Welcome to Fiji - a different world

Coming from Sri Lanka to Fiji in the mid seventies I found it was like a different world. There were many things that were new to me. Differences ran across the board from food, the house we lived in, roads, stores, school, clothes, language and the culture.

The first thing I noticed was the food. Our Dad was eagerly waiting to welcome us. He had stocked the fridge and kitchen full of goodies that were not available back in Sri Lanka at that time due to severe economic restrictions. Amongst the goodies that we now take for granted were, apples, oranges, Kraft cheddar cheese, Cabin crackers, Cadbury chocolate bars,Tang, sliced bread, instant Nescafe coffee, sliced ham, frankfurters,lamb, hotdog buns and ice cream.

The fruits were Australian, the apples were bright red and the huge oranges which were bright orange. Apples were non existant at that time in Sri Lanka. The closest I had had to an apple was something called 'pears' that was a kind of pear only found in Nuwara Eliya. Even the oranges were different to the local Sri Lankan oranges which only turned greenish yellow when ripe. They also had something called Tang which was the orange crystals that you dissolved to make a drink.

The cabin crackers came in a big square tin and were similar to cream crackers but were slightly sweet. The Cadbury chocolate was way creamier than the Kandos chocolate that seemed to be the only choice available in Sri Lanka back then. Tang was the orange crystal drink that you made with water. The sliced bread was cut into neat, even slices and so clean although rather soft. We were finally able to enjoy bread again after suffering the 'gullo (weevil) bread' of Sri Lanka. Nescafe coffee was also a pleasure to drink, the Sri Lankan coffee always had too many 'rodu' (bits of coffee grind) in it. Sliced ham, frankfurters and hotdogs were not available to us while we were back in Sri Lanka. We finally got the chance to enjoy ice cream everyday right at home. The ice cream was imported from New Zealand and was sold in plastic tubs. It came in many different flavors. Lamb chops were a common food item from New Zealand and oh so delicious although I have since given it up.

My Childhood in Sri Lanka in the Seventies

The Sirimavo Bandaranayake government imposed severe import restrictions during the early seventies in Sri Lanka. Thus, we had to forgo many items that people in the west took for granted. Amongst the goodies that my dad brought back from his visit to the US (where he went to finish off his PhD ) were wrigleys chewing gum, pony tail rings, plastic hair clips, a battery operated children's sewing machine, record player, a gold chain with a heart shape pink stone pendant and a lovely pink dress for me.

Looking back now it's interesting to remember the things that we had to go without during those days and sometimes we had to use food substitutes. There was a restrictions on small red onions, so we used the big bombay onions instead. Masoor dhal was in short supply so we used the bigger yellow lentils but they used to have weevils inside as vendors used to hoard a lot of supplies. I remember sometimes when biting into lentils if you got a bitter taste it meant that you had just bitten into a weevil! That wasn't as bad as the bakery bread, which was also baked from flour full of weevils ,worms and sometimes other insects. My brother and I used to take jam and butter/margarine sandwiches to school and it was no fun eating those sandwiches! School finished early I think it was around 1.30pm so we always came home and ate rice and curry for lunch.

I think my brother and I were lucky because our parents did not believe in spoiling us with cakes, soft drinks or biscuits. Our diet was a healthy rice and curry and bread. Cakes were only baked by my mother for birthdays and biscuits only served for guests. Maliban biscuits were the most widely available local brand of biscuit. The soft drink at the time was Elephant House and I remember one time my Mom bought us the one that was colored purple and we kept it in the fridge and drank it slowly. Short eats(savories) were only eaten if we happened to be shopping in Kandy town, then we'd have them at Elephant House along with tomato sauce. That was the only time we were required to use cutlery and it was rather awkward for me, as we normally ate at home with our fingers. Ice cream was a rare treat that we only had at Elephant House. A scoop of vanilla ice cream was presented in a silver bowl always with a wafer sticking out. There were also those booja packets that were available in the shops but our parents never bought them unless we went to see a movie. I think children nowadays are so spoilt and eat so much junk food, I am not at all sorry that these so called treats were a rarity during my own childhood. Chocolates were also a rare treat and I used to suck on a piece of chocolate until it melted away, so rare was it in our household. Due to sugar restrictions my mother decided to make date cake as a way to save on sugar. The date cake was very rich.At the time I did not particularly like it although as an adult my tastes have changed and I'm sure I'd appreciate it more now.

When I was in kindergarten at the Kandy Convent, I would have been around 6yrs old. What I remember is that they separated me from my brother and he went to a different class from me. I wished that we could be in the same class but I had no choice. There were two teachers in my kindy class a middle aged lady in Indian Sari and another younger lady dressed in Kandyan sari who was the assistant teacher. Myself and a few other kids were assigned to sit around the younger teacher. She was a very nice woman, I think she was a Catholic girl probably from Anuradhapura or some
other remote town.
Yours truly in the picture (bottom right) with
my kindergarten classmates at Kandy Convent in 1973. Click on the pic for a better view.

Everyday for lunch they used to deliver a delicious looking fish bun from the canteen for her lunch. I couldn't help watching her as she ate it and wondering what was inside the bun. She noticed me watching her eat the bun so one day she pinched off a small piece and gave it to me to eat! I remember another food incident, there was a little boy who was dressed in a silky pair of shorts and a matching silky shirt, one day at break time he opened a brown paper bag and took out two pieces of cake. One was chocolate cake with chocolate icing on top. The other was vanilla cake with white icing on top. My parents of course never sent cake for my lunch, so I watched how he eat it. He licked off the icing from both pieces of cake and put the cakes back in the bag. Even at that age I thought that was a waste of good cake!