Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 7

About this time a ship would show up at the Suva wharf and load bananas by the box load for New Zealand.

We would wait until the ship had finished loading and go and see the workers. There always more boxes than the ship could hold, so we would offer two shillings [20c] a box and get a car load.

They were far too green to eat - they allowed time for the ship voyage and distribution in NZ to finish the ripening when they filled the boxes.

We would take the box back to the room, move all the other boxes under the bed down a little and start eating the fruit in the oldest box which, by then was ready.

For morning and afternoon tea a local would wheel his wheelbarrow full of pineapples around the hanger.

For three pence [2c] he would flash his machete a couple of times and there was a peeled pineapple, with the leaves trimmed as a handle. He also spiral cut the little thorny bits out as well.

Fortunately we only wore shorts, if we had a shirt it would have been well stained by the juice from the pineapples.

As part of joining the Base, you were given a piece of paper to take around the interested sections. The mess [dining room] so they knew how many to cook for, medical so they could call you up for any jabs they felt like.

Not forgetting people like the dentist, the barrack warden[to get bed sheets and blankets] and so he could allocate you a bed, and finally the Padre. Probably so he could keep an eye on his flock.

Being a young, innocent lad when I arrived and got signed in. When the Padre asked if I was busy that evening, I wasn’t fast enough to lie, so I said “No Sir”.

“Be at the chapel at 6pm” he told me. Never one to disobey an order, I showed up and was told to get into his car and away we went. He pointed out all the churches and cathedrals on the way into Suva.

I was getting the grand tour. Then we stopped at a two storied building in the center of town and I was told to “hop out”.

We went upstairs, there was a strange smell to the place but I couldn’t quite place it.

We emerged into a large room with small round tables set all over it. I was thinking this was the strangest church I had ever seen when a girl came over to ask what I drank.

I like churches like that.

After a couple we left and went beside a canal that I later learned was called sweet water canal [Nambucalau Creek]. Worth about 50 different shots from the medics if you fell in it and survived.

We went in through a hanging bead curtain door, there was sawdust on the floor, some tired looking girls sitting down offering some Kava.

The first taste of Kava is indescribable, filthy dishwater, overflow from the toilet, mixed with hot peppers, absolutely ghastly.

There is no one word that describes it. We stayed for three or four. By then the taste buds had given up and you just hurried up and swallowed it as quickly as you could.

Later I found out it was the local ‘girls of the evening’ restroom.

The Garrack Hotel where we had started the night, became the usual watering hotel for most of us.

Fiji at the time was one of the best places a young man could grow up. While there was a little racial tension between the Indians and Fijians, we were friends to both sides.

You could get paralytic drunk in town, and end up in a gutter, one of the taxi drivers would recognize you, pick you up and take you back to your room and tuck you up in bed.

A few days later or the next time he saw you, the taxi driver would say “I took you home Wednesday. You owe me two shillings and six pence[ 25c].”

You weren’t robbed, bashed, killed, only the hangover in the morning, and sometimes that was a struggle.

The cure for that was to call into transit section, that looks after everything that goes in and out of the base.

By the time you got there they had a brew of Kava going, and boy it cleared hangovers like nothing on earth.

The Fiji Tourist board had a watered down sample for visitors, actually, we weren’t after the certificate but the sweet young girls handing them out, unsuccessfully again.

Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 1
Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 2
Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 3
Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 4
Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 5
Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 6
Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 7
Adventures in Fiji in the 1959 to 60's - part 8