Column 7--Heritage Missionary

This is the seventh column in a serialization of PACIFIC FLASH: A Year in FIJI by Gerry Takano. Copies will be available April 1, 2010. Stay tuned for more information.

After work at night, sentimental torch-songs on a modest CD player purchased in Suva, maintained my linkage with Hawaii and the USA circa summer 1994. Selections were limited to diverse, techno and pop music with a touch of baroque. The evenings without American media were fine. No more weekend New York Times & Honolulu’s blithe papers -- available were accessing the pedantic Fiji Times or listening to the calming British accented, local woman deejay who favored Hawaiian music. The nights whizzed by with typing, writing, book reading, or strategizing about Levuka’s fate.

During the early mornings, Fijian trucks buzz by transporting villagers to the local schools or the tuna factory nearby. Hundreds of kids pass by in their white shirts and gray sulu skirts. The morning view across the channel, of nearby isles with names like Wakaya, Batiki, Nairai and Gau, was priceless. To the rear were the Lovoni mountains, where fierce tribes resisted the Euro-influences till the late 1800s. These mountains rise up like a Hollywood South Pacific set. John Hall in the classic pre World War II Pacific adventure film, Hurricane, or Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon (filmed in the Yasawas, west Fiji) came to mind. Ovalau isle from the sea was magnificent and the view from beyond the reef rivals our best in Hawaii.

Time permitting, breakfast in the house kitchen was spent staring at the free-range chickens outside on my District Officer neighbor’s green lawn. One bright and beautiful morning while finishing breakfast chores a face appeared outside my screen door. The man was Fijian, his expression was glazed, and he simply looked at me in silence. Moments later he was gone. My neighbors said he was probably from the prison a few yards up the hill. Not to worry, they assured me. Men don’t harm others unless heavily intoxicated and frenzied in drunken brawls. It’s the history here, they said. It’s Levuka’s 1800s past.

Walking into town and passing the tuna factory on the outskirts of town was Café Levuka, a hip, South Seas bohemian place reminiscent of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. Tall and stately Kathy, a gentle and accommodating California soul, ran the café with pride and free spirit. She was frank, open and very progressive. Scattered about the café were tattered copies of Rolling Stone and the local paper from Suva. Discussions about the town were vital to my understanding of the community, that is, American to American. She kept the tidy place buzzing with activity. While enjoying the luxury of coffee and scones bedraggled European backpackers asked about boat rides to nearby isles, middle-aged yacht people with their worldly and privileged kids, Fijians and Indian Hindis drifting in to observe the curious Westerners.

Outside, as the stores opened, Indian merchants removed wooden bars that protected the glass windows. Turning the corner on Beach Street, the Catholic Marist Convent School loomed ahead in faded tropical Gothic sentiment. Proper and groomed students gathered on the great lawn and shouted greetings, Bula, bula. Then beyond the governmental wooden buildings, over the Totoga Creek bridge, was the Queen Victoria Town Hall office and work.

Gerry Takano was reared in Honolulu, Hawaii and received his architectural education and early training in upstate New York and Boston. Gerry served as Hawaii’s National Trust Advisor and State of Hawaii Commissioner of the Historic Sites Review Board.

He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can be reached at gertkno@aol.com