Here And There In Viti Levu

From Scattered Notes by Judy Tudor

Haunting "Isa Lei"

IN Fiji, it is hard to escape the haunt ing melody of “Isa Lei,’’ an old Fijian tune rewritten and arranged in the modern manner by Lieut. A. W. Caten, bandmaster of the Fiji Defence Force Band. “Isa lei” means farewell, but the Fijians, whether going or coming or merely stationary, burst into this song at the slightest provocation.

Boys and girls of the Methodist Mis sion Schools in Suva sang it to me in several variations, and a class of small Indians in the Lautoka convent presented it in Hindi.

When we dined with Mr. and Mrs. Ken Sands, at Suva Point, Mrs. Sands said “the boys would sing for us,” and again the first song was “Isa Lei.” Originally, she had asked her Fiji girl and a friend to find two others to entertain us, but the girls had done their talent-scouting in the Fiji military camp over the road and, instead of four girls, we had almost a platoon of young soldiers, all coyness and colossal military boots, a guitar and a ukelele.

These people seem to be able to play a guitar as naturally as a bird takes to the air, and to harmonise with equal felicity. The bass singers sit in a heap, and growl out their notes, and the facial contortions, of those taking the tenor parts are extraordinary to watch; but the music that results is invariably good.

So far as I know, “Isa Lei” is the only Piiian melody yet published; but several of the songs they sang that night, par ticularly those in slow tempo, should .be

equally popular in the outside world.

There is something in these simple tunes —as the Fijians themselves present them, anyway—which is totally lacking in the. over-commercialised Hawaiian product. * ♦ ♦

Attractive Sigatoka

SIGATOKA, which has been described in previous “PIMs” as the perfect place in Fiji for retired people, is now coming into its own. On a recent visit there. Mr. and Mrs. Steve Monk, who keep the quaint little Sigatoka hotel, took me about five miles out along the Queen’s Road in the Suva direction, to where thev have three blocks in a re cently sub-divided estate.

Each block is about half an acre in extent, with excellent soil and a strip of beach complete with half-a-dozen or so coconuts. The Monks’ blocks are as yet uncleared; but all along the sub division houses are going up, constructed mostly from Army huts and buildings which are being disposed of in Fiji at present.

Properly converted, these huts make attractive bungalows—although the Siga toka folk are following the old Fiji cus tom of building suburban villas with two-by-two windows and no verandahs.

I have been amazed to find, in Fiji, few of the open-air, wide-eved, cool houses so common in the south-west Pacific.

Houses, shops and country hotels are places through which it is almost impos sible to get a breeze and in which the inhabitants stew and sweat. Local resi dents say that it becomes very cold in

winter; but it was September when I arrived here and I find it almighty hard to believe the climate becomes as cold as their buildings would indicate.

If I were a retired businessman I can think of no better spot to spend my old age than in a suitable house among pleasant neighbours on one of Sigatoka’s coral beaches. Sigatoka has a good climate, somewhere betwixt Lautoka’s frizzling dryness and Suva’s humid heat and depressing rain. With a large gar den, some poultry, and fish from inside the reef, living should be cheap and in finitely better than spending one’s last days crouched over a fire in frozen misery in Australia or New Zealand. ♦ ♦ ♦

Rich Fijian Valley

FROM the top of a hill behind Siga toka town, the first flats of the Siga toka river valley look like an agricul turalist’s dream. Cultivated land spreads out lushly, mile upon mile; directly be low are the crops of the Government experimental farm in varied bands of greens and yellows and browns, and be yond the river are the canefields in alternating stages of growth, stretching away to the hills beyond.

These first flats are said to be small in comparison with the alluvial lands further up the valley. But the road from Sigatoka extends only 10 or 12 miles along the river, and the river itself is unnavigable for any distance. Therefore, until such time as some means of com munication is provided, small use can be made of these rich riverlands.

If I were a young man, instead of having been born into the wrong sex, I can imagine no pleasanter way of making a living than farming in the Sigatoka valley. But if I had sons and daughters

I guess I should want to shove them out at the proper time to establish themselves in non-native countries overseas.

At the present stage in Fiji, it is pretty hard to see a future for a European child growing up here. The only longrange purpose the European has in Fiji (or so it appears to me) is to act as a buffer between Indian and Fijian in the pious hope that the Fijian will thus be afforded time in which to develop a sufficiently aggressive national spirit to withstand the increasing activities of the up-and-coming Indian.

Unexpected Visitor

I HAVE not yet made up my mind whether the shutters on the french windows with which Suva’s Grand Pacific Hotel are ventilated are meant to be closed firmly or left open on hot nights to catch what breeze there is. These windows open onto the balcony; and, I daresay, a nice, careful girl of refined type would keep them firmly closed. If so, I guess I don’t come within this category, and so the other night I woke to find a white-clad masculine figure

standing between my bed and its vacant twin.

Not knowing the figure’s nationality, and three-parts asleep, I sat up and de manded: “What the heck do you think you are doing here? Get out!”

The figure froze where it was, but was completely dumb; so, even more insis tently, I bade it begone. This time, it found its voice and, in an American ac cent, said: “I sure am sorry, mam; I guess I must be in the wrong room.” I replied J:hat I guessed he was and added: “Go on—go away.”

He went but paused at the door to again offer “heartfelt apologies” and to inquire the number of the room. The apologies still did not seem quite flus tered enough to me, and I muttered “Some of these Yanks would try any thing”- as I turned over and went back to sleep.

But I guess I must have maligned the United States. In the morning I found that all the oddments that I had left on the other bed had been removed to a table and the covers pulled down, as though someone were about to get in.

Mv poor straying sailor must have been only wanted to sleep and I imagine he must have been pretty amazed when, in stead of his buddy being in the next bed, an irate female feeling very much a wronged-woman, sat up and started to abuse him.

All exchanges had taken place in the darkness and although I looked the whole U.S. Navy contingent over at breakfast I couldn’t identify my wandering one.

If I were not such a light sleeper, I imagine that, come the dawn and the Indian servant with tea. Anglo-Ameri can relationships would have been due for a pretty big jolt. ♦ ♦ •'

Picnic Island

VITI LEVU’S jagged mountains, plus the prevailing wind, give Suva a rainfall that might be measured in feet rather than inches—the. average is 118 inches per annum. But about three miles off Suva Point are two small islands, Nukulau and Makuluva, one on the barrier reef, the other just inside, which by some freak of geography are just outside the area of precipitation, and receive only a small fraction of the capi tal’s large rainfall.

Makuluva is known as the “Gover nor’s island”; Nukulau is officially the quarantine station and was used mostly in the dim past as a depot for inden tured Indian labourers. Portions of the huge barrack-like buildings which were built for housing incoming and outgoing labourers, can now be hired for a nomi nal sum by local residents who make Nukulau their picnic and camping ground. * ♦ *

Mosquito Control

I STILL think that Fiji could have learned a great deal from the old Mandated Territory of New Guinea on the subject of mosquito control. Fiji’s methods are much-publicised, while TNG maintained a very silent service; but the fact remains that mosquitos were rare in the township area of Rabaul, while in Suva they are an ever-present pest, and in the country townships millions of them arrive with the dusk to tear chunks out of any exposed particle of skin.

The fact that they are comparatively harmless compensates little for the irri tation of the series of lumps and spots they leave behind. The old “anopheles,” although a menace to health, is a silent

worker and causes little irritation in comparison.

Many thousands have been spent on mosquito control in Fiji, yet, in what might be called the suburban districts of Suva, there are many acres of stagnant water where the Indians are still per mitted to °row their rice. ♦ ♦ ♦

1,000 Tons of Condlenuts Wanted

WHEN I visited Mr. H. A. Mitchell in his candlenut factory, near Suva’s waterfront, he showed me the re sult of a trial pressing of the nuts —three small bottles of clear, almost odourless, golden oil which he said had cost his company about £2,000 to produce.

The candlenuts are rolling in from out lying districts but at the moment the factory is strewn with pieces of machinery and resounding to much hammering on wood and sheet-metal. All the plant has now arrived from Aus tralia, however, and it is only a matter of assembling elevators, buskers, dryers and pressers before operations are in full swing.

Mr. Mitchell calculates that with the present machinery working one eight hour shift, about 1,000 tons of nuts can be crushed in a year with a yield of about 40,000 gallons of oil.

From what I know of Fiji social habits I imagine “old-hands” will sit back on their haunches and howl that there is nothing like that quantity of nuts in the Colony; but Mr. Mitchell believes that there will be sufficient to carry his com pany on until such time as they can establish plantations themselves or, al ternatively, encourage Fijians to do so.

Only time will prove who is right. Candle nut trees begin to bear after three years. ♦ ♦ ♦

Plurals Baffle Them

rE GPH in Suva is being refurbished; and, alongside some fresh paint work, some Indian painter has writ ten, “Wait pant.”

Indian signs are invariably odd. They use no plurals, and eating-places bristle with such invitations as “Ice-cream and soft drink.” An Indian temple at Lautoka has a notice on the fence: “Please remove your boot before entering.”

In a slightly different category is the Tongan shopkeeper’s notice: “For sale: Pacific Island Yearbooks—three dollars, or one carton of cigarettes.” ♦ ♦ ♦

Boxing Match

I, WHO had never seen a European box ing match, and have no desire to, went to the boxing in Ba with Mr.

Pat Costello. Outside the theatre, where the bouts were held, was a seething mass of Fijians and Indians and, as far as I could see, that is where most of them remained all evening There, they could hear the barracking from the hall, and results could be passed out to them. A cheaper if less exciting method of seeing the show, entrance to which cost five or six shillings.

Both Indians and Fijians participated, but principally Fijians, who have adopted most of our sports with fanatical en thusiasm. The preliminary bouters were simple, unsophisticated souls; they wore cute little silk pants, but had bare feet; they slunk into the ring, bowed to the audience in pure Fijian (i.e., bend over at rWht angles, take a swift pivot full circle on one bare heel and beat it to the corner with head bowed in embar rassment) ; and they listened to the cau tionary instructions of the referee with

the agonised expression of a prisoner at the bar. Finally, their boxing was a great deal of sparring and little fighting.

But, as the evening progressed, there were more and more fancy embellish ments; and, with them, a sort of hazy impression that these lads had seen a great many movies. They wore boots now, and occasionally a gaudy dressing gown; they strutted into the ring and swung on the ropes in professional style, they reclined in the respective corners while quite three seconds (or seconds, thirds and fourths) supplied them with ice-water, advice, fans and a good deal of tummy-rubbing.

The barracking was loud and continu ous and, strangely, almost entirely in English. “That’s it, Vato,” yelled a fran tic Fijian just behind my head. “Keep at it, Vato —that’s the way to success!”

(Must have been to a good school, that lad.) Then: “Bang him down, Vato— bang him down!”

Chief event was between someone called Marika, from Ba, and Sam, from Nadi. Sam was as big round as the gas-works, with arms like hams and thighs like oversize balloon tyres. Marika looked as frail as a young blade of grass, in comparison. Sam, I thought, has only got to fall on Marika, and that will be that.

For approximately eight of the 10 rounds they fiddled and finoodled and chased each other round the ring, each occasionally landing a good thump on the other fellow. Then, with the dew of honest endeavour thick upon both, Marika hauled off and with a good, clean wallop knocked Sam completely off his feet. Sam lay there with the bemused

look of a great ox, while the referee counted 10 and the crowd yelled its head off.

The show was over. If that were box ing at Ba, then we had had it.