Food and other differences

Another quick takes on some things we have discovered about life on Guam:

1. Our life has changed in many ways since we left the continental United States. I now pay $4.50 for 3 quarts of milk. That's at the commissary. Not organic, not even fresh, but ultra-heat pasteurized.  I thought at first I was buying a gallon in a trim container, and then I read the oz’s. Ouch. 

2. I also cannot discover fresh chicken at our commissary, even though there are scrawny chickens running wild all over the place here. I'm not sure if anyone actually eats these things or gathers their eggs or keeps them just for looks.  My kids keep trying to catch the ones that slip under the fence into our area. They probably taste gamey.

3.I also am a little mystified by the fact that bananas are $1.19/lb and are shipped from South America. There are banana trees everywhere here.  We have a baby one in our back yard. My kids tell me their friend said these things are plaintains, but they look like and taste like bananas to me.

4. Mangoes are also shipped from South America, although I’m told the mangoes here are delicious.  They are out of season though. Right now the papayas are ripening, but the one we tried was not particularly sweet. The papaya we tried to transplant collapsed the other day. 

5. One last grocery note: I will not pay $2.99/lb for sweet potatoes. When I saw the $17.83 charge on the computer, I asked the checker to void them, even though it meant waiting for the manager. Later, I thought maybe I shouldn’t be so cheap. Sweet potatoes are really good for you. But are they as good as a nice bottle of wine?

6.We are still wearing t-shirts, shorts and swimming suits nearly every day. I keep seeing pictures of people on facebook wearing jackets and talking about apple picking.  None of that here.  Plaintains, anyone?

7. As far as I can tell, we do not have any deciduous trees here. I’m not sure how one could tell if it never gets cool enough for leaves to fall.  This makes it a little difficult to work on a tree identification project for school. BUT we do have a variety of palm trees. Such a variety I did not know existed. We have coconut palms with green and yellow coconuts (apparently the yellow variety is male – or female – or medicinal.). We have palms with little red things – undried dates? We have Manila palms with no fruit. We have palms that don’t have trunks. I don’t know all the kinds we have, but they are starting to grow on me since they look so pretty in a sunset photo. I'm going to have to work on getting a good shot though. 

Some other notes:

• Although we live on a small island, it can take a long time to get places you don't really want to go, like soccer practice. Rain doesn’t stop outdoor play. 
• Tile floors are great for cleaning up mud, but not for echoes. I thought hanging pictures and laying rugs would help but I think I need banners. 
• If you go snorkeling, hot dogs make great bait.  Little colorful fish swarm in from all directions. But if you don’t want to attract barricudas, use corn instead.
• You really can eat fresh yellow fin tuna raw and not get sick.
• No recycling of paper here - someone needs to seize the opportunity to develop a paper recycling plant.
• Red rice is a dish served at nearly every meal here.  I’ve heard it is colored red from a pepper powder, but it is not spicy. It’s a little extra sticky and almost tastes bready. But what we have all been loving is jasmine rice. I'm not sure what makes jasmine rice different, but it has a cleaner rice taste and is slightly stickier. Needless to say, we've been eating a lot of rice.

See Jen at www.conversiondiary.com for more. It's her anniversary, and I think updates are in store.