The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834).

There are eight women in this story. I’ve put some headings in, but some of the references are subtle. Play along with me — I wonder if you can spot them. This blog post is short and we’ve got lots of ground to cover.

Eseta, Minister’s Wife

Here in Fiji, just outside her house, Eseta was making a broom out of grass. She used a knife to remove the outside of the grass, leaving only the strong middle. “I make ten dollars a broom,” she said. “I am making four brooms for the dive resort.”

“How long does it take to make a broom?” I asked.
“About half a day,” she replied.
“So two days for four brooms?”
“Yes, it’s how we work in Fiji.”

Cash is needed here. Eseta gardens but will use the money to buy rice for her children. Her children had rice and spinach for dinner. She tells me that she sometimes gives them fish.

Dive Shop Proprietor

The dive resort is about 600 feet away from Eseta’s house. They are separated by a school but they share the same beach. The dive resort charges $290 USD for a three-hour dive experience. The proprietor is fit and tanned and speaks with a French accent. I’m told she has married a Fijian who pursued education elsewhere.

Speaking with an air of nonchalance, the proprietor holds a wireless debit machine. “We take any credit card,” she says, “but not American cash.”

I thought her prices were steep. Clearly money talked. Just not so much to Eseta, it would seem. But, to be fair, how much should the dive shop owner pay for her brooms?

Diver Mistakes Me for Another Diver

As I was leaving, a couple got out of a dive boat. “Well, it was great to have met you,” they said. I had to correct them. I was dressed in a full rash guard, but we had never actually met. We certainly hadn’t spent time together over supper, or on a dive boat. I probably just looked like another black-clad tourist in dive silhouette.

The beaches are lovely, really.

Charlene, Island Cast-off

Charlene lives on the island opposite the dive shop. She is tall, thin and wears clothing that barely covers her modesty. Charlene says that her father died just two weeks ago. She has a young son but we never see him. She asks us if we can repair his paddle board. We agree but make no promises. Glue is gold, and we aren’t sure ours will hold.

She invites us ashore. When we arrive on her island, it is clear that we are not her first visitors. Her home appears to be an assembly point for cast-off sports gear. She has a beaten-up plastic kayak, and more than one paddle board. She offers to take our garbage bags to burn.

Charlene’s home is elevated above the sand, and you must step carefully to maintain footing on the boards. Otherwise, you could slip off and step onto the sand beneath the house.

Eseta says, “Charlene sometimes comes to church on Sundays.” Some afternoons, we see her wading in the water or floating with an old piece of Styrofoam cooler, looking for fish.

One day another cruiser lands her on our back transom. “I have a visitor for you,” she call out as Charlene ascends our step. The woman quickly looks in my direction, smiles, and puts her dinghy in reverse.

Charlene spends her days doing exactly what many tourists want to do when they visit Fiji, which is to float around and look at fish.

A Woman in Suva, Fiji

Feeling we had seen enough of the resort spots, we arrived in Suva, Fiji. Karen and I walked around the Suva Municipal Market. (This is the same produce market that Meghan Markle visited in 2018, and left after only six minutes due to security concerns.)

As I walk down Electric Avenue looking for bed nets to keep my family safe, I see a woman sitting on the sidewalk. She clutches her baby to her chest and extends a bony, brown arm.

I wonder how the McDonald’s corporate leadership team would have felt to see her; with one of their cups outstretched in her hand. Would their Golden Arches logo preserve a sense of welcoming warmth? Would the smell of money be just as fantastic? Would they still be “Lovin’ It?”

It’s not McDonald’s that I’m pointing a finger at. My own family has benefited from the Ronald McDonald House respite housing when a young family member needed extended treatment.

But, what I will say is that, in our travels, I meet people with shorter average lifespans just because of where they live. Meanwhile, there are a lot of smart people in the world rolling around in Bentleys and worrying about whether Chanel is in Vogue. There are also some people floating about looking at fish, and perhaps not seeing what’s on shore.

Me, in My Rocket-Ship-Like Catamaran

My own catamaran must appear otherworldly to some people. The encounters with the women I describe gave me a sense of the smell of my own tourism dollars. A few weeks later, Eseta had reached out to me on Facebook asking for money, which I found to be disappointing and unsettling.

In short order, we checked out of Fiji, and sailed to Vanuatu. There, my dreams of tourism in Vanuatu crashed. I paid to watch a spectacle involving people without a reliable water supply, risking their lives and their children’s lives, for the entertainment of people with tourist dollars to spend.

Sailing around the world is not at all like the holidays that I used to take, which had me hiking or visiting tourist spots, and returning to work with such rejuvenation that once I forgot the passcode to the office printer.

It hits different because it is so damn slow.

We travel at modest speeds and linger in places sometimes because we like them and sometimes to shelter from storms. This gives you time to see the people who support the tourism infrastructure, and sometimes that leaves me with a strong sense of confusion and discomfort.

This sailing circumnavigation requires all types of perseverance. There is no quick exit back to Canada. I’m half-way around the world on a ship.

My response to power imbalance and disorientation is not culture shock. I’m making observations that can be seen anywhere. Go for a walk. Put away your phone. Use your eyes. Don’t take photos. You don’t want a camera to create any distance. Come home when you’ve noticed your own eight women — the people you might ordinarily walk past.

Related post: Cruising, Culture Shock and Questioning “Why”?