Life in PNG – Getting Groceries

A Husband’s work is never done!  And now that includes getting groceries.

Here in PNG, the shopping is most often done by the missionary men.  There are a few reasons for that.  1) A shopping trip can take up a good chunk of the day  2) Often several of the men will go to town together to share the cost of transportation  3) Because you can’t find everything you need at one (or even 5 stores), it makes for a lot of running around.  With the whole family in tow, the time would be multiplied.  4) It’s really not a good idea for a lady or sometimes even a group of ladies to go to town alone.

So, what all does grocery shopping entail?  Just in case some of you didn’t know, there is no Wal-Mart here (or anything like it).  One trick to shopping here is this – if you see something that you can’t usually find, grab it up because you may not see it again for several weeks or even months.  We can get a lot of things here – more than we expected.  We’ve found peanut butter/chocolate oreos, almond flavoring, some yummy ice cream and even curry sauces.  We’ve also found that there is no shortage of cooking oil here!

To give you a little bit of an idea what things are like here, we thought you might be interested in seeing some of the groceries we can get and how much they cost.

loaf of bread – $1.80
bunch of carrots – $0.40
cucumber – $0.16
small jar of peanut butter – $2.48
8 oz. brick of butter – $2.64
bag of powdered sugar – $4.20
1 liter (that’s just over a quart) of milk – $2.32
canned grean beans – $3.00
tub of ice cream – $10.12
small jar of mustard – $4.60
bottle of ketchup – $3.14
dozen eggs – $4.24
box of corn flakes – $5.20 (all other cereal is much more expensive)
small jar of salsa – $4.44
package of ramen noodles – $0.32

Going to the market to get produce is another experience.  For the most part the produce is very reasonable.  We do not barter about the price.

The carrots here are delicious!  We also usually get green beans (the kind we like are almost 2 feet long), broccoli, fresh pineapple and several kinds of sweet pototoes.  Because of a cholera epidemic here (and because of all the bugs that like to hide in the veggies), we have to soak all of our produce in bleach water before using them.

We also have banana and papaya trees and pineapple bushes growing very near our house so we can pick those whenever they are ready.

One other interesting thing about shopping is that most things come in smaller packages than we are used to.  In the States, it is most often more economical to buy a bigger size – not so here.  While we don’t know why for sure, there may be a few reasons.  First of all, many people don’t have refrigerators and freezers to store things.  Secondly, in this culture if a person has an abundance of something, he can be sure that others will come asking for it.  So, if he doesn’t buy much to begin with, there is less of a chance that he’ll have to give it away!

If you’d like to see more pictures – be sure to check out the photo section of our blog.