The Pulp

In my humble and only moderately informed opinion, Costa Rica can very easily be split into two cultures. The first in the Central Valley, San Jose, the capital city with more than a million people and the four or five cities that surround it, forming a metropolitan area with 2.5 million people. This Costa Rica enjoys a very pleasant climate all year long, although getting rained on is never pleasant, it sure seems to drizzle more than storm. This Costa Rica has universities, malls, office buildings full of international companies, concerts and museums, quick access to government services, giant supermarkets, and well, everything else that goes along with living in a city that is the hub of everything in the country. Costa Rica doesn't really have a second city, it doesn't have a financial city and a government city, an entertainment city or an industrial city. That's all in the Central Valley. There are four or five outlying cities outside the Central Valley, but none of them really compare to San José and its surrounding cities. There are five or six volunteers doing a third year extension after finishing their service that live in this Costa Rica. The other 120 or so of us live in the other Costa Rica. Rural or semi-rural Costa Rica. 

(just two doors down-pretty convenient for an after dinner ice cream treat)

Even though I live but 15 minutes from Puerto Limón, which is one of the outlying cities mentioned above, my town of Liverpool doesn't have more than 1500 habitants. In this Costa Rica, where almost all volunteers live, there is one institution that is ubiquitous as rice and beans. The pulpería. Sure, most communities, even very small ones, have an elementary school, and other institutions like the EBAIS (extension clinic of the national health service), a community building (usually one big open room for dances, parties, and roller skating), a bar, and maybe a hair salon tend to exist in most communities. But, any community that wants to call itself a community really just has one requisite, the pulpería. I generally translate pulpería as corner store or general store or convenience store, and that's essentially what it is. For Americans, my dad's description is fairly apt: a gas station without the gas. Pulperías obviously vary in their line of products, but the main staples of a Costa Rican diet can be found their: rice, beans, sugar, coffee, juice packets, flour, and an assortment of snacks and candy. Soap and laundry detergent are also almost always in stock. Some will sell beer and the most popular types of liquor. Some sell a selection of vegetables. Some vary into the office supplies sector, some sell basic clothing, some assorted housewares, some sell meat and cheese. Some, but inconveniently not all, will recharge cell phone accounts or sell the scratch off cards used to recharge phone minutes (many/most phones here are pay as you go). Many, but not all, dabble in bread and pastries-this depends mostly on whether or not there's a bakery nearby. They also vary in setup, with many having the attendant and all the goods behind a counter, so you point/ask for everything you need. This is how they are in my town-in fact, they are caged in as well. Some have a few shelves that us customers can walk amongst. Back in the old days, so I'm told, many were just a side window in a house, and you couldn't even see any of the products-apparently some of these still exist in small towns-but I can't say I've seen any. 

(the pulpería down the street from my old house in Puerto Viejo)

For those of you who are Spanish speakers and not familiar with Central/South America, you may be wondering, do these stores sell octopus? That's because, based on the suffix (-ería) combined with the root word "pulp" (octopus), pulpería should be directly translated as octopus store. There are three theories as to how pulperías got their name, according to Wikipedia. My host brother had told me two of them. One proposal is that somewhere in the Americas the ancient octopus dealers started selling other things, and the name transferred from the octopus dealer to general stores. A second theory is that the vendors were always reaching and grabbing a bunch of products at the same time, and thus appeared as an octopus, and the name stuck. The third theory, that my host brother didn't suggest, is that long ago in Mexico, the vendors of pulque (a popular alcoholic drink) became the vendors of other products and thus pulquería (the pulque store) became the name used for the general store, and when this name spread to other parts of Latin America, it shifted to pulpería. It doesn't seem we'll know the reason, as the name has been used for centuries in parts of Latin America. But, rest assured, if I'm not at my house or at school, I'm most likely buying some cookies, a lollipop, or recharging my cell phone at the pulp. 


Addendum: For those who don't know Spanish, it is quite a delightful feature of the language that by adding the suffix "-ería" to any noun (X), you make a word that means X shop.