Column 8 -- Heritage missionary (continued)

This is the eigth column in a serialization of PACIFIC FLASH: A Year in FIJI by Gerry Takano. Gerry's journal will be available for purchase online soon.

Tea was always at 10:30am while lunch was at 1pm. There were at least five restaurants with Fijian, Chinese and European choices. An Indian restaurant, including a side space for hardware, was rumored to open soon. My favorite was the Whale’s Tale on Beach Street owned by welcoming Australian expatriates, Ditrich family, who served simple and tasty meals homemade from local produce. The Ditriches, transported from the outskirts of Sydney, Australia, were especially friendly and often shared ideas about Ovalau and the expatriate world in Fiji. The restaurant walls were covered with maps and images of Levuka. Outside, just across the Main Street, was an unobstructed view of the wharf and Wakaya Island.

The first Heritage public session went smoothly. An attendee apologized for stirring the local chief, Tui Levuka, against conservation. There were many Hindi Indians in attendance, mostly merchants. Many have quietly accepted the native Fijian nationalism imposed on them since the coup a few years ago. Indians, accordingly, did not have majority power; control remained in native Fijian control. On the surface Levuka’s Fijians and Indians co-existed harmoniously and tolerated each culture for basic trade and services. Hospitality was a trademark of Levuka.

Many weekends were spent in Suva, a full morning’s trip by air and transport. Suva was a large town, a bigger Hilo, Hawaii before malls scarred its landscape. The Suva marketplace, like other Polynesian markets, was bustling, exotic and crowded. A stone’s throw away was the very busy shopping area -–old colonial verandah buildings with a variety of shops -- Indian merchants were in the Toorak section up the hill, a bit of India without the density of Bombay. My favorite natural foods Indian restaurant was Kishnas located on the second floor of a downtown building. Freshly prepared vegetarian specialties were served in metal bowls and dishes. What a delight to feast on homemade roti, dahl, curries, and an assortment of ice cream and sweets.

Chinese food, primarily a mix of Sichuan and Cantonese delicacies, was available and delicious in Suva too, as were the dishes at the few European cafés. “Supermarkets” tucked away in the downtown area provided products from Australia or New Zealand; cheeses, particularly rare and unknown in Levuka, were luckily available. For local tropical fruits and vegetables the best shopping venue was the open market full of goods for Pacific cuisines.

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