That’s what Kevin called it. It’s where we go on a tour of town of all the places where you can consume things. Here’s where you fill up your water, here’s where you pre-pay your electricity, here’s where you buy bootleg DVDs. I think my favorite part is that a 5 gallon bottled water refill is $1.50. So there’s more stuff here than I ever imagined. The 3 types of stores are markets, container stores, and grocery type stores. And then the 3 Ace stores.
The market sheds sell all the local products which include the following: banana, papaya, taro, avocado, mangoes, 10 foot long yams, other assorted gourds, coconuts, cucumbers, chinese cabbage, limes, fish, and crabs. And don’t imagine an equal amount of these things. Cucumbers and bananas outnumber the other items by 500:1. If you want any produce –any fruit or vegetables—outside of these listed products, forget it.
Container stores. Imagine a shipping container, the kind that goes on an 18-wheeler, that got left on the side of the road and then became a store. Here you can find soda, chips, candy, donuts, canned meat, beer, and cigarettes. And beatlenut, which when consumed properly, turns teeth black before they rot and fall out. And along the road –there’s only one road on the island—there’s a container store located every 100 yards. I wonder if the same people who distribute these crap products are in business with the pharmaceutical companies that market drugs for diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
Every grocery type store is just like JobLot. Same size, same random assortment of house and food items. The exception is that each one has its own variety of limited specialty item. Right now the Ace Commercial has frozen DiGiorno pizzas, the Palm Terrace has Kashi cereal, and the Wall Mart has Haagan-Dazs ice cream. About once a month a shipment of food items comes in from the US. This shipment will contain whatever survives a 3 week boat trip. “So, how do you know when the shipment comes in?” It’s in the paper. There’s also a food network which I’ll describe when I talk about the ex-pat circle. So if I make friends with the US ambassador’s wife Amy, then I can vie for a position in the food network. So with the exception of fresh vegetables, fresh meat, and dairy products, you can basically get everything. I stocked up on V8 and ivory soap.
I am beyond impressed with the Ace stores. Chock-full of new shiny American products. There’s an Ace grocery type store, an Ace Hardware, and an Ace Office Supply. The latter 2 are comparable to Home Depot and Staples. For a developing country with few tourists they sure do have an extensive and affordable range of office supplies.
Yesterday I put all my treasure hunting skills to work with my first dinner mission. Now, one would think that in a small tropical island country where fishing is the main economic industry, there would be really well defined ways of procuring fresh fish. Not so. Since Kevin is a marine biologist, he’ll just bring home fish that he happened to catch that day. He doesn’t buy fish. The first day we went to the market shed called “Simon’s,” they had 2 wooden crates full of colorful fish (that were not on ice). I was instructed to always check the fish’s eye condition (yeah they’re all whole) before purchase. So I get to Simon’s, the people stare at me as I pull up, they watch me carefully as I walk inside, and they stare at me as I ask for assistance. “What is your freshest fish today please?” The fish comes in off the boats early in the morning. I think it was noon. A tall, slender young man with black teeth leads me to the wooden crates to show me 6 fish. Only 6. All of different size, color and shape. “These all come today.” He doesn’t know what kind they are so I pick out one that’s about 18 inches long that looks like a black snapper. I ask him nicely to filet the fish and he agrees. My 4.5lb fish cost me $4.50. I make a side salad of chinese cabbage, cucumber (of course), avocado, mango and lime and then grill the fish on the cute little deck weber while drinking a corona and watching the sunset on the water. Dinner success!
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