El Supermercado

I had the opportunity to go to the "supermercado" (grocery store) yesterday afternoon with Mary Alice. She told me, as we were walking downtown, about how she gets some weird looks when she makes her trip to the grocery store. She explained how most Peruvians go to the store almost every day because they don't have refrigerators and storage for their food. Mary Alice only goes once a week (the Iveys have a refrigerator and freezer). Since she only goes once a week, she has to stock up. We arrived at the store and began to gather the items on our list. First, we went to the back to get milk, juice, and cokes. While Mary Alice was piling the cartons into the cart, a group of 5-6 elemetary school aged girls came over near us. They stood for a while chatting and occasionally glancing over at us. After a while one, of them timidly tapped me on the arm and asked, "Excuse me, Miss. What color are your eyes?" When I replied that they are green, they all stared in awe. Finally, they asked where I was from and were amazed to hear I am from the U.S. In fact, they had probably never seen an American in person before. The Iveys are one of only about four or five American families in Huancayo (a city of appoximately 500,000 people). It is very weird for them to see light colored eyes since everyone here (at least that I have seen) has brown eyes. The girls said goodbye, and we continued shopping. By the time we were finished, our cart was overflowing. We went to the only cashier open, and a lady, who only had a couple of items, got behind us in line. When she saw our cart, she asked to go ahead of us so we let her. After that, everyone (with their few items) that got into line behind us asked to go ahead. We let a couple of them go ahead, but then we scooted the cart up and started unloading it onto the counter so that we didn't stand there all day. When we finished, we had a total of three carts filled with bagged groceries. I think I can understand why she gets a few looks. It's definitely not like the States! I thought it was a funny experience receiving all those looks of astonishment. I mean, how much can those Americans really eat!?!