One of the most rewarding parts of the travel experience for
me is the challenging—and sometimes downright shattering—of preconceived
notions. I remember the first time I entered a Chinese bathroom with just a
porcelain hole in the ground I rethought what it meant to be a bathroom; the
first time I got (near)deathly ill from bad food I rethought what it meant to
have health codes; the first time I saw a maimed child forced to beg I
rethought what it meant to not have things going your way (not to be a Debbie
downer, but it’s horrible, and the images still haunt me, and I find it
difficult to have any sympathy for 99.99% of Americans who say life sucks).
Ximena Farmacy (sic) was another of those challengers. It
first and most obviously shattered the pre-conceived notion I had of how to
spell ‘pharmacy,’ but there were much deeper, more fundamental things that this
place challenged, and ultimately made me decide to hold onto my American
notions, because they are awesome.
Ximena Farmacy is a store in Canoa, Ecuador, a small and
super-duper chill beach town. Just to set the tone of the town, neither of its
roads is paved, more than a tank top and bathing suit would catch funny looks,
dreds are the norm, and I’m pretty sure no one owns a car or pants. The economy
relies solely on tourism and necklaces made out of paper clips and seashells;
if it’s not shabby jewelry or a hostel bunk you seek, fear not, though—Ximena
Farmacy has it covered.
In less square footage than a Sam’s Mart gas station, Ximena
Farmacy sells pretty much anything you could need or want; all exaggeration
aside, this dimly lit ‘pharmacy’ had 3 different sized flat screen TVs for
sale, a men’s AND women’s clothing section, a full service pharmacy, multiple
arcade machines, a freezer section, a produce section, a shelf with the gamut
of beauty and hygiene products, an
internet café, a stationary department, a bus station, a tour company, a toy
store, an impressive candy selection, a massage parlor, and a dairy section—and
I am surely emitting things, like all the possible beach knick knacks and
souvenirs a tourist could want, yeah, they had those too.
Although I had considered it before, the vast array of
products under such a small roof hit me in a way a lot of corner stores hadn’t.
While buying bus tickets, snacks, and stomach medicine all at the same time, I
got to thinking about retail structure in America, and all the inefficiencies
involved. Minus patio furniture and grills this place had literally everything
Target has and then some all in the space that the make-up aisle usually takes
up (the selection isn’t as good, but do we really need 50 different kinds of
shampoo or 20 different kinds of tampons?). Stores of this size in the States
are typically heavily specialized: local pet shops, hobby shops, Spencer’s,
Claire’s, etc. Why have all that space when you don’t need it?
Because we can.
Sometimes, when you’re awesome, efficiency is not the only
concern; we have palatial stores with 30 foot ceilings, chilling AC, and the
lighting of a film shoot because we can, and it is awesome, and I love America
for it. In no way do I condemn these monstrous megastores either, I just now
realize how unnecessarily luxurious and awesome even a K-Mart in the hood is.
That realization makes me all the more thankful that I was blessed to be born
when and where I was, because after all, I could be somewhere where I’m forced
to move the women’s underwear and mangos out of the way to get to the
sunscreen.
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