Global Courant
Anahí Robledo, a devoted housekeeper, runs a communal kitchen in a poverty-stricken neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, feeding fifty families every day. The kitchen is a lifeline for many families affected by the chronic inflation that pushes four out of ten people into poverty in Argentina. Argentina is grappling with a severe economic crisis, with inflation expected to reach around 150% by the end of 2023.
Anahí Robledo feeds 50 families every day in the communal kitchen she runs in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, struggling with chronic inflation that has pushed four out of ten people in the country into poverty.
Argentina is facing an economic crisis, which could push inflation to around 150% by the end of the year, one of the highest rates in the world.
Robledo said the soup kitchen where she works can’t keep up: it went from feeding 10 or 15 families to about 50 today.
“You can’t keep track of how many dishes we have to make for so many people,” says Robledo, a 47-year-old housekeeper who volunteers while kneading bread.
“It saddens me because nothing has changed and everything is getting worse. I wish every family would have a plate of food on the table to eat with their kids and not have to come to a soup kitchen,” she said.
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Argentina has long struggled with high inflation, currency weakness and debt, but high world prices linked to the war in Ukraine and one of the country’s worst droughts on record have eroded its ability to stabilize its economy.
Argentina’s official statistical office will release official inflation data for May later Wednesday, with analysts predicting a monthly increase of 8.8%, even faster than the 8.4% jump a month earlier. The annual rate is already 109%.
A customer counts money before purchasing tangerines at a green grocery store as Argentines struggle amid rising inflation, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 11, 2023. (REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/File Photo)
To get the growing amount of food they need, Robledo goes to a large market on the outskirts of Buenos Aires to rummage through discarded fruits and vegetables and salvage what she can find.
“We go to the wholesale market and from there we get the vegetables. When the guys come out to throw them away, we take them, clean them, chop them and freeze them,” she said.
As in other soup kitchens in the country of 46 million people, many children come to get food.
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“Why is there such a need? It’s like something is failing, you see? We’re worse off than before,” Robledo said as she served rice pudding to a girl in a cut-open plastic bottle.
“How do you tell people there’s nothing left for them?”
