Faleoloa

Faleoloa (far- lay- o-loa)

Faleoloa is Samoan for shop. They are a common sight along any road, no matter where you are, little servery window style facilities built in front of their house and manned at all hours by family. We were surprised to see many open last night around midnight when coming home from dinner out with friends. Serving locals, they will often be the sole source of income for a family.

There seems to be a fairly standard set of products based on what we have seen:

· Vailima, the local beer, most often sold in tallies and drunk like a stubby;

· Coca cola sold the same way. It’s common to see toddlers walking around drinking directly from a 750ml bottle of coke. Sold in glass bottles you have to drink the lot as you can’t reserve any for later.

· Digicell top ups- pre paid mobile phone credits sold at even the smallest of faleoloas.

· Maggi noodles, described by one of the Doctors here as the curse of good health. They are everywhere and have no nutritional value in of themselves. Our kids say that their peers bring them to school and eat them dry direct from the packet.

· Puisipo (showing my burgeoning knowledge of Samoan here- this is canned corned beef).

· Canned mackerel.

· Sometimes also popo (coconut).

They will often also provide “BBQ”, which is a standard serve of marinated chicken cooked up on an old drum filled with coals. It smells divine.

Some faleoloas have other types of takeaway, some have clothing, some have cheap asian goods, the kind that will last a week before breaking. One has a nice gig running a regular bingo session. Interesting aside: Paul said he saw a presentation on paediatric nutrition at the Falemai’i (hospital) a few weeks back which included a shot of a child in a hospital bed and a speech balloon saying “My mama didn’t look after me as she was too busy playing bingo”. All palagis present were suitably surprised at such an out there statement for a country which places great stock in maintaining face.

Faleoloas are so common, that travelling home from the gym this morning, I counted the number I drove past on the 2km trip. 28. That’s right, 28. And this was on a backroad, in suburban Apia. In some areas, they would be located side by side, one family competing with their neighbours for local business. They range from quite well developed shops with signs, to little more than a table and an umbrella. At one of the latter I stopped and bought a huge bunch of snake beans, enough for three to four meals and a similarly large bunch of boc choy for $9 tala- less than $4.50 aussie. The lady laughed when I asked for it, raising her eyebrows, shaking her head and saying “It’s cabbage” (The unspoken comment was “stupid palagi”). She had set up her table in front of the market garden, a reassuring sign of freshness. Literally farm to plate.