Curses and Cucumbers and Carrots, Oh My!

I know I’ve talked about grocery shopping in Sri Lanka before (here), but now that I’ve been here a while, I feel like it’s time to revisit it, specifically with my trip to the store yesterday.

I do know that we are fortunate to have actual grocery stores here. For that, I owe a HUGE shout out to British colonialism and David Sime Cargill who started a warehouse, import, and wholesale store in 1844. In most other countries in this region, getting groceries means going to a shop that has meat, then one that has bread, then one that has produce, then one that has eggs, and then who knows how many other shops to find everything one needs. I could definitely do that here, as well, but thanks to Mr. Cargill, I have Cargill’s Food City and one or two other chains of grocery stores to frequent. Since I also have three Little Explorers and approximately zero patience, I am eternally grateful to Mr. Cargill.

All that being said, getting groceries in this country still is no easy task. I used to be an obsessive menu planner and coupon clipper. I actually enjoyed the whole process of making a list, putting coupons in order, and knowing what was for dinner every week. That all came to a screeching halt when we moved here. First off, there are no coupons. Fine. I can deal with that. The real issue is that, while I make a list, I can no longer be bound to it, nor make a menu based on it. I can’t guarantee that the things on my list will be in the store, even if they were there last week. I don’t know which produce will be fresh and which will be a bit past its prime. I just don’t know what’s going to happen once I push through those doors and grab a shopping cart. Shall I demonstrate with an example? Allow me to take you inside my head during my most recent grocery buying experience:

Thanks, old dude in the white sarong and jacket whose job it is to open the door. I’m going to miss you. Have you considered getting your visa and moving to the States to be a greeter at Wal-Mart? I’ll bet they let you keep the sarong with the uniform blue vest.

Oooh, the produce looks nice today. I love living on a tropical island where the fruit is so yummy and tropical. Pineapples are in season. I wish I wasn’t allergic. Perhaps I’ll get one for the rest of the family. Dragonfruit. I love dragonfruit. Here are cucumbers. I’ll get a bunch of those for Gertrude Bell since she loves them so much. Carrots, check. Apples, check. Mangoes and papaya, check. Onions and bell pepper, or as they call it here, capsicum, check. Capsicum is a weird word. Ok, now to line up and get this stuff weighed and priced.

I’ll just get behind this old lady with the cart full of produce. Maybe it won’t take as long as I imagine. I’d better push my cart up to the side to be out of the way of other shoppers. Ooh, I guess I should get closer before that lady in the red blouse cuts in front of me. Obviously, I’m not in line if there are more than three inches between me and the old lady. The International Man of Intrigue uses the euphemism “butts to nuts” to describe lines here, but, as I have none of the latter, and as my brain is supposed to be PG, I’ll refrain. Good, the old lady is finished. Wait, what is she saying? Something in Sinhalese. Oh, that is a scary look. What? WHAT?? Oh. My. God. I think she just cursed me. She did! She gave me the evil eye and cursed me and I was just trying to buy cucumbers! What the heck?! I’m sorry I’m foreign! I’m sorry I smiled at you! I’m sorry I have to buy groceries and now I’m cursed! Aaaagh!

Okay, the produce is weighed. Calm down. On to the noodles. I really want some soba noodles but I bet they don’t have those here. Nope. Tons of ramen. What are these bags? “Special Noodles.” More “special noodles.” I have no idea what that means. Hey, Sri Lanka…If you tell all the noodles they’re special, they’re going to think everything they do is perfect. You want a bunch of noodles who think they all deserve the tee ball cricket trophy just for participating? No? Well then stop labeling them all special. While you’re at it, maybe consider getting some soba noodles, okay?

 

Mmmm. Maldivian dried fish, complete with eyeballs, on display on an endcap. Won’t see that in the States.

I’m hot. Why is it that I sweat as much getting groceries as I do exercising? Move over Jillian Michaels and your 30 Day Shred. Dorothy Gale’s 30 Minute Shop is coming for you!

Okay, now I need yogurt and cheese. Aaah, they have lots of curd. Who knew it could somewhat replace both Greek yogurt and sour cream in my diet. I’m glad there’s no nutrition info on the side. Here’s the brand I like. Should I buy the stuff in the terra cotta pot with the rubber band holding the cover on or the one in the unsealed plastic container? We’ll base that on expiration. Well, this one is expired, so the plastic tub it is! Good. Now, cheese. I really want some feta cheese. I don’t care if it costs nine dollars. I am totally hungry for pasta with feta cheese. NO! Of course! The one day I am willing to pay exorbitant prices for feta cheese and there is none! Fine. Just fine.

What am I listening to? What is this music? I can’t possibly be hearing what I think I’m hearing. Oh, but I am. Get a load of this. Traumatizing, at best.

 

Frozen foods. Five hundred kinds of chicken sausages. One brand of chicken nuggets, and why are they so tiny? I mean, it would take an entire box just to fill up Arthur Dent. Maybe they’ll have those yummy chicken fingers stuffed with some sort of curry mashed potatoes they had last week. Nope. Of course not. What I wouldn’t give for frozen pizza. Oh, well. Really, I just need to finish my shopping. I need to get out of here before I lose my mind, or before that curse kicks in, but first I have to grab eggs off the unrefrigerated shelf. Hmm. That doesn’t really bother me anymore. Weird. I guess that’s a good thing.

CHECKOUT! I made it. No, lady, I do not have exact change. What is it with the fascination for having exact change? Every single place I go, ever, wants you to always be able to magically produce exact change. Please, stop trying to look into my wallet like I have it, too! I need those small bills sometimes, okay. Don’t make me feel guilty. I’m already cursed. Doesn’t that count for something?

And there you have it, Fellow Adventurers. Exhausting. I’m going to put my feet up and sip on a Coke Light while I cool off. Think of me when you’re cooking dinner tonight, especially if you’re making frozen pizza.

Let's Go To The Movies!

On Wednesday, I ran around the house singing this little song from the movie musical Annie, not just because my kids have watched the movie about a thousand times and someone in this house sings a line from it at least every day. I had a special reason. Guess what I did Wednesday afternoon? I went to see The Hunger Games at a theater here in Colombo. I read the books last summer, over Fourth of July Weekend when The International Man of Intrigue and Gertrude Bell had what was probably the worst stomach bug of their lives. It just happened to hit while we were in a hotel in Las Vegas, where we’d met The International Man of Intrigue’s family for a mini-reunion. It also just happened to hit right after he and I and his sister and brother in law had gone to see the movie Bridesmaids and laughed until we cried over the scene where everyone gets violently ill. I told you guys, we don’t do normal or boring in this family. Anyway, that is all a story for another time (or maybe for never. It’s pretty gross and involves the word “poop”, again, of course.). The bottom line is, I spent an entire day in the hotel room and between taking care of the sickies and also nursing Arthur Dent, who was still a mere infant and nursed all the time, I read the Hunger Games Trilogy.

Like most people who read The Hunger Games books, I was anxious to see the movie, so I was thrilled to go with some ladies from my book club and their teens and tweens. I was not, however, sure I would be thrilled to see a movie in Sri Lanka. I’ve only been here three months, but that is long enough to make an educated guess that something like going to a movie is going to be a cultural experience in and of itself. It was. Let’s discuss the differences, shall we?

We saw it on “opening week” here, which was a week later than the rest of you saw it.

It cost a mere 340 rupees to get in. At the current exchange rate, that’s about $2.65. Did I mention that the $2.65 also included a Coke and two popcorns?

Let’s talk about that free food for a minute: The Coke here comes in glass bottles that have to be opened with a bottle opener. You get a long straw to drink it out of, which makes you feel like you’ve gone back in time about 70 years. Adding to the effect is that it’s the Coke made with sugar instead of the corn syrup stuff. I'm a die hard Diet Coke drinker, and I can not stomach a regular Coke in the States, but, I guess because of the sugar, I will drink it on occasion here. The popcorn was surprisingly good, despite the fact that it was not popped on site, but came in little chip size bags. Of course, it could just be good because after you’ve lived in a strange place long enough, anything familiar tastes good.

Now, if you can get past the fact that I paid $2.65 for a first run movie, Coke, and two bags of popcorn, we can move on. Actually, we can move on anyway, because I still can’t get over it. I’m glad that’s all I paid, though, for a couple of reasons.

The previews/commercials here are insanely loud. It might be tolerable if the sound quality was good, but it’s horrible and so is the picture, often.

Next up, the theater is kind of, hmmm…gross. I was convinced at one point I was going to get lice. I swear, I’m not a complete germaphobe, although I did completely freak out earlier this week when Arthur Dent had a giant cockroach clutched in his chubby little hand. Aaah, the joys of tropical island life. Anyway, I’m telling you, the seats in this theater gave me a bit of the creepy crawlies, and I know I’m not the only one since one of the other moms confided she made her kids take showers right after they got home.

Can we talk about the noise level from the audience? Luckily, the theater was mostly empty, besides us, because I can’t imagine how it would have been had it been a packed house. Unfortunately, just like in the US, some couple brought their 5ish year old, who was obviously too young to see the movie and wasn’t very well behaved. There were also plenty of poorly behaved adults messing with and talking on cell phones, but instead of it being an isolated incident, it seemed like everyone was doing it.

There is intermission in every movie here. Sounds like a great time for a bathroom break (if you can stomach a public bathroom here), but it’s just a disappointing moment when some character gets cut off mid sentence and you are jarred out of your voluntary suspension of disbelief for another set of annoying commercials.

Now for the absolute worst part of the whole experience, possibly worse than the thought of getting lice (which I didn’t by the way): The projectionist was watching a movie. I know, you are thinking, “Of course he was watching The Hunger Games, he was running the projector.” Well, that’s where you’d need to get out your mat, because you'd be jumping to conclusions. He wasn’t watching The Hunger Games. I don’t know what he was watching, but it wasn't in English and it was turned up full volume on his portable T.V. For real, the guy was watching a movie at full volume on a portable television in the projection room. As if it wasn’t bad enough, during the most dramatic scene in the entire movie, the one that I’ve heard from other friends brought them to tears, the movie’s sound was almost completely drowned out by the soundtrack of this winner’s movie. Of course, this is Sri Lanka, so it’s just one of those little parts of life you roll your eyes at and try your best to tune out.

I am very glad I got to see The Hunger Games, though. It lived up to my expectations even after reading the books and I’m really looking forward to seeing the rest of the movies as they come out, wherever we’re living then.

The bottom line is that, while I wouldn’t exactly dance around in my slip like Grace from Annie, I would go see another movie if I really couldn’t stand the wait for it to come out on DVD!

Oh, and since I’m talking about a movie with a mythical bird, the Mockingjay, I have to give a shoutout to my favorite mythical bird, the Jayhawk! I’ll be getting up early Tuesday morning to watch the Kansas Jayhawks play for the NCAA Basketball Championship!