Ibiciro by'ibiryo birahenze: Food is Expensive

Muraho mwese! It's now been about 11 months since my adventure began, and it's time for another blog post. As you've probably heard or read recently, there has been a large drought and subsequent food shortage in East Africa (Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia), and what food there is is being sold at much higher prices, making it difficult for people to eat. Well, there is no food shortage here, but Rwanda, too, is experiencing higher food prices, and that is the topic of this post.

When I got to Rwatano in January after swearing in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, one of the things I was armed with was a knowledge of foods and numbers in Kinyarwanda. Peace Corps wanted to ensure that we wouldn't starve out on our own without three square meals being provided for us, so I knew how to say “How much is one kilogram of pork?” (Ikilo cy'inyama z'ingurube ni angahe?) or, for the nights when I wanted something “on the go”, “I would like 2 brochettes” (Ndashaka brochette ebyiri), among other things. Of course, every living situation is different, and since I live with a couple of other teachers, I never had to put my food and price skills to much use (especially since one of my house mates is a woman and it's traditionally the woman's job to take care of household duties like cooking and cleaning (similar to traditional roles in the U.S., although things are changing a bit, especially in the cities). On top of my house mates, we also hired a domestic worker (umukozi) to cook and clean, so I was really out of the loop when it came to the market and food.

So, imagine my surprise when I heard my house mates and umukozi animatedly discussing the rise in prices of things such as sugar and flour (see, my Kinyarwanda skills did come in handy). When I asked them what was going on, they explained to me that food prices were going up, sometimes significantly. For example, when I first arrived in Rwatano a kilogram of sugar cost Rwf 600 (about $1), but the price recently reached Rwf 1200, double the old price only eight months later. Now, as much as my house mates insist that we can't do without sugar for our porridge, it's hardly what I would consider a necessity. What is more alarming is the price of staple foods like rice, which increased in price over the same period from Rwf 400 to Rwf 700 per kilogram. Other prices that I know have increased are green bananas (ibitoki), which increased from about Rwf 1200 per large bunch to Rwf 1500 and, horror of horrors, beer, with Primus, the ubiquitous national beer increasing in price from Rwf 600 to Rwf 700 per 72-cl bottle and Mutzig, another light lager, increasing from Rwf 800 to Rwf 900 per 65-cl bottle.

The cause for these price increases are numerous, although it appears that the root cause of most of them is an increase in oil prices. It simply costs more to transport the rice, sugar, and beer, so it has to be sold at a higher price. As for ibitoki, they come from any one of the thousands of trees in the area, travelling on someone's head, but that someone has to pay the higher prices for his/her food, and so increases the price of the bananas. I found the cause for the increase in the price of sugar in an article I read recently which I'm going to read to the other teachers as part of their English training. In an article on AllAfrica.com, posted on September 7, 2011, Ivan R. Mugisha tells how Kabuye Sugar Works, which is the only sugar manufacturer in Rwanda, cut their supply by 50% due to a shortage of raw materials. This increased the price from Rwf 800 per kilogram to Rwf 1200, until a tariff on sugar imported from outside the East African Community was lifted and the government and traders agreed to a price of Rwf 800 (though I don't know if that price has reached my village yet).

As the moves taken by the government to help stabilize the price of sugar show, there are actions being taken to prevent a food crisis here, and we are certainly not in a dire food situation. That being said, however, the price increases which are relatively small in my mind represent gigantic hurdles to others, who must decide what to cut from their diets or stretch an already-meagre budget and go about their days with emptier stomachs. A food crisis it's not, but nor is it a food utopia.

For me, I'll keep eating with or without sugar in my porridge. Next month, I'll write some more about food and how we find it and cook it (another request from Nannie). Until then, murabeho!