Daily Life: Market Edition

I’ve gotten into the habit of going to the market in Lakatoro every day. Lakatoro is the main urban center of Malekula, and its market can be fantastic. I’m talking crabs, chickens, baskets of shellfish, eggs … papaya, coconuts, avocadoes, mangoes, pineapples, naus, grapefruits … snake beans, ballot, green beans, every kind of cabbage, onions, peanuts … breadfruit, kumala, taro, yam, banana … cakes, jams … I even saw shrimp once, and once I bought a slice of lemon meringue cake. (!!) On crummy days, it’s not so much that there aren’t many women there, but rather that they all sell the same thing. Today I went down to the market, and it was almost all coconuts, peanuts, island cabbage, and oranges. Two women were selling snake bean, so I bought a bundle. There was watercress, but it was wilted (so nix), and very hard green avocadoes at 20 vatu per one (so I bought three). I try to mostly eat food from the market, both to cut down on costs and to eat more healthily. It means that I’ve eaten lots of vegetable soup and fried sweet potato, which balance each other out, I suppose.