Once a week
Adam and I put together a grocery list and make a trip to the store, but just
like much of the rest of my experience here in Angola, it isn’t just an
ordinary shopping trip. The grocery stores in Angola are a lot different than those in
the States. As mentioned in my previous blog, many food items have yet to find
a home on the grocery store shelves here. And if they do have a spot in the store,
it is often the last place you would expect to find it.
In the
States it is easy to locate the milk and egg aisle because it is found in the
refrigerated section of the store. However, the milk and eggs aren’t located in
the refrigerated aisle here, but instead are found at room temperature on an
ordinary shelf. I was extremely surprised and a little concerned about my
finding, but the fact that Adam has been eating the eggs and drinking the milk
off of the room temperature shelves for the past five years without any
problems offered a little bit of comfort.
The milk
and eggs are not only located in a different section of the grocery store, but
they also look very different from the milk and eggs consumed in the States.
The milk comes in cardboard boxes with dotted lines outlining the flap that
must be cut off to open it. A pair of scissors is my weapon of choice when
opening the milk, while Adam chooses a more manly approach with a sharp knife.
The eggs are also very different. They are slightly larger and brown in color
instead of the typical white eggs found in most grocery stores in the States. They are also sold in cartons of six, twelve, fifteen, and thirty.
We refrigerate the boxes of milk and eggs before consuming them, but the
differences in appearance and location on the shelves is still a very weird concept
that I have yet to fully grasp. The milk and the eggs here haven’t made me
sick, so the fact that they are stored at room temperature is hardly reason
enough to remove them from my diet.
Besides the
milk and the eggs, there are other items that seem rather out of place such as
dried fish. I don’t think that I have ever seen a section at the grocery store
in the States that is for dried fish. Fresh fish and frozen fish, yes, but
dried fish, no. I am not even sure if it is healthy to eat dried fish, let
alone how one would go about eating it. And although I haven’t checked, I
highly doubt that there are too many dried fish recipes on Pinterest.
As if the
sight of the dried fish isn't bad enough, I can’t even begin to describe the
absolutely nauseating smell that it emits either. I don’t usually mind the
smell of fish or seafood, but the odor that seeps out of the stacks of dried
fish is enough to knock a person over. And if the smell isn’t enough to keep
you away from the dried fish aisle, the swarm of flies that surrounds it will
certainly do the trick.
Trips to
the grocery store are always an adventure. Each time we go, there are new
products on the shelves and more items that I find are out of place. And even
though I have adjusted to room temperature milk and eggs, I don’t think I have
the cast iron stomach necessary to handle the dried fish. Not yet anyways.
