Escaping from Life’s Realities in the Suva Market

Day 66, Grand Asia 2017

Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017 – Suva, Fiji

Suva, Fiji’s capital, was hot and humid when I disembarked to explore the city. One of my immediate stops was the city market only a block from the pier.

Venders filled tables with limes, bananas, garlic, tomatoes, large okra pods, coconuts and much other recognizable produce. The prices were low (three pineapples or a fair-sized pile of garlic for two dollars), and then I realized that it was even less, as the prices were in Fijian dollars, worth almost half of an American dollar.

I also saw vegetables and fruits I didn’t readily know, such as breadfruit and taro. The venders were friendly and happy to be photographed with their products. A few women quietly sewed garments to sell in small booths.

As I ventured further, I was reminded that travel brings you face to face with the reality of life in other countries, and sometimes it shows you firsthand the ugly issues that can bubble to the surface.

I had heard only briefly about Fiji’s history of racial tension. Over the years tensions have erupted between the native Fijians, Europeans and Fijians of Indian ethnicity that were brought to the islands as servants during colonial times. I won’t go into detail about the strife, but when I went ashore today in the capital city of Suva, I got a touch of the issue.

As I walked down a busy street taking photos, a man told me to be careful and to stay on the street straight ahead rather than turn on a side street to my left, away from the water. The side street was a busy retail-shopping street. If I wanted to shop, he suggested I avoid that area and instead show only in Fijian-owned stores, where the money would go to people on the island and not to India. He then offered to walk me to the shops he suggested, and I surmise that his job was to steer traffic to his favored shops.

I explained that I was talking pictures and not shopping, and left him as I wandered on.

It was a small encounter, and perhaps I am reading too much into it. But it did show me that even when an island looks like paradise, it is part of the real world. There is racial and political strife between some of Fiji’s citizens and residents, and you don’t have to look far sometimes to see that reality, even when you are far from home.

Suva is a busy city, with a mixture of banks in modern buildings, government offices and retail stores selling everything from cell phones to Bula shirts (similar to Hawaiian shirts but with Fijian designs). I didn’t see anything I particularly needed, so after taking photographs I returned to the ship for a much-needed shower to cool off from the intense heat and humidity.

By the time I went to the Crow’s Nest for happy hour at 4 p.m., I had to take a sweater to counter the air conditioning.