We've abandoned our blog a little. A bit of travelling, a lot of getting our new home into shape and most importantly, have internet connection at home just as of few days ago.
Last night, after a week away from the island, we went grocery shopping. To our surprise the super market we usually go to (biggest and usually most crowded on the island) was half empty, in terms of customers and produce. When I saw just one or two shelves empty I didn't make much of it. But as the vacant shelves became more frequent and especially when they were clustered next to each other, we started worrying. Finally we read the notice: due to bad weather the ship is delayed...food has not come in..
This was an aspect I did not envision when taking the decision to move here. Since we were gone, we had not really realised how bad the weather had been. Yes, the day we landed it was raining and much more windy than before, but I guess it must have been like this for consecutive days. Neither did we realise the impact of such weather, beyond the deep puddles on the already bad roads.
How can I best describe the way this otherwise very western super market looked like. Even though I was raised in communist Poland, I don't really recall the empty shelves, everyone notoriously mentions when speaking of before '89. Maybe because the shops were not as big, or maybe because I did not do grocery shopping myself those days. Whatever be the reason, the image I saw yesterday seemed much more scary, than any of my childhood shopping memories. It looked like a pre-war, or natural disaster scene - that is in the fresh produce section; naturally chemicals and anything packed with additives and preservatives was plentiful. We hardly managed to find tomatoes and salad, which were neither covered in fungus or just brown from growing old. There weren't even bananas..which btw grow on this island, so no need for shipment from abroad. But perhaps in my rookie tropical ignorance I don't know that now is not the time for bananas in this part of the world.
Long story short, we'll need to go back grocery shopping soon enough, and hopefully the ship will have arrived then.
Really makes you think about dependency...
Last night, after a week away from the island, we went grocery shopping. To our surprise the super market we usually go to (biggest and usually most crowded on the island) was half empty, in terms of customers and produce. When I saw just one or two shelves empty I didn't make much of it. But as the vacant shelves became more frequent and especially when they were clustered next to each other, we started worrying. Finally we read the notice: due to bad weather the ship is delayed...food has not come in..
This was an aspect I did not envision when taking the decision to move here. Since we were gone, we had not really realised how bad the weather had been. Yes, the day we landed it was raining and much more windy than before, but I guess it must have been like this for consecutive days. Neither did we realise the impact of such weather, beyond the deep puddles on the already bad roads.
How can I best describe the way this otherwise very western super market looked like. Even though I was raised in communist Poland, I don't really recall the empty shelves, everyone notoriously mentions when speaking of before '89. Maybe because the shops were not as big, or maybe because I did not do grocery shopping myself those days. Whatever be the reason, the image I saw yesterday seemed much more scary, than any of my childhood shopping memories. It looked like a pre-war, or natural disaster scene - that is in the fresh produce section; naturally chemicals and anything packed with additives and preservatives was plentiful. We hardly managed to find tomatoes and salad, which were neither covered in fungus or just brown from growing old. There weren't even bananas..which btw grow on this island, so no need for shipment from abroad. But perhaps in my rookie tropical ignorance I don't know that now is not the time for bananas in this part of the world.
Long story short, we'll need to go back grocery shopping soon enough, and hopefully the ship will have arrived then.
Really makes you think about dependency...
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