February 2010

Bundles of taro for sale at Levuka's informal market. Photo by David Lansing.

A few years ago the Levuka town council decided to build the sort of covered market area you’d find in the more sophisticated Fijian towns like Suva. It’s a nice area with clean, covered stalls just along the road outside the Royal Hotel. The only problem is that the old women who comprise the market didn’t like it. “Too far from town,” they complained, though the distance between the covered market and the old sea wall where they liked to throw down their blankets and plastic tarps was maybe a two minute walk.

I think what they really meant was that at the covered market, they couldn’t keep an eye on what was happening along Beach Street—even if there really wasn’t anything happening. It also made it more difficult to say hello to friends walking around town to pick up a bottle of palm oil at Katudrau Trading Market or candles at Young Yet & Sons General Store.

It’s a congenial place, Levuka. Everyone pretty much knows everyone else. So if you are one of the old ladies who lives out in the country and you grow just enough taro to bring in a few bundles for sale on market day, you don’t want to be stuck inside a small stall in a covered market on the edge of town. You want to sit along the sea wall where the air is fresh from the ocean breeze and you want to be able to shout out “Bula!” to an old friend walking out of Emily’s with a fresh loaf of bread.

So that’s what you do. You sit squat-legged on the ground, a cloth spread in front of you, selling a few yams or maybe some breadfruit or aubergines. And though it isn’t a very sophisticated market—and certainly nothing like that in Suva or Nadi—it’s good enough for Levuka. In fact, it’s just fine.

Photo by David Lansing.

Finally got around to having a drink last night at the Ovalau Club. I don’t know why it took me so long to visit. As the century-old bastion of British colonialism (there’s still a sign on the front that says “Members Only” but nobody pays any attention to it), you’d think I would have popped over for a G&T long ago. Particularly since it’s only a block away from the Royal Hotel.

With its tongue-and-groove walls and sepia portraits of English naval officers, it certainly has an authentic E.M. Forester vibe to it. But, frankly, I found the place a bit depressing. Maybe it was the faded sailing pennants on the walls or the worn floor planks that smelled of old beer. Oh, wait! I know what it was. It was the old “Saturday Night Fever” Bee Gee songs—Staying Alive, Jive Talking, Night Fever—playing on the tinny sound system. For some reason, hearing You Should be Dancing always brings me down.

There were maybe half a dozen people at the bar drinking rum and coke or Fiji Bitters. One old bloke, who introduced himself to me as Captain Crabby (I swear) must have been a pirate at one time because he ended every sentence with “argh.” Captain Crabby’s face was as tan and wrinkled as an old bull hide. His thin hair was slicked back and he wore a thick gold chain. He was wearing some foul cologne like Old Spice. Just to make conversation, I asked him if he knew anything about the old British sloop in the bay that Meli had said was haunted.

“I’ve seen it. Argh,” he said.

“Any idea who owns it?”

Argh. Some Limey. Argh.”

That was as much as I could get from Captain Crabby.

After a bit, three Japanese tourists came in. They drank shots of white rum and started singing along to the music while bouncing their heads back and forth like those porcelain dogs you put on your car dashboard.

“Ev’rybuddie shakin’ and we are stayin’ a-li-e, stayin’ a-li-e.”

There was only so much I could take of that, particularly when they started grabbing empty beer bottles as if they were microphones and pretending they were in a karaoke bar.

“Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ a-li-e, stayin’ a-li-e.”

I paid my bill and walked back to the Royal Hotel where I ordered a gin and tonic, drinking it in the empty bar by myself. The silence was wonderful.

Photo by David Lansing.

I think I mentioned that just outside of town is a fish factory. It’s called PAFCO (Pacific Fishing Company) and is a joint venture between the Japanese and the Fijian government. The thing is, if the fish factory wasn’t here, I doubt very much whether Levuka would be either because there’s really no other commerce. Certainly no tourism.

Back in the day when Levuka was booming (which would be in the 1870s and 1880s), Levuka was sort of a transshipment point for the copra trade. But the last of that business was gone by the late 1950s. And the town sort of frittered away. Until the Japanese fish cannery was established.

It’s an ugly, stinky place, as canneries tend to be, but nobody here is complaining. Everyone knows the deal: no cannery, no Levuka. So they live with it.

So what happens is that long-range fishing boats, from all over the South Seas, bring in huge loads of mostly 40- to 50-lb. albacore which are then cleaned and cooked under high-pressure steam before being chunked and canned. Then it’s put back on boats and shipped off to Europe or Canada.

The PAFCO plant also has high-tech freezing facilities where they process other types of fish, from swordfish to walu, as well as tuna. In fact, overall, the factory processes over 16,000 tons of fish a year. That’s a lot of fish.

I mention this because it is almost impossible to get fresh fish anywhere in Levuka. I’m not even sure most residents here even know what fresh fish is. There’s a little fish market on Beach Street, called J. Loa’s, but if you go inside, as I did Saturday morning, what you’ll find are a couple of floor freezers stocked with mostly frozen walu.

“Do you have any fresh fish this morning?”

“Fresh?”

“Yes, fresh.”

“You mean like not frozen?”

“Exactly.”

“No, sir. Just the frozen.”

Same thing at Whale’s Tale. The décor, such as it is, may be nautical in nature—a wooden dolphin, Japanese glass floats, a rusty fish scale—but when you order the walu steak, sautéed in garlic lemon butter, the cook has to go to the freezer and pull out a frozen piece of fish and stick it in the microwave.

It’s the oddest thing: a fishing village that processes 32 million pounds of fish a year—32 million!—but doesn’t have any fresh fish. Go figure.