Vinaka Vakalevu

Vinaka Vakalevu

I ate at McDonalds today. Yeah, that’s right. And I don’t care what you think. I had a cheeseburger meal. In America, McDonalds is all about exploiting the worker and getting you a product based on unsustainable, heinous business and agricultural practices. In Fiji, it is all about great jobs for responsible youth and taking pride in your product. My beef was organic. My fries, golden brown.

Sad to say but I did get sick afterwards. A fruit and vegetable diet is not friends with grease, not matter how quality.

There are public health warnings going out all over Suva. Sickness is rampant and the hospitals are advising everyone to take special precautions. Not Dengue Fever, not a malaria outbreak. Cold weather. With temperatures dipping into the … wait for it … 70’s, the public is being advised to “drink plenty of warm fluids” and to bundle up, as viral sickness from chill is on the rise. Maybe it’s true? I don’t feel sick. Or cold.

I’ll admit, it is too cold to use my pool. I am a pool snob. If the water isn’t boiling, I’m not getting in. I’ll dip my big toe, look down my nose through my dark sunglasses, and saunter off back to my lounge chair.

Today I went to the Suva Expo, something akin to a small town fair. Booths hawking salad shooters inside, rides for the kids outside, and plenty of street meat food. Bubbles the Clown even made an appearance. As I navigated my way through the packed aisles, avoiding the (shudder) Island Dress fashion show made up of 300 lb. island mamas, I noticed something rather peculiar. All of the ethnicities of Fiji were mingling, laughing, enjoying themselves in close quarters. The Chinese stall was next to the Indian stall was next to the Fijian stall, and they were all busy with mixed crowds. For a moment, it looked like Fiji was the poster-child country for peace and harmony amidst a very diverse population of very different cultures.

Violence against Indians has become a real problem in the past several years. One guy I know has been beat up at least four times, breaking his jaw, arm, and a few ribs. He states that when he sees a group of male Fijians coming towards him on the road, he crosses to the other side. If they cross the road, he runs. Strange, because he follows this comment with “I don’t want to leave Fiji, Fijians are nice”. It’s true, and completely bizarre, because individually, everyone is really very nice.

To a visitor, Suva does look ethnically mixed, and relaxed. But there are subtle signs of the tension that is latent. A majority of the beggars and homeless are Indian. A lot of the recent robberies have targeted Indians and Indian businesses. Fijians all use the public fields for rugby at a certain time, then Indians use it for soccer at another time.

I could digress into a lengthy discussion about modern nation states and the implications for race relations, but I will save it, for another time when maybe someone has interest.

Bubbles the Clown. That guy is ridiculous.