After two months of passing by it while walking home from Tai Chi classes, I decided today out of curiosity to stop in at Hipermás, the Costa Rican Wal-Mart subsidiary. I really don't know what I was expecting. Maybe some sort of cultural enlightenment or catharsis? Maybe proof that things here are different and Costa Rica isn't headed down the road to being the single huge mall that is the United States?
But of course, the Fates were not kind. Hipermás is exactly the same as Wal-Mart, so I did exactly what I would do back home. I walked in, felt an instant angst for the existence of the mass consumerism/corporate profit motive/environmental destruction complex, got drawn in by the electronics department, ended up buying something I didn't need (in this case a can of Pringles) and left realizing that I was no more than a pawn in the system I had just minutes before bemoaned. Huge failure. I think I'll stick to the local Perimercado grocery store for the rest of my stay (which incidentally is now less than a month).
Pura vida (or maybe not today...),
Eric
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