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| Half a coconut shell, ready to be cleaned up. |
We’ve mentioned a few times that parts of the coconut plant are used for almost everything. Other than coconut milk curry, my favorite use is the shell as a drinking vessel. Here, it’s just kava that is drunk out of the shells. I intend to bring a number back and drink other things out of them as well. Of course, I will also have to keep a couple for the powdered kava I’ll be drinking when I get nostalgic.
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| Scraping the fuzz off the outside of the shell. |
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| Still too rough to drink out of. |
In order to get the shell ready to drink out of, first it must be husked as previously described. After that we break the shell open by whacking it with the dull side of our bush knife. Then we scratch the meat out (which means we get to have something with coconut milk, yum!) with a special tool (one of the only specialized tools in this country.) We scratch out most of the meat to milk and then continue scratching the last scraps onto the ground (they contain more shell than meat.)
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| Sandpaper that sucker down. |
Next, we have to thoroughly clean the fuzz off the outside. This starts with either a bush knife or a piece of glass.
Having access to sandpaper, we then use that to get it really smooth and ready to drink out of.
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| All ready for drinking! |
We don’t seem to get them filed/sanded down quite as much as they do but they should be quite serviceable.
