avatarAraci Almeida

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Inflation

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Temperature is increasing, just like inflation. But our patience may be on the verge of collapse.

Did it work?

Ok, it’s just three or four minutes. I am trying with words and with pictures. Whatever right?

Know I will be talking about the ridiculous thing happening in Portugal. Stay for a while if you care.

This was a long weekend in Portugal, three days of rest, but the heat is going up, especially for those who live in the interior.

We headed to the beach during these days, where we spent time in a camping park to rest and escape the hellish temperatures.

The place:

A park with half a dozen bungalows. A Spanish neighbor traveling with his dog Dana, an elderly French couple, and others, and a swimming pool.

We exchanged international conversations.

“ Amazing,” said our Spanish neighbor.

“Going to the supermarket here is absurd. Everything is just too expensive! It is also in Spain but here even more, and your minimum wage is less.”

Between conversations, he tells us that in Spain, the minimum wage already exceeds 1000 euros a month, while here, it is a mere 700 Euros!

We I did the counts: 23 euros a day for 8 hours, and that’s what we get in Portugal.

We bought seven peaches, and only that cost us 5 euros!

“I don’t know how people manage to live,” he continued while I agreed at every word he said.

Later, I chat in my rusty French, the same conversation.

They told me the same thing, even more perplexed, how surprised they were by the prices here in our supermarkets.

“ Oui, le pays bon marché ne l’est plus.” ( the cheap country is no longer cheap) I said to them, feeling very angry about the whole thing.

As we said goodbye after three lovely days, the unknown Spanish man comes for the last dialogue:

It’s the war, it was covid, whatever, it’s inflation… but how can anyone live this way?” he asks.

“ We don’t live. We survive!”I say.

“How long will this go on without a revolution?” he asks us.

We don’t know.

“But when it does, it will explode in a tremendous blast,” said my husband with our bag on his back, also thinking about where to put diesel on our car as we headed back home.

  • Tomorrow, 13th June 2022, diesel prices will go up again, 12 cents per liter, again, like last week.
  • The liberalism so coveted by some patricians is in plain sight.
  • A bag of nothing from the supermarket costs a week of work!
  • My mother must clean toilets for more than one hour to eat some peaches.

“Sun and heat and half of the vacationers!” I vented out.

Of course,” said my husband. With the price of fuel, do you think that traveling from the interior to the beach is for everyone? Some are left to roast in the heat, and those who can get away, they do. Like us,” he said. “But we also cannot do this very often.”

We reached the countryside, and our flat has turned into a greenhouse during these three days.

The heat is going up, but it’s not only in the temperature.

Until when will we all , Portuguese or not, put up with this order of things?

Hello, I’m Araci, a female writer from Portugal navigating her thirties. If you have enjoyed this article, maybe you would like to buy me a coffee here https://ko-fi.com/joanaaraci

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Inflation
Portugal
Life
Survival
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