Ladies of the Night

When the ladies of Fiji come out...

July 17

So Ana got me a minibus to take me back to Lautoka. It dropped me off in front of Microfinance West, at which point I realized the town was completely empty. Great. I run around looking for a taxi, circling to the bus station, back to MFW, then to the main road. As I walk, I start running into these girls on all these block corners, and quickly realize that they’re ALL prostitutes. Thinking back, it was actually the first time I’d run into any, let alone by myself at night. Sketch. I just keep walking, and you know, politely declining their offers to “Have good time!” But they kept coming, and approaching me for cigarettes, to go ‘sit down’, etc. This one even yelled out “Ni Hao!” I was really impressed, actually, but she followed up with something like “Chingchong”. Fail. Ironically, this is the first time that someone got my race right on the first try in Fiji. And she’s a whore. I was getting, really, REALLY annoyed. Seriously, what part of ‘dude walking at night with backpack’ screams ‘I want a hooker’?! After I reached the electronics store, I realized I didn’t want to keep walking because there weren’t any lights. Luckily, I ran into a nice drunk man, who advised me to go to this nightclub and wait there for a taxi since there were muggers roaming around at night. After about twenty minutes and more conversations with drunk dudes, I finally got a cab back.

 

July 18

So today, I found my way to Suva. Dante and I were on our way to this bistro to meet up with his friends, these two kids Beth and Brad. Anyway, we hailed a cab and got going. Halfway there, we realized we didn’t actually know where it was so we stopped to ask directions. Immediately, and I mean immediately, these four girls swoop down on the taxi. At first, I thought they were either Dante’s friends, or girls who were really really desperate for a cab and thought we were getting out. And then we saw their skanky outfits. Oh shit. One of them grabs the door, and forces her way into the other back seat. Yes, literally just climbs into our damn cab. “You want to have a good time?” I am starting to get really tired of all those hoes. Both of us tried to be nice and tell her to leave, but she kept insisting that she wanted to go where we were going. We did however, manage to get directions to iCrave (the restaurant that should be an Iphone app). Finally, after like five minutes, we managed to get her to leave when we told her she would have to walk back alone from iCrave. All this time, the cab driver was just looking really smug. Dammit, I bet he’s got a deal going on with these hookers! But seriously, what is up with Suva? It was only eight pm…