Farmacity: Beacon of Hope

To buy allergy medicine, please visit the farmacia down the block.  Speak to the pharmacist behind the cage & he will hand you a drug to treat your symptoms.  No, you cannot compare boxes and prices.  Because you do not speak fluent Spanish, pay $35 pesos for one brand of allergy medicine when a brand half as expensive lies in the next white drawer.

To buy vegetables, talk to the Bolivian vegetable vendor on the corner.  Ask for the vegetables you want & she will pick them out for you.  Take whatever she gives you.  Because there are no prices listed anywhere and produce prices fluctuate daily, hope that the price is correct. 

To buy a notepad or envelopes, visit the libreria three blocks up.  Most of the stock will be behind the counter/cage, so you will have to ask for the products by name.  The man behind the counter will lay some options on the counter.  Realizing you are a foreigner, he will lay out only his most expensive options.  Or so you assume---you have no idea, actually, because whatever else is available for sale is behind the counter.

Every transaction for the smallest thing becomes a complicated melodrama requiring specific vocabulary and dialogue comprehension and the very real possibility of being ripped off.  I've been putting off buying envelopes for 2 weeks because I can't just walk into a store and buy them.  This issue is just one of 1,000 compounding small problems (along with the large ones, such as feeling like I'm wasting time here and pressure to write and pressure to save money and a longing for the "real life" I'm going to try to figure out when I'm back in the States) that are dulling the luster of this city.

On the subway today, Jess and I started venting frustrations with Buenos Aires, feeding each other's downer-vibes, until we had both fallen into a funk.  Slouching home under darkening rain clouds, we didn't even notice when we missed our street.  But on the corner of the next block, looking around to realize we had gone too far, we saw it: the friendly blue and green of the Farmacity pharmacy chain, a Rite-Aid-style store where you can pick out your own medicine (imagine!).  There I found the same allergy medicine I'd bought 2 weeks ago (from the farmacia only two blocks south of this newly opened Farmacity, on Defensa) for 1/3 the price.  Jess had the opportunity to compare the Off! lotion with the Off! spray.  Both purchases ran less than $3 US each.

The experience of weaving through Farmacity's brand-new aisles, its array of cheap medicines and candy and t.p., buoyed our mood, and on the way home, we even stopped for ice cream at the new ice cream shop around the corner (flavors: mascarpone con frutas y crema rusa).  Just when I was thinking March might be too far away, Farmacity made this city bearable, at least for another day.

If only they sold envelopes.