Hello from Savai'i - part 3

We are finally getting some of the pictures we have taken posted on the blog for you to see.  Sorry for any typing errors you might find as it is getting late here in Savai'i.  Our kids were thinking that they had some small stores in their towns.  We just wanted to share some pictures of the stores that we have here in Savai'i and in Apia on the island of Upolu.  The first pictures are of our open market down by the wharf in Savai'i.

Just the starting of the food section.

This is teh non-food section as well.

This is Sister Stonehocker  bargaining.  There is really no bargaining at all.  There is the Samoan price and the palagi (white people) price and our price is always much higher.  Occasionally you will get a bargain if you walk away and then come back and ask what the price is.  if they want to sell it you might get it for a better price.

This is part of the food area and most of it is locally grown.

They have a lot of Samoan oranges for sale.  

This is there fish market.  People bring in their fish to sell.  No refrigeration so you have to get there early.  They keep the flies away with big fronds.

This is one of our favorite ladies to buy from, her produce is good n she is always happy

This is a farm supply store and you have to buy through the window.  Not quite a Home Depot or Canadian Tire Store.









The next pictures are of our big store in Apia called Farmer Joe's

Sorry, this one is Frankies in Savai'i just across from the open market.  The store part is on the right hand part of the building.

This is one of their big supermarkets.  Notice it has four lanes along with a meat market on teh right that you can't see

It was always a thrill to be able to go shopping here.










Now we move to our middle sized stores.  It has two isles and most of our 7-11's at home are quite a bit bigger

As you can see they are not over stocked too much.

Here is the other isle, again not a lot of variety.











These next ones are our smaller stores.

This is the size of most of our stores

You don't go in, you order through the window.

They have to watch the merchandise in front of the store because often times it can just walk away.  

This is where you buy your goods from and you can tell that sometimes it is quite limited.










These next stores are in Tapuele'ele which is the village closest to us.  Most of these stores are within 10 minutes of our house.

This is our smallest store and it doesn't have very much.   Megan are you glad you have a bigger store than this??

They often run out of food and then they close it till they get more.

These two pictures are of our newest store.  Its prices were slightly lower than the other store and it caused hard feelings in the village because the other store had to lower their prices.  It took quite a while before everyone got a long.

These 3 pictures are of the old store in the village and you can see that they don't have a lot of options of what to buy

The next pictures are of swimming with the turtles

This is me with the turtles.  You have to be careful because they will slap the heck out of you with their flippers

This is Elder Layne and he got smacked a couple of times on his legs.  We were both laughing but I'll tell you that those turtles slapped hard.

When the turtles came in to eat the papaya, they came right at you and it was a bit unnerving so  Elder Layne pulled his hand back and the turtles lunged and bit his finger a bit.  So after that we both were a bit more cautious.

 These were both pictures I took with my underwater camera.  Surprisingly enough it actually worked.

I don't know if it is going to work but here is a video of me trying to lift one of the bigger turtles and I got slapped good for doing it.  Hopefully it will work.







Well that's all for now, Part 4 will come tomorrow.