Shuffling around the shop
A Kubatana subscriber shares her experience . . .
Yesterday I was shopping on behalf of some ambuya’s (grannies) at a Spar that does a discount for pensioners on a Wednesday. A few round loaves of bread were available, a lot of the items allowed two per customer, there were about forty little packs of chicken pieces and a few dozen frozen chickens. No meat. No fresh milk. Mazoe orange juice arrived from the back of the shop and there was a stampede with people grabbing as many as they could (only one per customer?). A crowd of rather poor and ragged women had gathered outside the shop – nobody knew why? They were chased away by guards, but I then discovered that they were asking shoppers to help them buy a loaf of bread. I watched some old people shuffling around the shop with a few $10,000 notes scrunched up in their hands, a vacant look of disbelief on their faces. Each day there is less in the shops, each day people must be getting more desperate to survive. Each day and night hundreds of thousands cross the borders in search of some food and security.