers unfortunate enough (or careless enough) to not check the skies for overhanging coconuts before parking their cars may return to find their windshields broken or hoods caved in.

The coconut tree's rock-like reproductive capsules consist of two layers, the first being a tough, fibrous husk. If you're trying to get into a coconut to eat it, this is the most difficult layer to remove (if you buy a coconut at the grocery store in the US, this work has already been done for you). The husk protects spherical nut whose hard shell seems daunting at first, but is actually surprisingly bitter. Rapping it with a knife is the preferred method for opening, but actually repeatedly striking it against any hard surface will do the trick. What the coconut is hiding behind all this protection is an inner shell of rich, fatty meat and a good deal of water, start-up resources for a new tree. Given the complexity and size of the coconut, and thus the energy required of the tree to make it, one would think that a given tree would only produce a few nuts a year. Coconut trees are always ripe with fruit, however, which, I suppose, just goes to show just how much solar energy is available in the South Pacific. Coconut are kind of egg-shaped and on the small end of the egg there's a sort of eye. When triggered by some kind of magical coconut sense, the eye will sprout a small palm that begins to reach skyward. Roots begin to punch through the husk and dig into the ground. Soon the coconut is anchored firmly in the ground and is growing strong.

On a plantation, the base of the coconut trees must be cleared regularly to guard against the mile-a-minute vine. The mile-a-minute vine was introduced to Vanuatu during World War II by the Americans in order to provide cover so as not to be seen from the air. The vine grows ridiculously quickly (hence the name), and likes to climb up coconut trees and smother them. It winds its way up the tree, it's large, heart-shaped leaves completely obscuring the view of the trunk as it climbs. When it reaches the palm at the top it spreads out, weaving its way around the coconut's leaves and effectively tying them up against the trunk, making them useless for collecting sunlight. Eventually, the vine ensnares all of the coconut's leaves and the tree begins to die and rot. When the trunk weakens and finally collapses, it will take all of the mile-a-minute vine out with it, but the vine does not seem to be a particularly forward-thinking kind of plant.

Despite the aggressiveness of this invader, the coconut is still pulling strong, which is a good thing because coconut trees have a myriad of uses in Vanuatu. Basically every bit of the coconut tree can be put to some use if needed. The meat of the nut, obviously, can be eaten and (if you really, really want to) made into copra. The meat can also be grated and squeezed to extract the milk, and the milk can be boiled until it is reduced to a cream and coconut oil skimmed off the top (the dried meat can actually be cold-pressed to extract the oil directly, but this technology is not native and was brought over by the Europeans). The water contained in the nut is a sure source of hydration if you're in the bush and can't find a stream to drink from. Coconut shells and husks are used for firewood, and the fibrous material that fastens the husk to the shell makes excellent tinder. The trunk itself can be used as a building material if ever anything needs to be hastily put together (coconut woods is soft, easy to work with, and readily available, but rots quickly and thus is not often used for permanent structures). Coconut logs cut into cylinders are often used as columns and coconut wood slats made from cutting the wood longways make surprisingly comfortable benches. The wooden, squid-like fruiting body that connects the coconuts to the tree can be used as a broom to clean your house or burned as kindling. Coconut fronds are used a fencing material; they can be slid between two supporting branches (with the branches running parallel to the ground) and will keep chickens and dogs out. Each individual long leaves of the coconut front has a stiff spine that can be removed and used as a skewer for cooking or a lot of spines can be bundled together to form a more effective broom than can be achieved with the fruiting body. Finally, where a frond connects to the trunk, a sort of fibrous mesh grows which can be used as a strainer to sieve kava or coconut milk. I once tried explaining to Duncan that, in the US, some people are deathly allergic to coconut and ingesting just a little bit of coconut leads to a life-threatening reaction. He just laughed at me and told me that that wasn't possible. In Vanuatu, you see, coconuts are an essential part of life.