Column 18--Thorns and Flowers (Part 2)

This is the eighteenth column in a serialization of PACIFIC FLASH: A Year in FIJI by Gerry Takano. Copies will be available later this year. Stay tuned for more information.

Once again the return to Suva was appreciated no matter how calming the Levuka routines had become. My visits were filled with must dos -- must buy screw-on light bulbs, oranges, must check into Polaris Edge, Suva's answer to Golds gym. But most important on that occasion was a visit to the American Embassy to share expatriate stories and my entry arrest. We talked about American self-doubt after working in Fiji community service fields. Most American professionals, apart from those here for hedonistic pleasures, wanted to assist and contribute productively to this country. As soon as we entered the Resource centre, a fire alarm sounded and we marched out to the street instead. Have a pleasant day, said the US Embassy staff.

Next stop was a visit to see Floyd Takeuchi, formerly with the Honolulu Star Bulletin and currently the managing editor of the Fiji Post. Our chat was about the crime in Suva and the new forms of security at expatriate residences. I met Floyd again, this time with his girlfriend, Kris, and her mom from Honolulu at the Suva Nausori airport en route to Levuka. Kris’s mom was in culture shock. Fiji is so very different, she answered. The people are – what can I say.

When they arrive in Levuka we had dinner at the Australian Ditrich family’s Whales Tale restaurant. Floyd and Kris, both living in Suva, were enthralled with Fiji. Kris’s mom retained her composure and politely listened to our conversations.

Later in the evening and alone at Nasova House, my mind momentarily rushed with intellectual jolts and highbrow musing. What do the neo-conservatives mean by the end of history? What does this have to do with my times here in Fiji? Then I remembered the prisoner’s face staring through the kitchen screen window -- no fear or judgment, just an odd curiosity about the outside world. On that humid and wet Levukan evening, with a scratchy CD playing British Masterpiece theater’s Mouret’s Rondeau from Premiere Suite de Symphonies in the background and a cup of Earl Grey, keeping anxieties outside the mosquito nets was all that mattered.

Gerry Takano was reared in Honolulu, Hawaii and received his architectural education and early training in upstate New York and Boston. Gerry served as Hawaii’s National Trust Advisor and State of Hawaii Commissioner of the Historic Sites Review Board.

He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can be reached at gertkno@aol.com