Day 152 Shopping

Downtown Apia
I was feeling a lot better and had not really had a chance to explore Apia before so I welcomed the opportunity to wander through the shops and see what was available. This part of Samoa is much closer to the 21st century than most of the places we have visited. I suppose Papeete in Tahiti is also in the same stage of development but somehow the tension between the French and the Polynesians makes it feel less developed in some ways. Apia, on the other hand, is full of Internet cafes, people talking on cell phones, new cars, modern buildings and a pace that is much like a small city in any part of the modern world. People are friendly, helpful and have that amazingly warm smile that is purely Polynesian. The stock in the stores is limited and the shopkeepers apologize for this as they seem quite aware of the items they are lacking. (This is another differentiating factor to Tahiti where there seemed to be a lack of knowledge of the items they did not have.) Samoa does not have a significant export economy (the joke is that their biggest export is their people) so importing the breadth of goods that one would find in the U.S. seems economically impractical. The economy depends heavily on foreign aid and on funds that family members send from their jobs in New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. Many people have been in New Zealand and can relate to the Western culture found there.
I spent quite a bit of time catching up on this blog as I had been a bit under the weather for a few days and did not do my normal writing. I also took some time to walk through the handicraft market where one sees the same items over and over. There are some beautiful things but the repetition is overwhelming.
The day ended with pizza at a place we had eaten before. This time the result was the worst I could imagine. By 2230, I began to feel very sick. Kurt also was not feeling well and we had both eaten the same kind of pizza. By midnight we were alternating between leaning over the side and visiting the head. I will spare the details but suffice to say we both lost a lot of fluid. Dehydration becomes an issue when you cannot ingest anything.