“So you keep saying.”
“But look at you. A pale shadow. Bags under eyes. Pathetic.”
“Hey, I’m not pathetic!”
“Not all the time. But you have pathetic undertones.”
I appealed to Niki, but she agreed.
“She’s totally right, okay? Your undertones are definitely pathetic.”
Defeated, I turned my pale shadow and baggy eyes and apparently pathetic undertones to watch Fiji loom large in the airplane window. Despite myself my heart started to be beat a little faster at the sight and I leaned forward to fit more of it in the small space as we descended. I picked out palm trees, flapping birds and green fields, and longed to smell and hear what my eyes saw.
Soon enough we were on the ground and in a taxi hurtling towards Nadi. Early morning light softened the dust and bustle but couldn’t erase the fact that Nadi is a most unattractive city. Undaunted, or perhaps unaware, Niki and Sophie swept me into the hotel, dumped bags and hustled out to find a place selling sarongs, or ‘sulus’ as they are called here.
“Bikinis and sarongs, that’s all you are allowed to wear this entire trip.”
“And condoms of course. You can wear as many of those as you like!"
They both laughed, but I ignored the implication. I’m not dedicated to the bikini idea either. I’d read enough to know that the locals aren’t that keen on tourists baring all. When missionaries ‘discovered’ these islands centuries ago they imposed their rigid moral code on Islanders, a code that has become part of the place. Ah yes, missionaries and mercenaries, with their timeless gift of moral superiority. And of course their generous gratuities, disease and guns. And now, after all these years, centuries really, a new set of foreigners lands on their shores. Modern tourism must be quite a shock. Besides, I’m not all that comfortable imposing my pale western flesh on Fiji’s shores. On anyone’s shores for that matter. I’ve always been a bit sensitive about my less than curvy outline. I thought turning 30 would add girth to my middle but I'm just as skinny as I was when I was a kid. No shape of any kind - I look like a boy.
“Nonsense. It’s not like we’re staying in villages or hanging out with Fijians. We are staying in a resort set up for fun in the sun. If you can’t bare your body here you can’t do it anywhere.”
“Exactly my point”.
“You’re doing this.” Niki’s voice had a thread of steel in it. “We haven’t come, like, halfway across the world to have you weasel out of it now. You are such a wet blanket, never enthusiasm for anything fun. Here, you are going to buy this blue sarong with the red flowers on it.”
“Sulu.”
“What?”
“They are called sulus here.”
“That sounds African to me.”
I frowned in thought. “I think you might be thinking of Zulus, a people living in southern Africa. This is sulu with an ’s’.”
“Oh, well, whatever.”
I bit my tongue and let her continue. I think I might have to pick my battles. “These red flowers are nice. What are they? Hibiscus, okay. I’ve heard of those. No, don’t go yet, there’s more. And don’t look at me like that. We are taking charge of this. Okay, the cream one with the turtles, too. And one more. What about this pink one Soph.? Will that look good on our pale shadow? Or is the red one better?”
Sophie screwed up her face and looked at me appraisingly, her head tilted a little. “Not the green. She looks bilious. And orange is a disaster. It works against her aura. I think the pink is probably best. The vibes are good. And don’t forget a towel and something for her feet.”
They loaded me up with half a dozen sulus and a pile of other things they felt I needed and led me to pay for my purchases, where I got a smile at the counter for saying ‘thank you’ in Fijian. While the others worked out their own fashion statements I stood outside in the shade of the awning and breathed in the hot damp air, air filled with scent and sound, chirping and thumping and perfume and spice and children’s voices. Fiji. The ‘Cannibal Islands’ on a multitude of maps. The crossroads of the Pacific. More than 300 islands scattered over a million square kilometres of ocean. The remains of a sunken continent. Inhabited by one of the bravest and strongest of peoples. A people so skilled at jungle warfare that during WWII when they fought against the Japanese it was never appropriate to list a Fijian as ‘missing in action’, but rather as ‘not yet arrived’. Guardians of one of the highest material cultures of the Pacific.
My eye was soon arrested by an old woman walking down the middle of the road holding her sulu up around her waist, completely naked below! As I stood rather aghast, two young girls saw her too and started giggling. We caught each other’s eyes and they came up to me laughing fit to kill. One of them clasped my hand. I felt accepted into their circle, standing there giggling together at a crazy old woman.
The spell was broken when my friends came out of the shop and, completely oblivious to the two other girls, took me by the arms and swept me away back to the hotel. I sighed and wondered if this trip will be filled with little broken spells.
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