Being the resilient lot; we have joked about it, turned our pain into jester, laughed at the possibilities of retaining our lifestyles in such a tough period, but also managed to pull through.
Although it seems like a long year of pain and suffering, it was just a few months ago we landed in the pit of recession and since then the cost of living for both the rich and poor has spiked higher with no means of control or hope of better days soon to come.
Shall we proceed to talk about bus and taxi fares?,Cost of eating at restaurants?, Shopping online? – It almost feels like a dream remembering the days where sales on New Look and Asos meant a shoe rack stock up, now a pair of shoes on sale at 12 pounds is over 6000 Naira – how the mighty has fallen!
I cannot imagine the frustration of waiting for school fees to be paid or even pocket money to be sent let alone coming to terms with the fact that my parents might not be able to pay my school fees any more, and all the years I have spent in school were just for nothing. I cannot fathom how I would accept such tough reality and that just made me think of how this recession has mandated some people to overhaul their lives.
However, we never forget to highlight how the drastic change has impacted our lives. How a bag of rice that used to be between 8-12 thousand Naira now sits between 24-26 thousand Naira, a carton of Indomie you could easily buy for 1200 Naira now retails at over 2000 Naira, let us not talk about the sachet Power Oil that almost drowned us with the jingle ‘power oil sachet, na only 50 Naira pere’, moved on to 70 Naira and it now retails at a whooping 100 Naira.
It was reality check. I had not really thought about it but at that moment I realised how grateful I am to be out of school. It took me back to how upset my mother was, every time I came home with a higher quotation for my school fees due to the rise in exchange rate and that was just Benin Republic here. Let alone the ones who have to deal with the fluctuation in Dollar and Pounds rate.
Of course we have gotten used to the fact that the dog days are here, or maybe it is just me until I saw a tweet yesterday that got me thinking, how life changing this recession indeed is.