Thanks Phil,
I want to be clear, yes, country has become a dump, there are particular reasons that brought us here but bad policy is the main one, typical left wing populism that gives away everything to keep the top bottom happy and under cintrol without considering who is funding anything until funds run out. Added to this, we are going thru a severe drought, which is cyclical and not new but population has grown and almost zero investments on power and water infrastructure has been done while population has grown.
There are planned 4hr a day power outages nationwide (capital city has been excluded from this for now, they did some these past days but backed out on the plan here), sometimes they do more than 4, nobody knows when they will do it as there is no published schedule. I have family that lives outside the capital city and is rough, imagine trying to sleep without AC on 90F+ weather. Or risking losing your hard fought food in the fridge.
Food is scarce, none of the basics (rice, bread, meats, cooking oil, milk...) is readily available in any supermarket, people make huge lanes on those hoping to get some of that as it arrives, there is a black market for everything, main cause of scarcity is that mostly everything is imported now as they killed local production, there are no currency to get it and government pricing scheme force the few people that is producing to sell them below cost. In the black market, you can find almost anything, there are people making a lot of money on this.
Tap water is an issue too, we get city water about two days a week and the rest of the days building pumps half an hour a day, most of the people have tanks and pumps in their apartments (in a bathroom or a closet) to manage their own water, we do have a 500lt tank for this.
Money is worthless, last year (deflated numbers) inflation is close to 500% and the estimates for this year are in the 4 digit area. At black market currency exchange rate, the biggest bill we have is equivalent to less than a dime of US$.
The lower part of the middle class/ top of the bottom is who have it worst, people that live on a salary that if you are not able to get products at a regulated rate, you won't be able to buy enough food for one, forget about any extra.
Violence is the worst is has been, my city is on very top of the current wolds most violent cities. Last year there was close to 28.000 violent deaths on a 30 million population, so about 1/1000 of our population will be death by the end of year.
Medicines are another issue, there are stories of people dying because they can't find treatments, there are whole segments that you can't just get anything. People's main wish is not to get sick, not only because everyone wants to stay healthy but there may not be the medicine to cure you. The private sector is the only one that somehow works and families of people in hospital stays are requested to look for medicines the hospital just don't have anymore.
I personally, mostly because of the work you guys give to me, can cope with this for some more time, having an income, even small, in foreign currency is a god given thing around here. Still we have issue finding some stuff but we all help each other in getting stuff, if someone finds anything calls, or try to secure some for everyone.
So things are very bad but the problem is that the outlook is even worse. So we will see.
And yes Ken, this one is for you, please do not send me again another pic of piles of TP we can't have, lol.
