If you've been following along here long enough, you'll remember our diesel shortages of a few years ago when I was buying my way through blockades and waiting in gas stations at three in the morning hoping to buy some fuel when no one was looking (the station's tanks were "officially" empty, but they usually kept some diesel back for their clients...buses and taxis's...I had a friend who was sneaking me in).
At any rate, those were interesting days. Waiting in line ups litterally hundreds of vehicles long. Hoping they wouldn't run out before I got there.
We're facing shortages again these days. Only this time it's sugar. That's right...
Sugar.
It's been all over the news lately. Something happened to the sugar cane crops and there are huge shortages of sugar. None of the markets are selling it. If a truckload does show up, there's practically a riot of people trying to secure a bag or two.
Yesterday we heard that our local supermarket had some, so Maribel and I hurried over. Sure enough they did, but they were limiting people's purchases to two bags each (there was a security guard standing by the pallet of sugar bags). We sneakily split up, each grabbed two bags and then went through different check outs. We met back up at the truck. It was quite James Bondish. We watched a mom and her three young kids do the same thing. Once they were out of the store she was like, "Get in the car! GET IN THE CAR!" And then they went burning out of the parking lot.
All in all it's been quite entertaining.
No one knows exactly when the sugar crisis of 2011 will be over, but it doesn't seem any time soon. They're talking about trying to ship some in from Brazil. I'll keep you updated. =)
Sugar is actually one of our main exports, so it's more serious than I'm making it out to be. As a farmer's kid I shouldn't laugh too much. Crop failures can obviously be pretty bad for a lot of people. It's just that the image of that mom trying to smuggle bags of sugar out of the supermarket was pretty funny. =)
One other announcement to make. We have a new guy in the house. Jose Manuel (Andres' younger brother...who I introduced here) has decided to come live with us. We're excited about that. He's a good kid and I know Andres is excited to have him in the house. Because of our strained relationship with the home where Jose Manuel used to live, his leaving was a bit of a difficult process. But it's all good. He showed up just now with his little bag of clothes. He sort of didn't tell me that he was coming until this morning, so now we're scrambling a bit to find a mattress and sheets and whatnot for him. We'll be doing a market run later today.
I also have a meeting with an architect friend to talk about plans for our new house. So that's exciting. He's going to start work on some blueprints for us. I'll keep you updated on that as well.
So that's life in Bolivia these days. Thanks for praying everyone!
At any rate, those were interesting days. Waiting in line ups litterally hundreds of vehicles long. Hoping they wouldn't run out before I got there.
We're facing shortages again these days. Only this time it's sugar. That's right...
Sugar.
It's been all over the news lately. Something happened to the sugar cane crops and there are huge shortages of sugar. None of the markets are selling it. If a truckload does show up, there's practically a riot of people trying to secure a bag or two.
Yesterday we heard that our local supermarket had some, so Maribel and I hurried over. Sure enough they did, but they were limiting people's purchases to two bags each (there was a security guard standing by the pallet of sugar bags). We sneakily split up, each grabbed two bags and then went through different check outs. We met back up at the truck. It was quite James Bondish. We watched a mom and her three young kids do the same thing. Once they were out of the store she was like, "Get in the car! GET IN THE CAR!" And then they went burning out of the parking lot.
All in all it's been quite entertaining.
No one knows exactly when the sugar crisis of 2011 will be over, but it doesn't seem any time soon. They're talking about trying to ship some in from Brazil. I'll keep you updated. =)
Sugar is actually one of our main exports, so it's more serious than I'm making it out to be. As a farmer's kid I shouldn't laugh too much. Crop failures can obviously be pretty bad for a lot of people. It's just that the image of that mom trying to smuggle bags of sugar out of the supermarket was pretty funny. =)
One other announcement to make. We have a new guy in the house. Jose Manuel (Andres' younger brother...who I introduced here) has decided to come live with us. We're excited about that. He's a good kid and I know Andres is excited to have him in the house. Because of our strained relationship with the home where Jose Manuel used to live, his leaving was a bit of a difficult process. But it's all good. He showed up just now with his little bag of clothes. He sort of didn't tell me that he was coming until this morning, so now we're scrambling a bit to find a mattress and sheets and whatnot for him. We'll be doing a market run later today.
I also have a meeting with an architect friend to talk about plans for our new house. So that's exciting. He's going to start work on some blueprints for us. I'll keep you updated on that as well.
So that's life in Bolivia these days. Thanks for praying everyone!
2 comments:
Sugar shortage...wow, never expected that today!. Soooo, you can drive around but you...don't have sugar for your tea? Not to downplay it either but how does this affect you guys? Besides the whole covert operation with Mirabel. LOL I understand the economy of it for the country...but how does it affect your house directly? You always have such interesting stuff on here! :0)
It doesn't affect us all that much. The guys like to make juice and use it in their coffee...that kind of thing. It doesn't affect me at all. I don't use it hardly ever.
But for people who bake bread (huge here) or other such things, it's a big problem. Their livelihoods depend on it. So they're worried.
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