An Audio Diary in Outlook, BBC, London
My name is Maruf and I live in Dhaka and there are five of us altogether (my wife, myself, our daughter, one of my sisters and our housemaid).
I have never been “anxious” about the price of food in my life, but over the last six months it has been a very different experience.
Generally we used to buy the best quality of rice called “Najir Shile” for our regular meal and the best quality of wheat to make flat bread for breakfast. But for the last six months we’ve been choosing the cheapest rice in the market, and yet we are paying DOUBLE for it. We can no longer afford to have bread for breakfast as the price of wheat has more than doubled. So we are cooking rice for breakfast as well – although it is not easy to change our diet in this way. The smell of rice is not very appetizing for our younger children…and they are not old enough to understand why we can’t have bread for breakfast any more.
I know there is a shortage in the supply of rice after the huge disasters we had last year – Cyclone Sidr and TWO huge floods. And the price of food – especially rice - has increased in the international market as the countries we import rice from have stopped or imposed a limit on the amount of rice they are exporting.
If we could give up buying rice that would be much better for us…but how can we?
What is also worrying is that the price of other things, as well as food, is also increasing. The price of washing powder, for instance, is also alarming, although there is no problem of there being a lack of supply.
The overall effect of all of this is not easy. Being patient and not losing your temper while you are shopping is almost impossible and quarrelling in front of every grocers shop is the most common scene of our daily life.
Submitted to Outlook on 22 April 2008
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