Surviving a bloodless coup
Surviving a bloodless coup
Another coup – the Australian government from what I have heard got frightened by a military exercise in the streets of Suva at midnight which was well publicized by the military and the helicopter going down off the coast of Fiji which led to the evacuation of all Australian volunteers out of the country within 2 days. A very speedy evacuation, barely questioned and we all followed orders like well-trained sheep dogs.
I then felt ashamed that once again white people, the Europeans and by association the colonizers where whisked off to safety and treated like our lives where very much more important. I feel like I have worked so hard to get past people’s attitudes left-over from colonial days (rightly formed in many cases but not always rightly carried on) and the evacuation made me feel like my hard work might have been wasted or undone. This does not seem to have been the case now that I have come back. Maybe people have more pressing things to think about and anyway life does go on whether Europeans are around or not.
As of yesterday, the military have handed over manning of checkpoints to the police. Suva had at least 10 checkpoints around the city, nearby was the tarpaulin tent with perhaps a makeshift bed, an urn, a kava bowl under which the soldiers stood when it rained which is rather often and then when the sun came out which has been not so often. Walking along with my boyfriend, who seems to know most men in town, he would invariably stop to wave, shake hands or have a brief conversation with a nice, young, friendly solider manning a checkpoint. Most of these men would be a cousin, a rugby friend, a friend of a cousin, a friend of a friend in the British army or someone from church. Usually some combination of rugby, the Fiji army, the British army and church will explain how most young men know each other. The checkpoints consisted of big thick ropes the thickness of a rugby player’s forearm spread across the road acting as a sort of speed hump, with perhaps some oil drums dividing up the road and some metal slabs with spikes sticking out of them.
But life does continue with water shortages, water outages, water pump breakdowns along with floods, endless rain, mildew and massive potholes. Yes it is pothole season again. Every road has at least several spanning 75 metres wide. It’s a wonder that people are still driving their vehicles really. It was reported in the newspaper last week that a fish was found swimming in a pothole. I have never thought about potholes so much in my whole life but they are quite staggering in their shape, size and depth and in the effect they have on drivers zigzagging skills. I have asked many people questions about potholes and what is it about the roads and the rains that cause them so badly. I think someone needs to go to a bitumen conference but maybe they only have them in northern hemisphere countries where the theories on bitumen would be irrelevant.
The Interim government has set up an anti-corruption unit and so far has received 400 complaints. At first they were only investigating the ones they had evidence for and we have heard that they are investigating the Public Works Department which is responsible for our water woes. It has been said that people within the department have a vested interest in water not working as it means their mates who own the water trucks get paid to deliver water where it is not on tap. Something like that.
The Fiji economy is not in good shape and to recover in some small way, the government has had to consider changes that are the opposite to what is happening in Australia. For example, the retirement age has been reduced from 60 years to 55 years. There is no problem with an aging society here. All civil servants have been told their wages will be slashed by 5%. When the average hourly rate for many people is $1.10 and the daily newspaper costs 70cents, this 5% will mean a lot to lots of people. To start paying tax here you have to be earning over $10,000. Most people in the country would be lucky to earn half of that.
Hong Kong 7’s mania has started again. Fiji all geared up to bring the cup home but unfortunately while they managed to thrash the New Zealanders really well, they were in turn thrashed by Samoa. But at least two pacific countries were in the final. The famous players are the goosesteppers. I’d never heard of the goose-step till I came here. But they are the ones who seem to score the tries with some nice fancy footwork. Anyway it seems to be the fashion this year for them all to wear big clunky square watches, wedding bands several cm’s thick, a mullet, and then when they score a try to have some elaborate sign language statement which means “give God the glory’ but because they are so cool with their signing it really means “glory be to me’.
I laughed as I read a letter to the paper from a Fijian who now lives in Australia. He was writing about how horrified he was when he first moved to Australia and realized that no one bothered or really cared about the 7’s and that on the world stage, it was really rated very low and that Australia barely bothered to show any of the play on TV and if they did it was 2 weeks after the event and only the Australian team games. This man was urging us all in Fiji to get with it and change our passion to the 15’s which is after all the ‘real’ rugby.
My sense of humor is still not Fijian. I am still too serious. It took me some time to work out why the whole restaurant where I was watching the rugby was laughing out loud at what looked to me like some very bad rugby being played by Japan and Kenya. What was funny was that the ball was being dropped constantly, players were jumping on each other, flinging their limbs out in ungainly ways and basically just did not look like rugby players –they were too effeminate and skinny and small. It explains why the word “uncircumcised” (boci) is used a lot here by men to other men. It means you are unskilled, incompetent and weak.
I got to laugh more.
Another coup – the Australian government from what I have heard got frightened by a military exercise in the streets of Suva at midnight which was well publicized by the military and the helicopter going down off the coast of Fiji which led to the evacuation of all Australian volunteers out of the country within 2 days. A very speedy evacuation, barely questioned and we all followed orders like well-trained sheep dogs.
I then felt ashamed that once again white people, the Europeans and by association the colonizers where whisked off to safety and treated like our lives where very much more important. I feel like I have worked so hard to get past people’s attitudes left-over from colonial days (rightly formed in many cases but not always rightly carried on) and the evacuation made me feel like my hard work might have been wasted or undone. This does not seem to have been the case now that I have come back. Maybe people have more pressing things to think about and anyway life does go on whether Europeans are around or not.
As of yesterday, the military have handed over manning of checkpoints to the police. Suva had at least 10 checkpoints around the city, nearby was the tarpaulin tent with perhaps a makeshift bed, an urn, a kava bowl under which the soldiers stood when it rained which is rather often and then when the sun came out which has been not so often. Walking along with my boyfriend, who seems to know most men in town, he would invariably stop to wave, shake hands or have a brief conversation with a nice, young, friendly solider manning a checkpoint. Most of these men would be a cousin, a rugby friend, a friend of a cousin, a friend of a friend in the British army or someone from church. Usually some combination of rugby, the Fiji army, the British army and church will explain how most young men know each other. The checkpoints consisted of big thick ropes the thickness of a rugby player’s forearm spread across the road acting as a sort of speed hump, with perhaps some oil drums dividing up the road and some metal slabs with spikes sticking out of them.
But life does continue with water shortages, water outages, water pump breakdowns along with floods, endless rain, mildew and massive potholes. Yes it is pothole season again. Every road has at least several spanning 75 metres wide. It’s a wonder that people are still driving their vehicles really. It was reported in the newspaper last week that a fish was found swimming in a pothole. I have never thought about potholes so much in my whole life but they are quite staggering in their shape, size and depth and in the effect they have on drivers zigzagging skills. I have asked many people questions about potholes and what is it about the roads and the rains that cause them so badly. I think someone needs to go to a bitumen conference but maybe they only have them in northern hemisphere countries where the theories on bitumen would be irrelevant.
The Interim government has set up an anti-corruption unit and so far has received 400 complaints. At first they were only investigating the ones they had evidence for and we have heard that they are investigating the Public Works Department which is responsible for our water woes. It has been said that people within the department have a vested interest in water not working as it means their mates who own the water trucks get paid to deliver water where it is not on tap. Something like that.
The Fiji economy is not in good shape and to recover in some small way, the government has had to consider changes that are the opposite to what is happening in Australia. For example, the retirement age has been reduced from 60 years to 55 years. There is no problem with an aging society here. All civil servants have been told their wages will be slashed by 5%. When the average hourly rate for many people is $1.10 and the daily newspaper costs 70cents, this 5% will mean a lot to lots of people. To start paying tax here you have to be earning over $10,000. Most people in the country would be lucky to earn half of that.
Hong Kong 7’s mania has started again. Fiji all geared up to bring the cup home but unfortunately while they managed to thrash the New Zealanders really well, they were in turn thrashed by Samoa. But at least two pacific countries were in the final. The famous players are the goosesteppers. I’d never heard of the goose-step till I came here. But they are the ones who seem to score the tries with some nice fancy footwork. Anyway it seems to be the fashion this year for them all to wear big clunky square watches, wedding bands several cm’s thick, a mullet, and then when they score a try to have some elaborate sign language statement which means “give God the glory’ but because they are so cool with their signing it really means “glory be to me’.
I laughed as I read a letter to the paper from a Fijian who now lives in Australia. He was writing about how horrified he was when he first moved to Australia and realized that no one bothered or really cared about the 7’s and that on the world stage, it was really rated very low and that Australia barely bothered to show any of the play on TV and if they did it was 2 weeks after the event and only the Australian team games. This man was urging us all in Fiji to get with it and change our passion to the 15’s which is after all the ‘real’ rugby.
My sense of humor is still not Fijian. I am still too serious. It took me some time to work out why the whole restaurant where I was watching the rugby was laughing out loud at what looked to me like some very bad rugby being played by Japan and Kenya. What was funny was that the ball was being dropped constantly, players were jumping on each other, flinging their limbs out in ungainly ways and basically just did not look like rugby players –they were too effeminate and skinny and small. It explains why the word “uncircumcised” (boci) is used a lot here by men to other men. It means you are unskilled, incompetent and weak.
I got to laugh more.
posted by kate at 6:58 pm
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