Thursday, June 23, 2011

It's Not So Different, Really

I was thinking about my friend the other day. The one who’s coming to visit in September. I was thinking that I should put together a list of “you might want to be prepared for…” for her. Stuff that’s different from home. I was struggling to come up with stuff when it hit me. I’ve been here long enough Samoa to have become my new normal.

Wow. I remember my head swiveling like I was in The Exorcist as I sat next to Mika on our ride from the airport to Apia the morning we arrived. Even though I’d been to a number of islands in the South Pacific, it seemed so different. When did it become just the way life is? I can’t wait to see my world through Heidi’s eyes.
Since the realization that I’m taking a lot of things for granted, I’ve made a conscious effort to try to notice more differences. Here are a few:

At a recent meeting at a local college (high school, in the USA), I looked up from my seat in the open hall. The rafters had been wallpapered. Those at the meeting may have thought I was particularly pious since I spent much of the day gazing toward heaven. I was trying to figure out if they’d wallpapered the rafters before or after they installed them. I think it was after. Keep in mind the meeting was in Samoan so I had hours for gazing and deep thoughts.

I noticed wallpaper again the other day on my bus ride home from my weekly bank/post office/store trip to Salelologa. Someone wallpapered the outside of their house. Seems like that would be expensive. And not easy to do. Many of the palagi-style homes have matching trim paint and grout. Green trim, green grout. Pink trim, pink grout.

By the way, the post mistress knows my name and can tell me, without looking, whether or not mail has arrived for me that week. Even the actual postman who delivered the mail to my house didn’t know my name in Florida.

I know what’s in the grocery stores here. There are only two, after all, and they’re small. I knew what was in my Albertson’s back home, too, in a general kind of way. There was a tea and coffee aisle, for example. But there were so many brands/varieties, I couldn’t have told you precisely what they had. Here, it’s pretty easy. There’re two brands of tea. No decaf, no herbal, just garden variety tea. You can buy either brand in the big box or the small box. Coffee is pretty much the same although you can get instant or ground. The ground is really, really expensive.

Interested in frozen vegetables? You can get a bag of mixed vegetables. Period. Unless you count an enormous bag of frozen ready-to-fry French fries as a vegetable. You’d like peas? Broccoli? Something with cheese sauce? Get off the island.

There’s more variety in canned vegetables. You can get beets, mushrooms (really expensive), corn (sometimes), creamed corn (less often) and mixed vegetables. Sometimes I can find canned tomatoes but they’re not a staple.

You can buy disposable diapers at the grocery store. One at a time, if you’d like. Imagine going to the store for one diaper. Says a lot about a different life style and economic status.

If you’d like some juice, go home, because we don’t seem to drink it here on Savaii. You can buy Torchy, which I don’t think really counts as OJ since it only has 10% juice. The sugary, orange flavored water is tasty, though.
Diet drinks? We rarely have those. We do have Tang. Who knew you can buy Tang that isn’t orange flavored? Grape Tang is right on a par with orange Tang. Tangy, but bearing precious little resemblance to anything grape.

There are things in the stores here that I was surprised to find. Wishbone Blue Cheese dressing is not only available, it is fairly reasonably priced. There’s no lettuce, but we have dressing. I use it with crackers and carrots.
A recent item that seems to appear and disappear at the Tuisivi store is chocolate. Decent chocolate bars, fairly cheap, with either peanuts or peanuts and raisins. When we did our trip around Savaii, Pat brought some and we each savored a bar after dinner, sitting on the porch of our hotel fale, next to the waves. They’ve only been available once since Easter, and never before, that I’m aware of. Chocolate is precious to PCVs.

I thanked my lucky stars that the Tuisivi store sold cheese. Cheese, right here next to my village for only $8 for 8 ounces. Cheddar (that tasted like American) and Edam (that tasted like cheddar). That has disappeared though. I’ve become friendly with the store owner and asked if she’d be getting more cheese. It’s been on order for two months but so far, the supplier is unable to supply it. Which means they shouldn’t really be called suppliers, should they? It may be a permanent condition. Which leaves me with the only currently available cheese on the island. Individually wrapped slices of Chinese processed cheese.

Not to cast aspersions, but when was the last time you had cheese at a Chinese restaurant? I’ve tasted the Chinese brand and think they should stick with egg fu yung.

Speaking of food, some of the Year 8 students came to my house yesterday. They helped me carry all the loot I’ve been sent to the school, since I now have a place to store it there. The kids are awed by my house. It really is one of the nicest in the village. I’ve got an indoor kitchen and an indoor bathroom, both with running water. When they saw the television they went nuts, although I had to explain that it doesn’t work. No, I don’t spend my evenings watching American Idol, which seems to be a very popular pastime here.

One of the girls had been here before with her sister and they were very impressed that I have a pusa isa (refrigerator). I opened it to take out some mango jam for the kids to taste and the jaws of all four hit the ground. They forgot their English, but I understood what they were saying. They were amazed that my refrigerator is full of food.

I’ve never seen a Samoan home that had food stockpiled the way we do it in the States. The concept of a pantry is completely foreign. You might have ten cases of tinned fish or corned beef on hand, but that isn’t really food, it’s currency to be used for weddings, funerals, etc.

A Samoan kitchen, in my experience will have the following: salt, vegetable oil and soy sauce. Pretty much everything else: rice, sugar, coffee, tea, flour, etc., the family will purchase at the nearby faleoloa just before use. Cash is in short supply so why spend it before you need it?

I whine because I don’t have the variety of food that I’m used to. Folks here eat what is ripe and available. Not in the mood for green boiled bananas tonight or taro? Guess you won’t be eating then. Meat, especially the relatively affordable vai moa (chicken leg/thigh quarters) is very popular, but most can’t afford it every day.

I talked to someone recently who said she’d planned to stop by my house the night before but got busy. Her kids came home and said they had to take money to school the next day. She didn’t have any money so whipped up some young coconut soup (which is awesome) to sell to the neighbors.

Both in the training village and here, kids and adults will occasionally come by with baskets/kettles of stuff to sell. Locals always warn them away from me, but I always want to see what they’re selling. And I usually buy. It’s generally cheap, it’s the closest thing to fast food we have here and I’ve tried a variety of new dishes this way. I’ve never gotten sick from it, by the way.

Imagine in the States – it’s a few days before payday and you could use some cash. Whip up some of your famous brownies and head door-to-door in your subdivision, charging $1 apiece. You get cash and your neighbors get unexpected baked goods in the convenience of their homes. Too bad all those worries about cleanliness and people putting poison or razor blades in treats messed that up for us. It’s one of the things I love about living here.

That and men not wearing shirts much. It’s hot here and men go bare chested a lot. They drive that way. They go on the bus that way, although not as often. Sometimes I have flashbacks to The Biggest Loser, but mostly it’s 6 pack abs on display.

Heidi, you won’t be able to get any of the international cuisine you’re used to in D.C., but I think you’re in for a treat.

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