Bigger atolls like Rangiroa, Fakarava or Makemo have medium-sized supermarkets by now that take credit cards and have supplies freshly flown in from Tahiti. Raroia is too small for that, so the arrival of the supply ship is a big day for the commune here. Today the ship arrived after a break of two months (they stopped their service during the holidays), so everybody rushes excitedly to the dock to get their parcels and stuff sent from Tahiti and the empty mini-market will be filled up again!
Unfortunately the village of Raroia is on the western side of the atoll, so we’ve been pitching badly in the waves from the easterly winds since we arrived here two days ago (that’s when the supply ship was actually due…) and we’re eager to get to the protected eastern side again.
The shop owner told us yesterday that he’d be busy unpacking all day today and would only start selling on Thursday, but we whinged until he promised to open the shop in the afternoon already–wish us luck for our quest for cabbage, carrots, potatoes and maybe even some apples 
Our last egg from Makemo jumped into a chocolate cake yesterday and the last carrot from Tahiti joined some home-grown arrugula in a salad, so we can really use some fresh things…
