June 9
Thursday. My one chance in the week to buy staples—cooking oil, rice, laundry detergent—at state-set prices. All Venezuelan adults are assigned days of the week to shop for regulated goods based on the numbers on our national ID cards. My days are Sundays and Thursdays. Sundays are useless, though. Stores stopped selling regulated goods over the weekend a long time ago. Thursdays are only marginally more useful. For the past several months, the lines at the two supermarkets near my house in eastern Caracas have been so long, stretching out for two blocks, that it’d take hours to get a chance to shop. And then there’s no guarantee I’ll find anything once inside.
Still, I drive by the supermarkets in the morning to give them a quick look. No chance. They’re so jam-packed, there isn’t even a spot to park. I keep going. My reporting assignment on this day will take me to several parts of the city, so, of course, I’ll be on the prowl for something, anything I can take back to my two kids—an eight-year-old boy and ten-year-old girl—and husband Isaac.
I step into a pharmacy. Isaac is running low on his cholesterol medication. His doctor has prescribed him Vytorin or Hiperlipen. The store has neither. But wait, the pharmacist says: there’s a lab in India that just cut a deal with the government to supply medicine here; they produce an anti-cholesterol pill. I don’t like the idea at all—who knows what this stuff is?—but it’s better, I figure, than taking the risk that he’ll run out of medicine. I grab four boxes.
Around midday, I swing by a bakery in search of bread. I’m greeted, impatiently, by a young woman. “We only sell bread at 5 p.m., señora.” On my way out, I notice a sign on the front door that I somehow missed on my way in: “NO BREAD.” As I get back in my car, I realize I’m low on cash. I head to a nearby ATM. It’s out of money.
But later, as my day’s winding down, I stumble upon a little treasure. At a local kiosk, I spot a generic, lactose-based product. It isn’t quite milk—that’s almost impossible to find—but it’s worth a try. Maybe the kids will like it. I walk away with two bottles in my hand and a huge smile on my face.
JuanP on Tue, 19th Jul 2016 8:50 am
“Bloomberg reporter Fabiola Zerpa documented her efforts to secure food for her middle-class family.”
This is nothing more than another Western MSM BS propaganda piece. You should waste your time reading this only if you are one of those people who still believes their crap. I skipped it. At this point I believe that if I wanted to know what is truly going on in Venezuela I would have to travel down there, something I have absolutely no intention of doing.
If you live in Venezuela get out while you still can. Most other countries will last a bit longer.
JuanP on Tue, 19th Jul 2016 8:52 am
This article also contains some of the worst photographs I’ve seen in my life. I know two year olds that can take better pictures on their phones!
dave thompson on Tue, 19th Jul 2016 10:24 am
Venezuela is an example of what happens when you go against the worlds power brokers and try to run your country for the people and not for the corporate bankers.
John D on Tue, 19th Jul 2016 10:27 am
In reading this article, I get the impression the woman looks at this as a short term inconvenience. I don’t think that she gets that it is a paradigm change.
steam_cannon on Tue, 19th Jul 2016 10:50 am
Interesting article, a very human perspective on a difficult time. And I like the note “this place is just one endless line”, that’s pretty much sums up the end run of all communist regimes. And I recognize the soviet smiles. That look of drawn starved faces where the muscles to smile seem to have atrophied, left with a look that is brings to mind something akin to self hated and a hateful of everyone else too just resonating though the photograph. Like someone just washed their mouth out with soap and they are wondering why it’s not your turn next.
Regarding photographic quality, it makes sense to me. The photos had to be taken on the sly. Everyone is used to seeing high quality video and photos, but that doesn’t change the fact that photographers are universally hated. Anywhere you go the lower quarter of the bell curve will challenge you about why you’re simply taking a photograph, even though they see photographs throughout their daily life. So what it comes down to is there are always people around who hate photographers. Also photographing a line of angry people is another great way to find problems. And on top of that, photographing in a store? Even most western stores are anti-photography, so I imagine stores run by a harsh government with troops around are even less photo friendly.
So yeah, it makes sense to me. They look like a bunch of pictures she was able to snap with her phone without looking like she’s taking pictures.
steam_cannon on Tue, 19th Jul 2016 10:54 am
“I get the impression the woman looks at this as a short term inconvenience.”
Also worth noting is she has enough money to shop in the black markets instead of standing in the rain. She has a phone with a camera. So she’s clearly not the average income housewife. Whoever she is, I think she did a good job of capturing some of what’s going on.
salinsky on Tue, 19th Jul 2016 12:33 pm
Youse gots to ax yo self ifin dem po folks gots enuff energeess left to keeps on reproducin.
bs on Tue, 19th Jul 2016 3:58 pm
Damn retards. Why are you digging for oil and trading it for paper. Aren’t you supposed to farm the shit out land. You live in a tropical country you can produce 3 harvests per year. So the only incentive to grow food, hunt and fish for homo retardicus is to trade it for pieces of paper with ugly portraits? Natives went extinct so will you retards.
shortonoil on Wed, 20th Jul 2016 5:57 am
Is this how the “end of the oil age” begins, or is how the “end of the oil age” ends. We would be very fortunate if it is the latter.
Shortingoil on Thu, 21st Jul 2016 11:32 am
Communist dictatorships put the people in their place. It’s what’s for dinner!
PracticalMaina on Thu, 21st Jul 2016 2:51 pm
Steam cannon, did you not see the woman in the polo, that shirt if its not knock off is worth probably about the same as my phone, and my phone can easily take these photos. The people in the line are clearly staring at her phone as she takes the photo.
The woman in the Lacoste shirt shoulda prepped instead of buying an overpriced shirt!!!! 95% of “Name brand high end” shit is made with sweat shop labor any way so you are wasting money on the product of economic abuse, I wish more people were capable of thinking about that when marketing starts to take over their subconscious.
Someone needs to start making a line of knock off products that is responsibly sourced.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 21st Jul 2016 2:54 pm
*that are responsibly sources.
People really like playing up the communist governments role in this, but these are the same people who were having scheduled black outs because of drought. When you have to worry about drinking water in a developed nation, it tends to make waves, along with blackouts in the summer.