By Red Thread
Red Thread’s members are primarily grassroots women, who live daily with various forms of economic and social insecurity. Despite this, over three decades, we have built an organisation that advocates and organises with women, beginning with grassroots women, to cross divides and transform our conditions. Red Thread runs the Cora Belle and Clotil Walcott Self-Help Drop In Centre, which provides support for and advocates with survivors of domestic violence as well as low wage workers (https://redthreadguyana.org/)
Just last week, the newspaper headline said “Exxon posts highest profit in its history: Guyana seen as pivotal part of its portfolio.” This is a company that has a history of over 150 years in the world. The Guyanese offshore oil wells (that international news stories are calling a “high return asset”) have been a very important part of that story. These highest ever profits would not have been made possible without Guyana, without the oil that is being brought up to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean on vessels with names like Destiny, Prosperity, Unity. We are hearing about all the growth, about all the jobs that are coming, about all the wealth that will reach Guyanese people. This has been the story this last week.
But this is not the only story. It certainly is not the story for the majority of Guyanese households and families. But our stories are what should be the most important story. Who feels it knows it. Over the past year we have been looking at household budgets of grassroots women, including our own, and tracking how they have changed.
We have felt what is happening with house rents: families who enjoyed reasonable house rents being asked to leave so that landlords can rent at nowadays prices that we cannot afford. We are feeling the prices: a pound of chicken now costs $500 in Region 3, $560 in Region 4, $540 in Region 7, $560 in Region 8. A pound of beef costs $700 in Region 3, $700-900 in Region 4, $760 in Region 7, $800 in Region 8. Three medium sized bangamary cost $1000 in Georgetown, and you have to pay an extra $200 if you ask for it to be cleaned after you buy it. $1500 for a packet of bangamary in Bartica. A pack of Natura milk costs between $700 and $800. Trying to find the money to pay more for packaged flour, rice and sugar because even though it is cheaper to buy these items loose, they are often not stored properly and come with rat dung, cockroach eggs, dust and worms. Finding the fuel we use for cooking sometimes being mixed, and we only know once we buy it and try to cook because it is hard to light and then the wick on the stove gets crunchy and crisp and hard. Knowing that in Georgetown things are a few dollars cheaper somewhere else – for example, last week rice was most expensive in shops in Campbellville, slightly cheaper in Stevedore Housing Scheme and cheapest in Charlestown – but once you add in transportation costs to get there you might as well buy where you are. Being charged a lot in many interior communities to cash a cheque at businesses because there is no bank. All this and more.
We have been collecting stories from grassroots women about the changes people are having to make in their households, as women are the ones stretching a dollar to feed our families. Here are six stories from Regions 3, 4, 7 and 8 that we gathered just in the last week.
STORY ONE:
For the longest while I did not do any big shopping because I can’t afford, I do day to day shopping; when some things finish I try to use things sparingly just eating to stay alive, I used to use 1 pack of fish (2lb) in one cooking (for three adults and two children) but now I try to make it last for 3 cooking, as you pay a bill another one is on you. I have bank debt from a loan to renovate part of my home.
STORY TWO:
We does do weekly grocery. My husband take one of us to the supermarket on his motorcycle. We buy basic things like flour, sugar, curry powder, masala, geera, Chinese sauce, oil, cube, chowmein and so. The rice we buy in the village. Everything else we go out to buy we use the motorcycle. We use to use $3,000/week in gasoline, now is $5,000. Everything I cut back on:
From three pounds of milk to one pound
From three litres of oil to one litre
From six pounds of sugar to four pounds
From 12 pounds of flour to eight pounds
I does cook every day but we gone from three meals a day to two meals a day. We doesn’t buy bread like we used to do anymore.
STORY THREE:
It’s very hard and I am down on certain items I used to buy, like a big pack soap powder which would last for a month now I am buying a small pack and it would last for a week. I use to buy a gallon bleach, but now I am buying a one pint. I cut down on my monthly rations, but even though I cut down on everything the bills are still high very much. I can’t buy in bulk like before, like now I stretch 1 pound chicken for 9 persons. I can’t afford to buy plantain, potatoes for dinner or breakfast. If I buy tennis rolls each person would get one. My husband get pay via check, I would take the check to the shop and take rations.
STORY FOUR:
I don’t buy in bulk except for rice and chicken. I rarely buy beef, fish or pork. I buy vegetables two times per week, I cook with gas but cry every time I have to buy cooking gas. I cook once daily and if food leave back from lunch I eat it back for dinner and breakfast. I used to cook two pound chicken in one meal but now I cook one pound (household of four adults and one child, Two adults are employed, one is in classes and one is unemployed). I don’t feel so heavily pressured as four months ago because I have been getting some assistance. When the bills come I ask my family to show me the bills in the day and not in the night so that I can have a good night rest. Sometimes in order to get something for myself I have to skip rent, sometimes you digging one hole to fill another.
STORY FIVE:
I do monthly shopping and would have to buy greens but not all the time due to the high price of greens and due to that I don’t cook every day or weekends. I don’t do breakfast or dinner, dinner is only when I feel hungry if not I mostly do a snack in the evening just to manage the rations for the month. Cooking oil would last for a six week and that depends on if I cook and what I cook. Cooking gas lasts for six weeks. Bills is another thing by itself, water sometime come for three thousand to five thousand, light six thousand or sometimes more. Transportation is $1400.00 dollars return for doing the marketing, notwithstanding the transportation for going and do the water and light which is $3000.00 dollars return.
STORY SIX:
I just started out working, since I was on maternity leave for 3 months. I receive salary two times a month. I try my best to catch every extra hours (household of four, other adult earner is training professionally and so does not receive a regular salary. Recently moved out of home because the rent was raised and is now temporarily sharing a room and bathroom with another family at no cost). My plan is to save and find a more permanent home for my family and I. Until now I have not been able to even start. I love to take care of my family, sometimes I feel really sad when we have no choice but to cook one meal for the day. Many times we can’t afford to buy gas, I keep my son home from school because I have no lunch to give him…stuff like that. The other day I almost cried because I want to be able to take care of my children properly and I couldn’t afford pampers for my baby; it was seven hundred dollars for a small pack of cheap pampers and I couldn’t even afford it. I fainted at work recently because of stress and fatigue, and also because I was not eating well. I sometimes stay hungry so my son can have something to eat when he comes home from school. I had some medical expenses which I had not budgeted for, so with that I had to be borrowing money for transportation. I refuse to look at my situation as a struggle, I see it as a test. I know my blessings are close. When we eat less, we say we will lose some weight. We have not eaten fruits in two long months because we can’t afford it. So I brought a bunch of bananas for my son to take to school for show and tell, and he sat in class and ate all of it. All of it. I was ashamed. Prices for food items are ridiculous, and it’s really hard for a poor household, especially if one person is the bread winner.
STORY SEVEN:
I make bread, dhal puri and buns on a small scale to catch my hand and although the prices have increased drastically, I cannot increase my price because people wouldn’t be able to pay. If I reduce the size and quality I will lose my few customers. I don’t cook every day because I can’t afford it. The other day when I reach the cash register I had to tell them to start taking things off because my money couldn’t meet. I wanted to cry. I have to choose between paying bills, health care, buying toilet paper or food.
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Exxon may be making the highest profits ever in its history off of Guyanese oil. But who feels it knows it. These stories, our stories, are the ones that should make the newspaper headlines, the stories that must count.