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Bagels, and Independence, in Paradise
Gabriella Burman
Ronna Goldstein Freely admits that when she moved to Fiji�s garden island of Taveuni, it was about finding a place to sell umbrellas on the beach. A decade later, however, the Connecticut-raised expatriate is running the best restaurant on the island, and offering local women an alternative to �pregnancy at 16.�
Goldstein had never traveled to Fiji before flying to the tiny republic in 1989 with a restaurateur boyfriend who thought he could make a go of it in the South Pacific. �But I�m an impetuous person,� says Goldstein with a glint in her eye. �I always have been.�
At the time, she was also a fortyish run-down sales executive with Ricoh copiers, tired of working 50 weeks of the year for a two-week holiday. Without elderly parents to care for, and realizing she could live well on less outside the United States, Goldstein decided to �move on.� On Taveuni, she used her life savings to buy Coconut Grove, a beachfront property lush with coconut trees and a heavenly view.
By 1994, the house, complete with a mezuzah, a gentle Doberman named Gracie, and a cat named Bagels, was open for business. Goldstein�s relationship, however, had cracked, and she wrestled with leaving the great expanse of deep blue sea where she swam every morning.
Instead, the boyfriend left, and Goldstein sat in the house for a year, convinced that she could not run Coconut Grove on her own. �I thought I�d move to Hawaii and hang a sign out �Girl Looking for Boy-friend,�� she says. �I had visions of meeting a great guy and telling him, �Gee, I wish you could have seen the place I used to live.��
Guests, however, continued to arrive at Taveuni to explore the island�s rainforests and coral reefs, and there was plenty of demand for Coconut Grove�s Spanish mackerel, taro (similar to spinach) soup, and fresh jackfruit juices.
Goldstein soon realized she was running the restaurant on her own, with the help of locals attending to her generators. She returned a security deposit that had been offered by a potential buyer, and made a choice. �To be with me,� she says.
This kind of independence is a lesson that she has also imparted to the group of women who work in the Coconut Grove kitchen, and who have eschewed traditional village life for rooms of their own in the dormitory-style apartment Goldstein rents for her staff.
One of the workers, a young woman named Matilla whose duties include setting out kerosene lamps on the patio tables when the sun sinks into the water in the evenings, wears a soft black afro and easy smile. She says she prefers independence. �If I stayed in the village, some man would come around and �fix� me,� Matilla explains. �With this job, I can live alone and look after myself.�
Goldstein, who is now 52, asserts that while she is not �here to change their culture,� she does draw upon her Western sensibilities to offer women alternatives to the traditional island lifestyle, which for all its warmth and emphasis on family, also bears a history of domestic abuse. �Fijian women are beaten regularly,� she says. �Fortunately, I am in a position to subtly make suggestions, or talk about choices. Isn�t it funny, when I came here, it was about chilling out. But I realized I have a job to do.�
In addition to running Coconut Grove, Goldstein plans to open the Coconut Grove Health Clinic in a nearby village next March, aided by an international group of Rotarian doctors who were recent guests at Coconut Grove.
When asked about her own culture in devoutly Christian Fiji, Goldstein says: �This is the first place I�ve ever been where Jews are second only to Jesus, and we�re probably ahead of him � they think we are the chosen people. I swear I�ve had people come up to me in the grocery store and touch my arm. I am revered here. All Jews are. In the recent general election, there were two campaign posters with Jewish stars on them.�
Whereas she was once the lone Jew on Taveuni, Goldstein today can rattle off a list of Jews owning vacation homes that have sprouted on the island. �It�s like the Hamptons,� she says with a wink. �But different. Much nicer. We used to have a house in Montauk, so I know about that world.�
Goldstein grew up in a �typical Reform household� in Stamford, Connecticut, attending the occasional oneg Shabbat and High Holy Day services. �I wasn�t religious, but I was always spiritual,� she says. �You can�t help but be when you live in a place like this. Look around you. Too many things here make you realize there has to be another force somewhere.�
Goldstein says she�s referring not only to the resplendent natural setting, but also to an e-mail exchange that returned love to her life. Last year, a male former guest from California sent her an e-mail after the bloodless coup that overthrew the Fijian government in November 2000. �We started corresponding. And now we�re developing a relationship,� she says. �Isn�t it wild? The coup brought us together!�
(November 19, 2001)
Jewish World
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