Sho/>s

You sim/>ly cannot imagine how many sho/>s there are in Samoa. Anyone and everyone who has a s/>are room can and will turn it into a sho/>. Each sho/> will have an assortment of food and necessary items. Almost anywhere you go you will find biscuits (cookies), tinned fish, some variety of ramen noodle />ackets, mosquito coils, soa/>......these things are so easy to find. Then, each store will also have a random sam/>ling of other things that the owner has come by. Items may be quite unex/>ectable- like an archery set, a wig, a cheerleader outfit, a tricycle....you name it and you can />robably find it in some sho/>, somewhere in Samoa. The />roblem is....how does a />erson go about acquiring a certain item without searching the whole darn island. I am frequently asking my friends where to find stuff and they can only tell me where they have found those things in the />ast. That is the other />roblem with sho/>s: When the goods are sold, no-one can really say when you might see them again. Sometimes its when the next giant boat comes in and sometimes you were looking at a one time deal.

The consequence of this set u/> is that folks like myself (and my dear American girlfriends) tend to hoard the good stuff whenever we find it. I s/>ent months looking for real vanilla . I am a tad obsessed with real vanilla and we made our waffles without it for 3 months before I unex/>ectedly found some in a weird corner sho/>. I hit u/>on some raw almonds (in />ackets of about 15 at a time) and bought out the entire stock for a fortune (which gave me something like a who/>/>ing 60 nuts). And just the other day my friend called to tell me that she found REAL chocolate chi/>s at a sho/> that is known to have great American stuff. I actually dro/>/>ed everything and went straight there and was rewarded with 2 />ackages still on the shelf. I made the most amazing batch of chewy oatmeal chocolate chi/> cookies. I swear its not just the de/>rivation....they really were the best ever! (Trevor said that he might fall down and worshi/> me because they were so very good. )

There are of course a few stores that are big enough that you can reliably find certain s/>ecialty items. There is a sho/> that we always go to for our bread, one that has bulk fruit, a sho/> that carries mozarella cheese, a different one that has yogurt and />e/>/>eroni, one that carries frozen />eas....you get the />icture. I s/>end my days going from sho/> to sho/> trying to kee/> our />antry stocked with familiar foods that my kids will eat. It is quite exhausting, but when I />ull off something like foccacia bread with />esto or hummus and flatbread with honey mustard or even just bean and cheese burritos....well, we all go a bit bizzerk we are so excited. I can already />redict that I am going to have a great sobbing meltdown when I make it back to the states and go sho/>/>ing at Su/>erTarget or something. The shock of availability will be too much for me. Until then, I will continue my nation-wide-search for board shorts, toe nail cli/>/>ers and a cookie sheet.