“This cost a living really getting to me now. Well it getting to me long now but now is like me head spinning. I don’t know if to turn left or right. Poor people can’t make it no more in this place. Soon we will just have to give up.”
The words of a mother of three who had just left a city market with a few small black plastic bags in her hands. Those bags, she said, contained $5,000 in purchases, which she said would not last her family a week.
“Now tell me where would I get more money from? I just get pay, you know, and the next two weeks when I get pay is for bills so I don’t know what will happen or how me and my children will survive,” she said.
There has been a steep increase in the prices of food in Guyana as well as around the world.
According to the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service Food Price Outlook, last year food-at-home prices increased 3.1% and food-away-from-home prices increased 4.2% year-to-date from 2020. It is estimated that the spikes will continue this year. Similar reports emanate from many countries around the world.
Here in Guyana, prices for market produce have increased since last year’s flooding and have risen more in recent months. Plantains, for example are being sold for as much as $300 a pound.
A walk through the markets and the facial expressions of consumers tell the stories they are not verbalizing.
“Soon we guh can eat in this country,” one woman grumbled as she left a stall without purchasing.
“I think sometimes you all over doing it,” another said even as she reluctantly purchased the item she needed.
“Is nah we, is wah we paying. If we don’t sell it fuh this, we can’t mek back no money and wah we guh live on?” the vendor quickly fired back as she carefully packaged the purchased item.
I caught up with the mother of three just as she was about to leave the market and she agreed to speak about the hardship she has been experiencing with the rapid increases in food prices.
Breaking down her expenses, she revealed that she takes home on average $65,000 a month as a security guard.
“Sometimes it does be less. If I call in sick or anything is a whole day pay gone. And I is not a robot so sometimes I does have to call in sick and I know they not supposed to take out the pay but it happening. And like me ain’t able fight. I find it suh and nobody else ain’t complaining so I must be guh leave it so,” she said.
She pays $30,000 in rent. Another $5,000 for electricity, $3,000 for water, $5,000 for internet; a total of $43,000 in regular monthly bills. This means she has just about $22,000 to purchase food and take care of all other expenses, inclusive of transportation.
“Well before this COVID thing come I never used to pay for internet and dem things, but the children had to get it… They had to get WhatsApp and Zoom and them things so now I have to pay that,” she said.
“I does get help from dey father but sometimes I don’t and I telling you is by the grace of God we does get through sometimes. It is not easy.”
I asked her about the rising food prices.
“Like I tell you before, we guh can’t make it just now. I stop cooking bora because when I used to buy $300 and it used to do fuh me and dem children I now have to buy six and seven hundred dollars and sometimes it is not even enough fuh me,” she replied.
“I used to like mix the greens with lil eddo and sweet potato to stretch it but now provision and all gone up and I can’t use that no more. I don’t go to the supermarket I does try and buy me few things at the corner shop, but I can’t even afford that right now.
“We all know the price for eschalot and celery, like I sometimes does forget that they exist because I can’t afford to buy them. I just focusing on the lil greens, rice, sugar and flour and as fuh chicken well we tasting that a few days in the month and that is it.
“I now trying to plant a few things in the yard but sometimes when I come home I does be so tired. But I trying because we need to live somehow and soon I guh can’t come and shop in the market.
“Look me sister, is not a good time for nobody right now and with COVID things just getting worse. If you ask me how I survive for the past two years, I really can’t tell you. I see people get put out because they couldn’t pay dem rent and all that and so I still thankful me and me children have a roof over we head.
“Is not every day we get good things to eat and sometimes barely anything, but I have to still be thankful. Me ain’t even want blame nobody and say they have to do this and that because you know some people saying is the government fault and then some people saying is the opposition. Sometimes I don’t able with the politics thing.”
I asked her if she believed the government could do anything to assist.
“Well them is the ones in charge, they supposed to be running the country. I don’t know what to tell them, but they must know that poor people suffering. They must know that food prices gone up. They must know people getting sick. They must know people really can’t afford to send them children to school. So is up to them. I don’t know what to tell them to do but I guess they have to try and do something to help we out,” she answered.
“But girl as for me I just trying to live. Whenever them children father give me a lil money I does put it together with me own and try to make it stretch. I does just mek sure I pay me rent and light bill and so and wah ever happen after then happen. That is how I living right now, not even month to month but day to day and with God it guh work somehow. I just pray that me children can go to school and learn and so things wouldn’t be suh hard fuh them, that is me only prayer.”
As we stood on the periphery of the market, she kept swapping the black plastic bags between her two hands, maybe sending me a message that she wanted to hurry off home.
I thanked her for taking the time to speak to me.
“Yeah man, is okay. Life hard fuh everybody right now. Well not everybody but it hard fuh a lot of people. But wah we guh do? We have to just live.
I going here with them few things and see how I can make them stretch,” she said as she left.
The year 2022 has really not started easy for many of us and especially for many women who now have to try to work magic in the kitchen in an effort make their supplies last longer. Let us all hope for better as the year progresses.
