It felt like a long time since I’d last run into Anderson, not since the day the children and I were jumping up in town, celebrating after the election win. When he asked me how things were going, I couldn’t help but let out a heavy sigh. I told him straight: we voted for change, but honestly, things have only gotten harder. As God is my witness, no lie.
Every morning, I get up early, pack me little things, and head down to town to sell. But so many days, I sit there until evening and barely make a dollar to carry home. People walk up, ask for the price, and then just walk away, not because they don’t want to buy, but because they simply don’t have the money, no matter how much I try to work with them.
Inside the supermarkets, food is so darn expensive it makes your head spin. And at home, those shark they call VINLEC keep sending the light bill higher every single month. We do everything we can to burn less current, but it feels like they just want to eat us alive.
When I look at the store prices for simple little things for me and the children, I just want to bawl. Everything keeps going up and up. We voted for change because we truly believed things would get better for poor people like us. They told us better days were coming, but election done, and I’m still waiting. To tell the truth, it feels like they tricked us, plain talk, dirty manners.
Things aren’t getting better for me and my children at all; in fact, it feels worse. Once I pay the bills and cover transport, there’s hardly anything left for food, let alone anything else. Sometimes I’m forced to choose between paying a bill and feeding my children. It’s dog-eat-dog out here right now, real rough and tough. And it’s not just me. Plenty of vendors and ordinary folk are catching real hard times. Everybody is complaining, but it feels like nobody in charge is listening.
We didn’t vote just to put different faces in office; we voted for a better life. Right now, it’s the same old story, or “worserer,” as my neighbor likes to say. Still, God is good, so I keep hoping the government will do right by us, because all of us live here. But they need to stop making excuses and blaming everything on Ralph.
They need to start working to help people like you and me, because right now, Vincy and Grenadines people are crying. Ordinary poor people are bawling, and even people in high and low places are suffering silently. Nearly almost a whole year has gone by just like that, and we haven’t seen a thing done. How much longer do we really have to wait?
