Costco Culture

High up on the New York Times’ most emailed list is an article about impulse buying at Costco.

The article makes me gag. Maybe I forgot that people actually buy chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.

My former professor who was here making a documentary said: “Liberians are experts at surviving.” It’s so true. If I had to live on the amount of money people here live on, I wouldn’t make it through the dry season. Every single dollar goes so far.

I am basically the only person paying my driver. He gets about $350/month. That covers not just his salary, but also fuel, car maintanence (which is super expensive because of the poor road conditions), and licensing fees. So let’s say that after all car-related expenses are paid, he makes $200/month. And I think that is a liberal estimate. And he has told me that he has ten people who rely soley on him for food and shelter expenses. 200/30 = less than $7/day. How is he supporting himself and 10 people on $7/day? I have no clue. I just spent $7 at the supermarket buying tofu, pita bread, and soy sauce. If my apartment-mate and I share the food it would be gone after two meals.

A flat-screen TV from Costco could feed a community here for a month. At least. I know it’s a bad comparison, and I’m not trying to be all high and mighty. I’ll still spend $4 on a glass of wine at dinner and I won’t feel that guilty about it. But the Costco culture is incomprehensible here, where people re-use plastic bags 10 or more times. People take used soda bottles back to the Coca Cola factory where they get re-filled. The other day someone came up to me and asked me for a piece of paper from my notebook. He took it, folded it up, and put it in his pocket. Three weeks ago I gave my security guards an issue of Time. I still see them reading it.