The Other Side

“I got the whole day off!”

This wasn’t the kind of miscommunication easily solved. I hadn’t expected an all-day $240 date with the concierge, but I didn’t want to scorn her. “Isn’t there something more, um,

less, guided we can do?”

“Well, there’s McDonald Beach!” she said once again, her eyes lighting up. It seemed an odd name, and I was about to inquire into Fiji’s Scottish history when I remembered I’d quit journalism for the week. “Sounds good,” I said, and ordered another drink.

The next morning, I met Maria in the nearby town on the mainland. She’d procured a van and a driver, and we headed off, past refineries, sugar cane plantations, bush fires, legions of uniformed schoolchildren, and old men drinking kava out of gasoline drums, before heading into the jungle. I learned a bit about my travelling companion: she was twenty-five years old and had gone to school so she could work in the hospitality industry. She liked her job, but it only paid $30 a week — pretty standard for Fiji. She wanted to travel and liked music, but for the moment she was very focused on where we were going. “We should be there by one o’clock,” she said.

“It’s that far? ” I couldn’t figure out why with 330 islands and a thousand sandy beaches we were making such an effort to get to this one, but after half an hour both Maria and our driver, speaking to each other in Fijian, were giggling with excitement. “He’s never been there before,” she said, turning to me.”

Oh . . .” I said, “well, he can join us if he wants.”

“Really?!” Another flurry of excitement. “Myself, I’ve only been there once before,” said Maria, now staring intently through the windshield as we pushed into the mountains, then down into a valley. Red birds shot out of the trees. A boy sparked his machete off a hubcap. Then, eventually, the road widened just slightly. I saw uniformed men with guns — the first we’d come across. Maria let out a gasp. And there, like a guiding light from the edge of the jungle, rose the Golden Arches.

“Can I have a sundae?” asked Maria, as we pulled into the parking lot of McDonald’s. Finally here: on the other side of the world.