Should people wait for bread?
March 12, 2014Or should bread wait for people?
Roberto Rodríguez M. @esosiquetetengo
People is marked like this in #Venezuela to be able to buy food pic.twitter.com/A9kXrfvJeJ
From Business Insider, a report about lines at some Venezuelan grocery stores. When the columnist writes ‘long’, she means long.
Venezuelans Are Marked With Numbers To Stand In Line At Government Supermarkets
It’s hard to get a sense of what a food shortage is like unless you’ve lived through one, but this tidbit from Venezuela serves as a chilling illustration.
The lines to get into government supermarkets are so long that people mark their arms with their place in line. It’s not a permanent tattoo — just a pen — but the point is to make sure that the long lines stay as orderly as possible. […]
According to a source familiar with what’s going on, this number-scribbling takes place outside large cities like Caracas, and it doesn’t happen in private supermarkets. However, private supermarkets can set a limit to the number of items a person can buy. For example: You can only pick up 4 liters of milk, 2 liters of oil, 2 kilos of sugar etc.
And that’s if the market even has those items.
People also have numbers on their ID cards, which decide which days they can even get in line to shop at supermarkets like San Cristobal’s Bicentenario, according to AFP.
A picture’s worth a thousand words.
No Truce With Kings 
Leave a Reply