There Are Some Bouquets

Just in case you think that what I have had to say about Suva shopkeepers is all brick bats, I would like to throw a bouquet, aimed at some of the stallholders at the Suva market. I have had excellent service and fair prices from some of these people and from many of the other one-man businesses around Suva.

Week in, week out, the bulk of the fruit and vegetable buying for our household has been done at one particular stall in the market owned by a Chinese family. Never have I had better, friendlier service or fairer prices from anybody in any country. Not only can I hand pick my tomatoes, my apples and oranges, but I can pinch the cucumbers as much as I like until I find one firm enough to my liking, and if, for reasons beyond their control, my stallholding family feels that their pro duce hasn’t been quite up to scratch, or if they are just feeling good anyway, I get a little gift—perhaps a couple of bananas, a coconut, a mango or two.

Shopkeepers like these, and those I knew on the Continent, and the old-fashioned Scots shopkeeper, know the value of a little “come-back again” present dropped into the basket of a regular customer. But not,

it seems, Fiji’s bigger boys of the merchandise world.

JG.