Grocery Situation in Colonia, Yap, Micronesia
Yesterday was a big day on the island: lettuce available at the YCA store! I bought 3 large heads of iceberg lettuce, only starting to go brown around the edges. I steered clear of the ones with large soggy patches, rotting with a fetid smell. This is rare -- I haven't seen lettuce in 4 weeks.
There was a rumor Monday afternoon, as Danka and I found Tress at the same store during a power blackout, that lettuce had appeared that morning. But the fridge shelves were empty save for the green cabbage that had been there for a month. It turns out there was indeed lettuce in the back room, but encompassing the islanders' attitude, they had stocked it once that day and had no intention of bringing MORE lettuce from the back to the front. Too much like work.
The goal of the YCA store workers, as Joe explained to us in graphic detail, is to order stuff that stays on the shelves (i.e, that nobody wants to buy). Because if you put stuff on the shelves that everybody wants, then you have to keep restocking the shelves. And what would be the point of that?
So our relatively fresh salad was livened up with: wheat bread rolls! I have repeatedly described herein the sickeningly-sweet overly-sugared white bread available on the island. It makes a good cinnamon roll, but for daily eating, it is not fit for those of us spoiled by the array of fresh-baked goods available in Europe. So Danka had Tress and Beverly (the wife of the American surgeon) over to learn to bake wheat bread. And they were really good, and sugar-free. And Danka was thrilled, because the lack of bread and salad available was depressing her a bit.
So after cruising through more of Season 4 of the Sopranos during some rain, we went outside to look for meteors. We only had one long low flash from the Geminids before the cloud cover took us.
We also spotlighted a lot of crabs in the yard, roughly a dozen. The rain drives them out of their holes. I'm trying to train them not to get too concerned with the spotlight -- that way, when I come after them for real in a couple weeks, their guard will be down . . . .
Tonight, more salad and some frozen pizza (another new arrival on the island).
There was a rumor Monday afternoon, as Danka and I found Tress at the same store during a power blackout, that lettuce had appeared that morning. But the fridge shelves were empty save for the green cabbage that had been there for a month. It turns out there was indeed lettuce in the back room, but encompassing the islanders' attitude, they had stocked it once that day and had no intention of bringing MORE lettuce from the back to the front. Too much like work.
The goal of the YCA store workers, as Joe explained to us in graphic detail, is to order stuff that stays on the shelves (i.e, that nobody wants to buy). Because if you put stuff on the shelves that everybody wants, then you have to keep restocking the shelves. And what would be the point of that?
So our relatively fresh salad was livened up with: wheat bread rolls! I have repeatedly described herein the sickeningly-sweet overly-sugared white bread available on the island. It makes a good cinnamon roll, but for daily eating, it is not fit for those of us spoiled by the array of fresh-baked goods available in Europe. So Danka had Tress and Beverly (the wife of the American surgeon) over to learn to bake wheat bread. And they were really good, and sugar-free. And Danka was thrilled, because the lack of bread and salad available was depressing her a bit.
So after cruising through more of Season 4 of the Sopranos during some rain, we went outside to look for meteors. We only had one long low flash from the Geminids before the cloud cover took us.
We also spotlighted a lot of crabs in the yard, roughly a dozen. The rain drives them out of their holes. I'm trying to train them not to get too concerned with the spotlight -- that way, when I come after them for real in a couple weeks, their guard will be down . . . .
Tonight, more salad and some frozen pizza (another new arrival on the island).