05.28.2004 - Sonaisali Island, Nadi, Fiji

I feel like I’m more at home after the drive from Nadi Airport to the hotel. The poverty is downright Mississippian. Local Fiji people live in shacks of the sort seen so often in rural Mississippi. Actually, I suppose it reminds me more of Puerto Rico or Jamaica. It’s obviously a place with extremes of wealth and poverty.

Almost as quickly as I learned that “Bula” is the Fijian greeting (they also put a shell necklace around your neck when you arrive), I began to hear surprising comments. I’ve been here a few hours and I’ve already had two different hotel employees tell me things I didn’t expect to hear—at least not from people working at a resort. The first woman, who led me from the boat dock to the reception area at the hotel, told me that the British weren’t impressed with the Fijians, because they decided that they’re lazy. Then she said, “And they were right. No offense to anyone, but the Fiji people are lazy. That’s just the way they are.” She did add that they’re very nice and hospitable. She told me that the British had brought in Indians to do the work, and that’s why Fiji has a significant Indian population. (On the ride to the hotel, I noticed a store called “Singh Food Store.” Just like a city in the US, except probably there are not many Korean groceries here. The woman then told me that there are three classes of people in Fiji: the whites, who have all the money and basically don’t do anything but sit on their asses and enjoy life; the Indians, who work their asses off for everyone else; and the Fijians, who don’t work much at all.” (She, unsurprisingly, appeared to be at least partly if not entirely of Indian ancestry.)

Then the woman who walked me to my room told me that people in Fiji are paid very little, but the cost of living is high. She said that people here get paid for a week what someone in the US gets for half a day. She also said she’s new on this job, and complained that she’d been walking all day. She seemed none too happy.

The men who are waiters and so forth wear traditional skirts. The men’s skirts are shorter than the women’s. The men’s come to just below the knee, while the women’s skirts are ankle-length. Like the women, all the men also seem to wear flowers behind their ears. One man who works here, Kali, seems very friendly. He’s already calling me “Bawb.” And there was a Meke tonight—a traditional performance with songs and chants recounting the history of Fiji. They only do this on Friday evenings, so I arrived at the right time. One part of it was the men (in grass skirts) doing a spear dance. They have painted faces and it looks much like what one might expect to see among tribesmen in New Guinea.

Many of the Fijians, in fact, appear to be closely related to people from New Guinea. They look very similar to Africans. I don’t know the history, but my guess is that people from New Guinea migrated to Fiji. These people look quite different from many Pacific Islanders, and from the Maori of New Zealand (who more closely resemble Pacific Islanders than they do either aboriginal Australians or the dark Fijians. There are, however, also Fijians who look more like Pacific Islanders. At the hotel there seems to be a division of labor closely tied to ethnicity or color. The villagers who performed the Make were very dark New Guinea–like people. The grounds workers and some of the maids are also dark skinned. The people who wait on tables and handle similar tasks are generally the lighter-skinned Pacific Island people, while the administrative and technical positions are held by Indians.

On the whole trip I’ve seen about ten black people (apart from the New Guinea people in Fiji) and not a single Hispanic person. Coming from the US, that seems very strange.

It is astounding that in our age of jet travel, one can be in winter one day and the tropics the next. From ice-encrusted plants in southern New Zealand to swimming in the very warm waters of the tropical South Pacific. This is nice—but it’s no place to be without my love. And I’ll take Fiordland over Fiji any day.

Oh, I had a new experience at the breakfast buffet in Queenstown the other morning. In addition to the expected baked beans and tomatoes in a British area, they also had spaghetti! I see that they have it among their breakfast offerings here in Fiji, too. It’s the kind with sauce like Franco-American: it looks more like thin tomato soup than sauce. No thanks.

RSM