Shopping Details

I went to the market in Salelologa this morning. Saturday and Sunday mornings are best for fish shopping. I’m broke, since I had to front the money for my refrigerator and it will take a month or so for PC to reimburse me, so I was just window shopping.

There were lots of fe’e – octopus and several pusi – eels. A ton of reef fish of varying sizes and colors. Two items impressed me most. One was a huge yellow fin tuna that was going for $180. That’s about $75 USD for enough freshly caught tuna to feed a small army. Fresh enough for sushi, or in Samoa, oka, which is the raw tuna, onion, lemon juice and coconut cream concoction I love. The other was the lobster. I pointed at the largest one, about a 2-3 pounder, and was told $50. That's about $20 USD Then she explained that was for all of them, about 10. The big guy alone was $20 or about $8 USD. I’ll be back next week after we get our monthly stipend.

I always buy something from one woman. She appears to be elderly, but could be fifty. Hard to tell. She’s the grandmother (or mother?) of one of the boys in my school. She always greets me with a huge smile. We’ve now graduated to a hug/kiss on the cheek that is traditional here. I asked to buy a bunch of small ripe bananas for $3. She tossed in a second bunch (a total of about 2 dozen bananas) and five oranges. Which are bright green, but ripe. They just came into season and I’m looking forward to trying them.

I also bought a head of cabbage for $5, which was a steal. It’s been really expensive, as in $20 for a small head. I scored a bag of carrots for $5, a ready-to-eat serving of palusami (baked taro leaves and coconut cream) and some pankeke balls. I feel like they’re healthier when I think of them as pankeke instead of the donuts they actually are.

I bought chicken last night at my family’s faleoloa. $2.20 for three large chicken leg/thighs. Chicken is the biggest bargain and I don’t understand it. On the bus today a guy got on with two cases of the frozen chicken legs. Tyson. From the USA. How can they import chicken so cheaply but tp is really pricey?

Anyway, now you know what I’ll be dining on for the week. I’ll share the bananas with my family and the teachers.