Starving in Venezuela - 07/29/16
socialism, we will get it right this time 
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"Traveling through the country this month I saw endless queues of people trying to buy food - any food - at supermarkets and other government-run shops.
I was stopped at a roadblock in the middle of the countryside by people who said they had eaten nothing but mangoes for three days.
I saw the hopeless expression of a mother, who had been eating so little that she was no longer able to breastfeed her baby.
I met a women affectionately known as la gorda - "the fat one" - whose protruding cheekbones indicated just how much weight she had lost in the last year.
I felt sympathy for all these people, but it was my family who really brought it home to me.
My brother told me all his trousers were now too big. My father - never one to grumble - let slip that things were "really tough". My mother, meanwhile, confessed that sometimes she only eats once a day. They all live in different parts of Venezuela, but none of them is getting enough to eat. It's a nationwide problem.
Image caption The roadblock erected by people who have been surviving on mangoes
A study by three of the country's main universities indicates that 90% of Venezuelans are eating less than they did last year and that "extreme poverty" has jumped by 53% since 2014.
There are a number of causes - shortages of basic goods, bad management, a host of speculators and hoarders, and a severe drop in the country's oil income.
Plus, of course, the highest inflation rate in the world.
The country's official inflation rate was 180% in December, the last time a figure was made public, but the IMF estimates it will be above 700% by the end of the year.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption Inflation obliges Venezuelans to carry fistfuls of banknotes
In an attempt to stop speculators and hoarders, the government years ago fixed the price of many basic goods, such as flour, chicken, or bread. But Venezuelans can only buy the goods at these fixed prices once a week, depending on the final digit of the number on their national identity card. If it's 0 or 1, for example, then you're allowed to buy on Mondays. For 2 or 3, it's Tuesdays, and so on.
Because there is a risk of the goods running out, people often arrive at supermarkets in the early hours of the morning, or even earlier. At 6am one morning in Caracas, I met a man who had already been in the queue for three hours. It was pouring with rain, and he didn't have an umbrella.
"I'm hoping to get rice, but sometimes I've queued and then been unable to buy anything because the rice runs out before I get in," he said.
Even if they are lucky, shoppers are only allowed a restricted amount of items per day. Those who can't get enough have to wait a full week until their turn comes round again - the tills will automatically reject anyone's shopping if they arrive on the wrong day ............"
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36913991
. "Traveling through the country this month I saw endless queues of people trying to buy food - any food - at supermarkets and other government-run shops.
I was stopped at a roadblock in the middle of the countryside by people who said they had eaten nothing but mangoes for three days.
I saw the hopeless expression of a mother, who had been eating so little that she was no longer able to breastfeed her baby.
I met a women affectionately known as la gorda - "the fat one" - whose protruding cheekbones indicated just how much weight she had lost in the last year.
I felt sympathy for all these people, but it was my family who really brought it home to me.
My brother told me all his trousers were now too big. My father - never one to grumble - let slip that things were "really tough". My mother, meanwhile, confessed that sometimes she only eats once a day. They all live in different parts of Venezuela, but none of them is getting enough to eat. It's a nationwide problem.
Image caption The roadblock erected by people who have been surviving on mangoes
A study by three of the country's main universities indicates that 90% of Venezuelans are eating less than they did last year and that "extreme poverty" has jumped by 53% since 2014.
There are a number of causes - shortages of basic goods, bad management, a host of speculators and hoarders, and a severe drop in the country's oil income.
Plus, of course, the highest inflation rate in the world.
The country's official inflation rate was 180% in December, the last time a figure was made public, but the IMF estimates it will be above 700% by the end of the year.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption Inflation obliges Venezuelans to carry fistfuls of banknotes
In an attempt to stop speculators and hoarders, the government years ago fixed the price of many basic goods, such as flour, chicken, or bread. But Venezuelans can only buy the goods at these fixed prices once a week, depending on the final digit of the number on their national identity card. If it's 0 or 1, for example, then you're allowed to buy on Mondays. For 2 or 3, it's Tuesdays, and so on.
Because there is a risk of the goods running out, people often arrive at supermarkets in the early hours of the morning, or even earlier. At 6am one morning in Caracas, I met a man who had already been in the queue for three hours. It was pouring with rain, and he didn't have an umbrella.
"I'm hoping to get rice, but sometimes I've queued and then been unable to buy anything because the rice runs out before I get in," he said.
Even if they are lucky, shoppers are only allowed a restricted amount of items per day. Those who can't get enough have to wait a full week until their turn comes round again - the tills will automatically reject anyone's shopping if they arrive on the wrong day ............"
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