Up Front

with the Editor

is column of monthly chit-chat been compiled in hotel rooms bars, on aeroplanes, in planta homesteads; this one is being ;n aboard a Nauruan ship along- King’s Wharf, Suva, where the view across the harbour to ’s spectacular Thumb is unbi lled and the sea breezes arrive ;ck fresh and unpolluted by the heat. is site is a choice piece of South real estate indeed, so it must be ttable to some that it is not lie, merely rentable from day to in a short-term lease. But those us in “Enna G” have been able ike advantage of this superb t longer than most travellers ise, as I write, this cruise vessel pent two days short of a fort here at Suva’s famous main ;, while the artisans at Millers ind Bish Ltd grind pieces of the e. body knew when we put in to as part of an 18-day cruise Sydnev that the repair work 1 take so long. Our sailing orders in fact been altered from day y, so that we have been assigned kind of cruise ship limbo, e experience has had its rewards, file it is true that we have been e to arrange any extensive tours iji for fear that the “Enna G” ; in fact leave port within the and those of us with friends been reluctant to contact many em for the same reason, there unexpected satisfaction in being rmanent part of Suva’s water ;’re like the professional film which moves for weeks among lers of a remote tribe, filming and everything until the tribes take the camera for granted and hotographers can begin to record life as it’s really lived, len we arrived the wharf irers and customs officers in ed us with mere passing interest, wondering if we were pre nantly Australian, New Zealand merican; the curio dealers at the >y markets unhesitatingly asked 5 for $1 items; the taxi drivers

signalling from every corner were convinced we were unable to walk another five yards without their ex tortionate aid.

But we were, like all cruise pas sengers, in Suva only for a day or two, and so duty-free shopping was a furious and strained exercise, with many purchases later to be regretted; taxi-riding was an unequal battle of wits over mileage and fares; the selection of suitable half-day tours and “Island night” feasts a matter of gut-wracking trial and error on value for money. And all-in-all it was a success. To the 40 “Enna G” pas sengers—the usual affable-enough cruise ship mixture of widows, elderly retired couples, professional men and dairy farmers with the annual winter wanderlust—Suva was a colourful port, with no real disappointments, and the memory of it was enough to last to next winter.

But as a result of our two weeks’ limbo on the Suva waterfront I think the memory of Fiji will now last not a winter but a lifetime for most of “Enna G’s” passengers, for it won’t be the picture of a port they will now keep, but that of a people.

After two weeks in the heart of Suva, with the best and most con venient accommodation in town (“Enna G” is without doubt a first class passenger ship), you get to know a lot of wharf labourers, market stallholders, cab drivers and shop keepers. You get to know who runs the good tours and “Island nights”

and the phoney ones (in fact you get to distinguish the real from the phoney).

As part of their daily scene, our good friends ashore daily ask after our health, and the health of our ship. They give us background infor mation and help on all manner of local events, charge us correct fares, and —more often than not fair prices, and joke with us as they do with each other. The wharfies ask us to share their yaqona bucket; the stallholders cheerfully pick out the bananas we want, and the sound melons. The customs officers in their lonely gate posts wave us through with a friendly gesture.

The greatest development has been our recognition of the duty-free shop keepers as honest businessmen, not thieves; good family men, not Scrooges. There are, we think, thieves among them (any “Enna G” pas senger will probably lend you his short, private black list), but mostly they now appear to us to be hard working people with long-restrained patience and not greed, anxious to make a sale in an almost unfairly competitive arena, but not willing to sell their souls to the devil to do it.

We realise, as observers rather than active participants now, that that mad initial tourist shopping spree is as much a strain on the shopkeeper as the tourist, and that the man behind the counter has learned to grow a thick hide to turn some of the insult ing barbs fired off by some tourists in their wild charge down Gumming Street and along Victoria Parade.

A fellow passenger said it yester day. He said it slowly, considering every word: “I’ve decided that the people of Suva are ladies and gentle men. They have an inbuilt confidence in themselves and in life that makes them considerate, patient and kindly.

I’m now ashamed of cruise ship be haviour, with Europeans riding rough-shod through town like kings for a day, just because they have money in their pocket.”

It was a profound observation, and the remarkable thing was that it took only two weeks to gestate. Some people wouldn’t have noticed it in a lifetime. —Stuart Inder.