Sliced turkey please...

While the deli counter does not seem like it would be much of an adventure, shopping here is always interesting, to say the least. Price and service are often both dependent not on what you need but on who you are, or at least who you are related to.

"Please pick up a little sliced turkey on your way home," Ali said as I was leaving for the gym, followed by "Stop at KS Mart if you would, they have a deli, and maybe get some whole wheat hoagie rolls as well." Seemed like a simple enough request, and certainly I have accomplished such a task many times in my life. So... hot, sweaty and discouraged I left the gym to head to KS Mart. This store does not have prices on things. Literally at least 50% of the merchandise has no price. It has been explained to me that Samoans are impulse buyers, especially when it comes to food, and also too proud to ask for prices so as not to seem poor. So with no prices on things, the store can ask $7 a pound for Ecuadorian bananas (even though local bananas are in season and really cheap) and people will pay it when they are at the register even though they are horrified by the cost, just to save face.

Well anyway, I found the deli counter, but there was no clerk to be seen. I did the obligatory "hello...hello..." asked a couple of people, but still, no one. Finally I went up to the register, and to my surprise, the cashier literally screamed across the store for someone named Loli to help me. I went back to the deli, and there was a woman, on my side of the counter, but she could not slice meats, and when I asked for sliced turkey she tried to give me a container full of turkey tail.

Turkey tail is a traditional Samoan food, mostly fat, and it looked nasty all cold and coagulated in the clear plastic deli container. I told her that I was hoping for sliced turkey, and she began speaking to what looked like no one behind the counter in Samoan.

Then I saw them...two women sitting on the floor mostly hidden behind a large table. They had been there all along. They had to have heard me ask around for them, heard my "hello's", as well as a couple of other people's that hadn't been so tenacious and were now gone. Certainly they heard the clerk yell, yet they remained there talking and laughing sitting on the floor with their backs to me.

Customer service is very different here. It really means you might end up lucky enough to be a customer since, you may or may not be served, at some point or not, depending on many things; ie., the weather, mood swings, astrological readings, whether or not you are related to the clerk, (which may help or hurt your standing, depending), and of course whether you are palongie or islander (I have found price is quite dependent on this last piece of information as well).

Sadly, in my case it looked like the weather was bad, someone's mood was swinging, my horoscope must have read "you will not be getting any help today", I am not related to anyone here, and I am very obviously and obnoxiously palongie. Yikes! No wonder my deli friends had no intention of slicing anything.

I am told Samoans will never be mean directly, they just pretend that you do not exist, and they can't be bothered; more of a passive resistance to customer service. I finally said "I can see you, you know." This seemed to annoy them enough to force one of them to push herself up from the floor, put on the plastic gloves and slice some turkey. I nicely said "3/4 pounds please," and then I smiled and thanked my new friend when I got 1 & 1/2 pounds instead. I carried it up to the counter, asked the price of a package of cheese, which caused the Samoan woman in line behind me to giggle, but since I had no way of knowing if it was $5 or $500, I thought it was an important question.

Finally, over 30 minutes, and a couple new friends later, I felt a rush of adrenaline and a real kinship with those early people, the conquering hunter gatherers, as I finally left the store with hoagie rolls, sliced turkey and some cheese.