We haven't made a blog for a few months and we have been getting E-mails asking if we are too busy to Blog. We have been so busy the past months. We teach a BYU-H education course every day after school plus mentor and work in the classrooms so we are very busy. It is a good thing to be busy. We are at the one year mark of our mission and have our plane tickets to come home in December. We have scheduled classes and faculty meeting in-service presentations through the end of October and will hopefully give out 7-9 ITEP ( International Teacher Education Program) Teaching Certificates before we leave. We will blog on that at a later date. Today's topic: Shopping
Shopping and Eating In Samoa
Shopping is a very interesting experience, especially on Savaii. We go to the market every Saturday and get bananas, carrots, pineapple in season, papaya, onions and potatoes.There is a little old lady there that we have gotten close to, so we buy something from her even if we don't need it. Once a month we go on the ferry to Apia to get mince ( like hamburger but a mixture of lamb, beef etc.), fish from the fish market, and we try and find a few cans or jars of American type food. The chicken from any store has a very strange flavor and smell when you cook it so we went to American Samoa on a small (very small) plane and brought back a cooler of frozen chicken. I will never figure the price of that chicken because of the cost of the plane ticket. (The chicken is priceless) We haven't had lettuce for almost a year and when we get home, salad salad, salad.
Small roadside stands that line the roads.
This is our "Safeway"
The local K Mart? Not sure what it is.
Prices were a real shocker! A box of Cheerios is 22 tala or $11.00 American. A can of beans or soup if you can find them are around 7 to 8 tala each or $4.00 American. At first I wouldn't pay the prices but after a year we just quit looking at the prices and I just buy what we need to make some normal recipes. I figured out the other day that a small homemade pizza cost (crust from scratch) costs about 45 tala to make. The meat is a type of ham like spam and pineapple topping. Actually after a year here, it is worth the price. We get our bread from a small market about 20 minutes from Vaiola. They make white bread in a bakery at the store for only 2.5 tala a loaf. It molds very quickly but it is cheaper than buying the flour and making our own. If we want to find the ingredients we need while we are in Apia, we usually go to around 5-6 different stores. Everyone orders different things from NZ or US by container ship. If we hit a time in Apia when a container ship has just come in, we have a better chance of finding some of the things we need if we are willing to pay for it.
Savaii local open market
During the dry season, most of the vegetables are bitter because of lack of rain.
The normal Saturday excursion.
We haven't found a taste for taro which is a staple in Samoa. It actually has a lot of calcium in it and is nutritious for the Samoans. They really don't cook or prepare meals with the four food groups in mind. Protein is very expensive so they eat rice and taro. If they have meat, it usually is canned mackerel with rice. Pig or chicken are usually for special occasions. They use a lot of coconut milk in their cooking and cocoa. They love cocoa rice and Cocoa Samoa We have cocoa plants right on the campus. They bake the beans and smash them and make cocoa with the beans and water. (I think it needs sugar and milk) The people in Samoa do not starve. They always have the plantations with taro growing, coconuts, cocoa, papaya and some have vegetables (carrot, cabbage and pumpkin that looks like a big acorn squash). The soil has some type of bug in it so we have to be very careful and wash carrots and cabbage in bleach water.
Papaya
Bananas
Taro Plantation
Pudding Fruit
Pineapple come in all sizes
I sometime make cookies or brownies for classes but the teacher's think that everything is too sweet. They prefer potato chips or taro chips. They are expensive but a real treat to the Samoans. There is very little baking in the homes and most families don't have ovens. They have outdoor cooking sheds and use wood from the forest (bush) and cook over open fires even if they do have electricity.
Anyone for Portofino Bugs sauteed in white wine??
These are the specials at an expensive restaurant in Apia.
Local Fish Market
You can see that shopping is an experience. If you are lucky you find something that you recognize or would really want to eat.
We don't eat much of the local fare because of the parasite problem. Elder Budgett has already had that once and doesn't want to try it again so we don't eat out in Savaii.
Hope all is well with all of you and we love and miss you all.
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