A woman sells coconuts at the Suva Municipal Market. Photo: ATTA, Cedric Jean-Baptiste
A woman sells coconuts at the Suva Municipal Market. Photo: ATTA, Cedric Jean-Baptiste
Kiwis often overlook Fiji’s capital, Suva, for their holiday but the bustling multicultural city is rich in history, flavour and worth stepping away from the deserted beaches for, writes Varsha Anjali
After buying some Indian sweets (lakdi mithai, if interested - it’s sweet, savoury and great) from the market inSuva, the capital of Fiji, I walked along Nabukalou Bridge, stopping halfway to look at the vista.
I remembered standing here when I was six and seeing in the creek below two water snakes: a little yellow one and a black-and-white striped one. This time, I didn’t see the limbless reptiles.
Something else demanded notice.
People - all kinds of people - were everywhere. Doing life, I mean.
People of Indian, Chinese, European, and Pasifika descent were grabbing lunch, rushing to a meeting, just leaving church wearing sulu vakataga, hanging out in the park - laughing, sharing, or enjoying a moment of solitude. It was unsegregated mundanity. I loved it.
From dalo, cassava, and kava to fresh seafood, the market is packed with local flavours. Photo: ATTA, Cedric Jean-Baptiste
“It’s the pulse of the country, really,” Peter Sipeli - a local poet, gay activist and leader of a Suva walking tour I once went on - told me.
I learned quickly Peter isn’t the type to sugar coat details for the sake of patriotism. He continued: “If one feels any kind of thing in Suva, it’s [that] it’s where the country acts as ... a nation”.
As an Aucklander who grew up in an urban melting pot of cultures, I might have found this kind of observation uninteresting elsewhere.
But in Suva, it’s significant. This is where four military coups happened - all of them laced with strong racial rhetoric revolving around the relationship between Indo-Fijians - largely descendants of indentured labourers from India who the British brought to the islands in the late 1800s - and iTaukei - the indigenous people of Fiji.
Peter Sipeli reads a poem he wrote for a climate campaign in Fiji. Photo / Tom Verius
The wounds - both physical and emotional - from the 1987 pogroms eventually led my family to immigrate from Suva to Tāmaki Makaurau.
I was only 5 when we did. But 28 years later, on Renwick Rd in the centre of Suva City, I could only see a hive of energy. I could only feel harmonious chaos.
Though nothing expresses that feeling better than the nearby Suva Municipal Market. Peter says it’s where visitors should go if they want to feel Suva, not just see it.
“The market represents how culturally diverse we are,” he said. Later, I asked my Dad the same question. He agreed.
When I was small, Dad would leave home at 6am and go to the market a few times a week. By 7am, he would return home with fresh crab, prawn and fish like kawakawa.
Visiting Suva's market brought back memories from my childhood. Photo / @boboandchichi
“If one pays attention to the market, you can almost see what the three different groups - Indians, Chinese, and the Fijians - specialise in in terms of the vegetables that they sell,” Peter said.
“It helps people understand Fiji’s social landscape. They really understand the Indian presence in Fiji - half the population that transforms the Fijian diet, like our contemporary diet, is largely Indian.”
Some of the vendors, like Rohini on the second floor, have been around for decades. For at least 20 years she’s been selling Indian spices, interacting with the same people in moments of hustle and bustle, some of whom have grown up with her, aged with her, shared gossip and woes. At another food market by the bus station, which sells primarily indigenous food, Peter told me of a woman who’s the third generation in her family to work there.
He remarked on the importance of telling their stories, noting it brings a sense of sadness, but there’s “some kind of magic in that”.
However, Suva’s cultural landscape offers more than just its markets. “It’s a big bad city, so I think it’s quite ... generous to people that are coming with any kind of idea,” Peter said.
Plates of raw fish and dalo leaves intended to be cooked in coconut milk to make ika vakalolo, a traditional Fijian dish. Photo / Varsha Anjali
Last year, the National Art Gallery opened and currently displays around 50 works of art collected by the Fiji Arts Council.
Nearby at the Thurston Garden lies the Fiji Museum, showcasing 200 years of culture. For me, though, the lasting memories are always driven by food. On the main streets, you can easily find restaurants and take-away joints that taste like home cooking. That’s rare.
“If people are really interested in the country as a social landscape, as a political experiment, it’s this undulating kind of story that presents that it is underdeveloped,” said Peter. “But it is full of great history.”
Fly from Auckland to Nausori Airport with Air New Zealand or Fiji Airways. From the airport, take the bus or hire a car to take you to Suva City centre, which is a 40-minute drive away.
