A Night Out

We got ready to go out after dinner yesterday because nearly everyone from our group had agreed to meet up at O’Reilly’s, a popular bar downtown. Our family wanted to take us out though, so it was really awkward because we had no idea what to expect. It was warm out, so we were both wearing shorts but then it sounded like our host dad, Ajay, called the pub to check if there was a dress code. It turned out there wasn’t. The place they took us seemed kind of like a country club. They referred to it as a “pub” and said it was only of the oldest clubs in Fiji, around since the colonial days when only the British were allowed inside. Nowadays, it’s a member’s only club. It seemed like a nice place. Our family bought us a couple of Tribes, the local wine cooler, to try. The Tribes are mixed with either vodka or bourbon; we tried the cola, raspberry and watermelon, pineapple, and lime flavors. Everything was good except for the cola, which was way too strong.

The country club was really only for the older men though, so after finishing our drinks, we moved on to O’Reilly’s. It was kind of awkward (which was the theme of the night) going to a nightclub with a couple the age of our parents and a 20ish woman who is their housekeeper and was trying to keep an innocent image in their company. O’Reilly’s was where we tried the pineapple tribe though, and, soon after, we found our group. They were dancing on the tables and counters in the corner of the dancing and smoking section of the bar. It’s so weird that you can still smoke inside in designated smoking areas here.

Inside O'Reilly's

We kind of separated from our family to join the group and I felt bad because they awkwardly stood in the corner for about forty minutes before asking if we wanted to move on to another bar. We wanted to stay though and, thankfully, they agreed to let us take a cab home. I was just glad that they were getting the chance to go somewhere more their style. Apparently, after they left us they took Nina to another club too.

A lot of the people in our group were drinking and dancing, but I preferred to sit down with the artists from the University of the South Pacific who had come out to meet our group. Dancing just isn’t really my style. It was too loud to talk inside though, so I mainly just ended up sitting and watching. Some people were getting a little out of hand. Sure enough, after about an hour, the bar was really crowded and some of the people in our group wanted to move on to a different bar down the street. Of course, we couldn’t find everyone. We spent about twenty minutes looking for three of the girls who had just disappeared together. They finally showed up after we had given up and moved on to Club Islanders down the street. However, that bar was extremely skuzzy and didn’t appear to be the safest, so we were only there for about ten minutes before leaving.

When we all got outside, Lindsay just took off running across the street and into a park. She was literally sprinting away from us for no apparent reason. It was probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen someone do. She even claimed she was sober, but that definitely couldn’t be true. Someone sad she was mad about something but one of the artists found her near the sea and putting two and two together we figured out she was homesick. It was a mess though. We couldn’t really try to bring her back to the group because we were afraid she would take off again, so we had to leave her be, even if it was alone.

A lot of the group moved onto Temptations, a newer club across from O’Reilly’s, but I was ready to call it a night. Deirdre and I didn’t want to call a taxi though, so we asked a couple of the artists how safe it would be to walk home along the seawall where we had taken our walks with Nina. It was really only a ten-minute walk and our host family has told us the area is rather safe, but we wanted to check. The artists didn’t agree that it was okay for us to walk alone, so two of them came with us. I ended up talking and walking with William, who said he had never met a foreigner before. It was bizarre to me. I understand he’s never left Fiji and since he’s from a small village on the North Island, I can see where he would be isolated, but still. I can’t imagine not knowing the diversity that comes along with acquaintances from other countries. I tried to think back to the first time I had met someone born in a foreign place, but I couldn’t. I guess I take the diversity of the United States for granted.

It was about 2:30 by the time we got home last night, so we passed out right away, which is a good thing because we had to get up at nine this morning to run errands with our family. Etnis, the son, needs new glasses, so we went with him to the optometrist and helped him pick out new frames. Unfortunately, he didn’t go with any of our suggestions. It’s creepy how similar the glasses shop seemed to Lenscrafters back home. The paint colors were a little more islandier, but the set-up was ridiculously familiar.

After the glasses hunt, we dropped Etnis off at the bus stop and headed to the market. The markets are huge here. You can buy everything from fresh fish to vegetables. I immediately noticed the absence of apples though. It’s so weird to me that they don’t grow them here. It doesn’t seem like apples would need that unique of a climate. Nothing is packaged in anyway though, so it also seems kind of unsanitary. Even when you buy a whole fish, it’s just shoved in a non-properly sized plastic bag with the tail sticking out. I dubbed this “fish in a bag.” We also went to a supermarket in town, which seemed incredibly busy. I was amazed at the prices on some of the things too. Peanut butter seemed a little bit more expensive here, but nectarines were ridiculous at $17 per kilogram. Apples were almost $4 per kilogram. I guess that is truly the difference of living in a small country though. In the United States, we don’t even notice when things are imported because our economy is strong and the sheer amount of products we import absorbs some of the cost. We were encouraged to pick out ice cream for after lunch from their Tip Top collection. They had some bizarre flavors like boisonberry and hokey pokey, but we stuck with the slightly more normal cookies and cream. The cart was completely full when we were done shopping and I thought it would take forever to bag everything, but the check-out woman and bagger were amazing fast. You can tell they’ve taken it down to a science. It was much more productive than the US, which is good because they were really busy.

The inside of the market was huge

He had so many eggs

Bananas are a huge deal here

I don't even know what these are

The fish head was just chilling on a table

This was still moving while we were there

They have a lot of pink toilet paper

Lunch was Chinese food, which was incredibly weird for me. The cho mein was really good though and I’ve actually started eating rice. My taste buds are definitely becoming less picky. As long as things aren’t too spicy or fishy, I seem to be able to handle them well. I’m still not big on vegetables though. I feel like my food adventures won’t necessarily continue in Australia though because I’ll be buying all of my own food and I’m not going to want to waste money on things I won’t like. The ice cream afterwards was a good choice too :)

We went running after lunch along the sea wall, which is this little paved path that has been put up alongside a wall that keeps the tide from running into the road. I ended up running all the way out of Suva town proper. One thing I noticed is there is an extraordinary large amount of seaside parks here. You would think the land would be devoted to beaches or beachfront property, but it’s not.

Our farewell dinner was tonight. It was held at USP. All of the girls in our family – Sangita, Nina, Shigi, and Rigi – came with us. There was entertainment underneath their performance pavilion, including a rapper as well as the college’s band, dance group, and singing group. Dinner was good too… I had fish again, unbelievably. They made us dance with the performers after the whole group sang the traditional goodbye song, so not cool.

I pretty much passed out after we got back home and had some ice cream.