The picnic game

_{peter-facebook / Pixabay}

A few months ago I was reading an article on the Anadolu Agency website that motivated me to follow more closely the trends in Europe with the economic crisis generated by Covid-19, the tensions and mismanagement as a bloc and within countries, and recently the war between Russia and Ukraine. The headline pointed to how the cost of living in Germany was putting more children at risk of poverty.

Bernd Siggelkow, founder of Arche, a charity, said:

More and more people are coming to us, asking for support... It seems that nobody will do anything until a child dies of hunger in Germany.

He even copied one of the classic expressions from the left discourse, which anyone seasoned in LATAM politics will be able to identify: “Many people are working for low wages. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer”. He also stated that “[if] prices keep going up like this, more and more children will go to school without having any breakfast”.

A little less than a month later, I read another article in The Guardian, but this one focused on the crisis in England. The lead was very hard to read, and pointed to reports from headteachers across the country:

Children are so hungry that they are eating rubbers or hiding in the playground because they can’t afford lunch...

In another segment from the article we read:

One school in Lewisham, south-east London, told the charity about a child who was “pretending to eat out of an empty lunchbox” because they did not qualify for free school meals and did not want their friends to know there was no food at home.

Naomi Duncan, chief executive of Chefs in Schools, noted:

Kids are coming in having not eaten anything since lunch the day before. The government has to do something...

It’s absolutely heartbreaking for our chefs. They are actively going out and finding the kids who are hiding in the playground because they don’t think they can get a meal, and feeding them.

And I learned there that teachers even buy “toasters so that they can dish out breakfast to children who are too hungry to concentrate”.

We can't see the light yet

New data have emerged in recent days that point to the crisis being here to stay. Check this out from UK:

... figures from the retail analysts Kantar showed grocery price inflation in the UK hit a fresh record high of 16.7% in the four weeks to 22 January, adding nearly £800 to the typical annual shopping bill, with the price of milk, eggs and dog food rising fastest.

Now look to this shocking lead from Emma Bubola in The New York Times:

When her two sons ask for snacks she can no longer afford, Aislinn Corey, a preschool teacher in London, lays down a blanket on the floor and plays “the picnic game.” She takes an orange or an apple collected from her preschool’s food bank and slices it in thirds to be shared.

“We do it as an activity,” she said. “So they don’t know that mummy is struggling.”

So London, or Europe, we have a problem.

_{Produce at a Berlin food bank}

My opinion

These are real problems, with real people and situations portrated. And I of course dislike those but this is the right approach, when we can go beyond the numbers. These problems aren't new, they've been there for a long time, taking away the ability of many people to get ahead. What is new is that this prolonged crisis has dragged more and more individuals —previously welcomed directly by the welfare state or capturing part of its spillover effect— into the domain of scarcity. So there's no way that what is happening doesn't have a higher level of exposure.

Look, I write from Cuba, and I can't present this to many of my colleagues, friends or fellow countrymen. I can't show them how the crisis is really affecting even in the wealthy Europe —let alone to talk about the United States—, or talk that there are estimates warning that every 4 seconds a person dies of hunger. Because people here only want to see our own humongous crisis. Nothing else exists.

I don't blame them at all, but it's not about —in my case— to sugarcoat "my" crisis, the one I perceive and feel as a citizen —or to take responsibility away from the people ruling my country— pointing to the struggle people is facing in other places, but to understand and know the world as it's. Here and everywhere. That's what it's all about.

Thank you for reading me and I'm ready to receive your comments. Have a great day.