When Manaseh Aru first came to Port Vila in 2015, he was not looking for a business opportunity. He was looking for a way to pay for his fishing gear.
A fisherman from Maewo, Aru had travelled to Port Vila with the intention of raising enough money to pay for his equipment before returning home and continuing his work on the island.
More than a decade later, his life has taken a completely different direction.
Today, Aru is the owner of Aurora Nakamal at Anamburu, widely known to customers as 24/7 Manase Nakamal, a kava business that has been operating around the clock since 2021.
And when kava becomes difficult to find, the fisherman who once came to Vila looking for money for fishing gear can now charter an aircraft worth hundreds of thousands of vatu to bring his supply into the capital.
That transformation did not happen overnight. It began with an unexpected decision to stay in Port Vila.
Aru says he initially came to the capital because the money he was making from fishing was not enough to pay for his fishing gear.
He followed a ship to Port Vila, planning to sort out his equipment and return to Maewo.
But while he was in Vila, his aunt, Rose Daniel, who was working at Au Bon Marché, encouraged him to stay for a week.
She offered to help him raise the money for his fishing gear. The one-week stay eventually became much longer.
Daniel told him that Au Bon Marché (ABM) was short of staff and asked him to work for a while. Aru accepted and worked there for about three months.
It was during that period that he began seeing another opportunity in Port Vila. He noticed the strong demand for kava.
At the time, kava was being sold in Port Vila for around VT300 to VT400 per kilogram. For Aru, this was a market he understood.
Kava was already familiar to him because he had grown up around it on Maewo. His father had been involved in selling kava, and Aru had watched the business from a young age.
So he began thinking about the kava he had back home. He contacted his family on Maewo and asked them to harvest his kava, put it on a ship and send it to him in Port Vila.
That was the beginning of a journey that would eventually take him away from fishing and into the kava business.
Aru started by selling green kava. But he soon realised that he could do more with the product.
He decided to try making kava juice. His first attempt was at a window in the Agathis area, where he was buying kava from Maewo for around VT200 per kilogram.
The business did not work out as he had hoped at that location. Instead of abandoning the idea, Aru returned to Maewo, bought more kava and came back to Port Vila looking for another opportunity.
He eventually found one at Emil, an area that would later become known for its green kava market at Anamburu.
There, he sold green kava by the kilogram to other kava sellers while making his own kava juice.
It was at this point that Aru began to see a difference. Customers liked his kava. They particularly liked his kava mix. The response encouraged him to change his approach.
He stopped selling green kava by the kilogram and concentrated on kava juice. But as customers increased, so did his need for supply.
The kava coming from Maewo was no longer enough. Aru began looking beyond his home island and established contacts in other parts of Vanuatu.
He started sourcing kava from Ambae, Santo and other locations. The fisherman was slowly becoming a full-time kava businessman.
Eventually, Aru made the decision to leave fishing behind. He also left his job at ABM.
Kava became his main focus. “I let go of everything and focused on kava,” he says. What began as a small operation eventually developed into Aurora Nakamal.
24/7 operation comes with more responsibilities
Aru later moved into a 24-hour model, and since 2021 his business has operated around the clock. But with a 24/7 operation came a new responsibility: making sure there was always enough kava.
The market has changed significantly since Aru first entered it. When he began, he was paying around VT200 per kilogram for kava from Maewo.
Today, he says he pays around VT1,000 per kilogram.
Maewo can no longer provide the quantity he requires, so he has increasingly relied on Santo, which he says can provide a consistent supply each week.
But even with established suppliers, shortages can occur. For a business operating 24 hours a day, a shortage can quickly become a major problem.
Aru says he worries when kava is short because customers can come to his nakamal at any time expecting to find kava available.
That is where the scale of the business he has built becomes clear. When normal supply is not enough, Aru can turn to air transport.
He says he sometimes charters aircraft to bring kava into Port Vila.
A charter to Maewo can cost around VT499,000, while a flight to Santo can cost around VT300,000.
One flight can bring approximately 500 to 600 kilograms of kava.
For a fisherman who once came to Port Vila simply trying to find enough money to pay for his fishing gear, the ability to spend hundreds of thousands of vatu on a charter flight represents just how far his business has come.
But Aru says the cost is sometimes necessary. His business has built a reputation around being available 24 hours a day.
If customers arrive and there is no kava, he worries that word can quickly spread through group chats and other communication channels.
Maintaining supply is therefore not only about having a product to sell. It is about maintaining the trust of customers who expect the doors to remain open.
The business has also grown in the number of people involved.
Aru says around 51 workers are connected to the operation, although they are not all full-time.
Many work part-time. Some are from farming families and are preparing to travel overseas through seasonal work programmes in Australia and New Zealand.
They stay with Aru and work part-time while preparing their passports, paperwork and other requirements before leaving.
Remembering starting small
For Aru, managing a 24-hour operation and a large number of workers is not easy. But he understands what it means to start small.
He remembers when he was making only one or two kilograms of kava a night.
There were no large quantities being brought in by aircraft. There was no extensive supply network.
There was simply a small beginning and the willingness to keep building. That experience has shaped the advice he gives to other kava vendors.
Aru encourages smaller nakamal operators and green kava sellers to save money and build their businesses gradually.
He says vendors should try to build enough resources to purchase larger quantities of stock rather than depending entirely on what is available each morning.
Where appropriate, he says they can approach a bank for a loan to help purchase a larger quantity of kava while continuing to save.
His own journey demonstrates the value of building slowly. He started with one or two kilograms. He built his customer base and developed contacts with suppliers.
Aru expanded beyond Maewo. He invested back into his business.
And over the years, those small steps created the financial capacity to respond when the business faces bigger challenges.
One of those challenges is now solved in a way that would have been difficult to imagine when he first arrived in Port Vila.
If kava is short, he can pick up the phone and arrange a charter flight.
The same man who once followed a ship to Port Vila because he needed fishing gear can now use air transport to bring hundreds of kilograms of kava back to the capital.
Aru says the demand for kava has remained strong and is even increasing.
People are coming to his nakamal in the morning, while the business continues throughout the day and night.
Looking back, his journey was shaped by a decision he never expected to make.
He came to Port Vila as a fisherman. He expected to return to Maewo.
Instead, a family member asked him to stay for a week. That week became a job. The job gave him the opportunity to observe the city.
The city showed him a growing demand for kava. His childhood experience with kava gave him the confidence to try.
And a small shipment from Maewo eventually became a business sourcing kava from across Vanuatu.
Today, Aurora Nakamal is a long way from the small operation Aru started. The fisherman who once needed help to pay for his fishing gear has built a business capable of operating 24 hours a day and spending hundreds of thousands of vatu when necessary to secure its supply.
His story is not simply about becoming a kava vendor.
It is about recognising an opportunity, taking a risk, learning through experience and building patiently.
Aru did not begin by chartering aircraft. He began with one or two kilograms of kava a night.
He built from there. More than 11 years later, the scale of his operation tells the story of that growth.
For Aru, fishing brought him to Port Vila. Kava gave him a reason to stay.
And the small opportunity he discovered along the way eventually grew into a 24/7 business capable of reaching across the islands — and even into the skies — to keep its customers supplied.
