Lines in Venezuela become stage for everyday life
The average Venezuelan spends 35 hours waiting to buy basic goods each month. As the lines grow longer, they increasingly become a stage for everyday life. Venezuela’s vast oil wealth once fueled a bustling economy, but years of government mismanagement ground much of the nation’s production to a halt, and the country grew dependent on imports.
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- In this May 5, 2016 photo, Irama Carrero is aided by fellow shoppers after fainting in a food line outside a grocery store, in the afternoon in Caracas, Venezuela. Carrero, who said she hadn’t eaten that day, had spent hours staring blankly ahead in the line for the elderly when her gaze suddenly became more fixed. She tilted backward and no one broke her fall. Her head smacked the concrete and when she came to she started vomiting. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016 photo, Madeley Vasquez, 16, breast feeds her one-year-old son Joangel as she waits in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. Vasquez once ran down the block to avoid getting caught up in a knife fight that broke out when a woman was accused of cutting the line. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Monday, July 4, 2016 photo, Eder Noriega, 25, teaches numbers to his 3-year-old son Santiago as they wait in line to buy food outside a supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela. As lines in this South American country grow longer they have become a stage for everyday life. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016 photo, Adelaida Ospina shades herself with her bag as she waits in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. The average Venezuelan spends 35 hours waiting to buy basic goods each month. Ospina said she arrived at 5:40am. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Monday, May 2, 2016 photo, a pregnant woman waits in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. At some stores, pregnant women and the elderly get their own priority lines, but not at this store. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016 photo, people show their national ID cards as they wait in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. All Venezuelans, including children, are assigned two shopping days a week based on their state ID number. Some use fake IDs to score extra shopping days. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016 photo, people wait in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. The country’s vast oil wealth once fueled a bustling economy, but years of government mismanagement ground much of the nation’s production to a halt, and the country grew dependent on imports. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Wednesday, June 8, 2016 file photo, a man waiting in line at a grocery store argues with a Bolivarian National Police officer as he and others wait for food to arrive to the store in Caracas, Venezuela. “As the economy breaks down, life is telescoping to be just lines,” said Datanalisis president Luis Vicente Leon. “You have masses of people in the streets competing for scarce goods. You’re inevitably going to get conflict, fights, tricks, you name it.” (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)
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- In this early Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015 file photo, a man rests in his car while in line outside the Duncan car battery store in Caracas, Venezuela. The number of batteries for sale is limited and changes daily while customers, some who are turned away, must bring their cars with them. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)
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- In this Monday, July 4, 2016 photo, people wait in line to buy food outside a supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela. The extent of the country’s economic collapse can be measured in the length of the lines snaking through every neighborhood. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016 photo, people wait in line to buy food outside a supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela. Prices have been driven impossibly high by scarcity, hoarding and black market resellers, forcing Venezuelans to line up again and again for subsidized goods, not always knowing what they’ll get when they finally reach the front. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Thursday, June 2, 2016 photo, a woman kicks the shield of a National Guard soldier as other demonstrators push during a food protest a few blocks from Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela. Clashes broke out after people waiting for hours at a nearby grocery store learned a food supply truck was turned away. The shoppers got as close to the presidential palace as they could, and were joined by other demonstrators. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)
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- In this June 1, 2016 file photo, a woman holding a baby looks at police in riot gear standing guard as she and others wait outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. As Venezuela’s lines have grown longer and more dangerous, they have become not only the stage for everyday life, but a backdrop to death. More than two dozen people have been killed in line in the past 12 months. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)
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- In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016, photo, sixteen-year-old Madeley Vasquez stands with her one-year-old son Joangel outside a supermarket as she waits to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. Joangel was still experimenting with tentative steps when it came time for his mother to buy her two bags of rice and two packets of toilet paper. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016 photo, sixteen-year-old Madeley Vasquez holds her one-year-old son Joangel as her mother Sorena carries a box of food out of the supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela, after spending over eight hours in line to buy one box of food. Sorena quit her job cleaning houses so she could spend more time waiting with her grandson and daughter to buy food. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016 photo, a woman holds her head as she waits in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. Nine out of 10 people here say they can’t buy enough to eat, according to a study by Simon Bolivar University. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Friday, July 8, 2016 photo, a woman waits in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. Shortages now top voters lists of concerns, surpassing even safety. That’s stunning in a country with one of the world’s highest murder rates. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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- In this Friday, July 8, 2016 photo, a woman sleeps as she sits on the stool she brought with her, as she waits in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. All shoppers are limited to two units of whatever is on offer. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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[…] their Big Macs, and rolling blackouts are a regular occurrence. The average person spends over 35 hours a month waiting in line to buy their rationed goods, and even basics like toilet paper and […]
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[…] for their Big Macs, and rolling blackouts are a regular occurrence. The average person spends over 35 hours a month waiting in line to buy their rationed goods, and even basics like toilet paper and […]