This story is part of a series of portraits exploring how the cost of living crisis is affecting people around the world.
Colombo, Sri Lanka- Mohamed Rajabdeen’s yellow four-wheel mini truck, known locally as a tempo, is parked on a corner of Colombo’s Pettah Market, one of the city’s busiest shopping districts. The back of his vehicle opens on three sides, also becoming a concession stand, from which he sells a mix of first-hand and second-hand items.
He points to a large gray toolbox nestled among wrenches, wires, and car jacks. “See this?” he asks. “Before, it was LKR5,000 or LKR6,000 ($14 or $17). Now? It’s 10,000 LKR ($28). I bought it months ago and it hasn’t been sold yet. Previously you could sell up to three per week.
Sri Lanka has been reeling under a severe economic crisis since March. Petrol and diesel supplies are limited, and kilometer-long fuel lines have become common in the capital. Inflation has affected both consumer goods and food. Experts blame a variety of factors: mounting debt, a drop in tourism and foreign remittances, and political mismanagement.
“The situation in our country is very bad,” says Rajabdeen. “No measures are being taken to control inflation.” Like millions of others on the island nation, the 35-year-old’s life and business have been affected. “How to manage?” he asks with a disconsolate shrug, dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt with a bag containing cash hanging from his waist. There are no easy answers.
Since he was a child, Rajabdeen has worked on and off with his father, whom he calls the “boss”. The older man, 62, sits nearby in a shirt and sarong looking over the front table that is also stacked with items, including sockets, locks, screwdrivers and pliers.
The market is relatively busy, although nothing compared to what it was before the crisis. Still, the rains have mostly stopped, and people are busy, buying electronics, fruits, clothes, and other trinkets. The duo come here almost daily to sell their wares. But sales have been down for the past few months.
“Customers don’t have money, they buy less,” says Rajabdeen, who finished school but never went to university. As the oldest child in the family, he had to quickly enter the workforce to help support others.
Food: ‘We have to think twice’
Food inflation reached 80 percent in June, and at least six million Sri Lankans are food insecure, according to the World Food Program. From salt to rice, Rajabdeen says all staple foods are prohibitively expensive. Daily life has become a series of careful recalibrations, from dietary changes to lifestyle changes.
“Because the prices of vegetables have gone up, we cook them less,” he says. He no longer eats chicken every day. “Meat is expensive. If we take a day off from work, then we can’t afford to eat chicken that day.” Gone are the days of barbecuing at home. “Now we have to think twice.”
Rajabdeen no longer starts and ends the day with a glass of fresh milk as often as it used to. Because the price of 750 ml of fresh milk has risen from 220 to 490 Sri Lankan rupees ($0.61 to $1.36), she says he now drinks only 10 percent of the amount he used to drink before. . Although most people make do with powdered milk, Rajabudeen wants none of it. He grew up with easy access to the best milk, thanks to a relative who owned a dairy farm and won’t give it up entirely.
As a coffee drinker, he winces when asked about tea, Sri Lanka’s number one export and the world’s second most consumed beverage. “When you mix tea with milk, it’s not as good.”
It’s not just what Rajabdeen eats that has changed, but also how. Gas supplies for cooking are difficult to obtain; Meandering lines of people sitting with their gas cylinders have become commonplace. In his house, all the cooking is done in an electric rice cooker, which is normally, as the name suggests, used to make rice. It is now more of an all-purpose magic pot that is used to cook different things. “Everyone is doing that,” he laughs, “a lot of times we do biryani. It’s a one-time meal.”
Are you hungry sometimes? “Somehow we manage, we try to control our hunger. How to eat? Where is the money? Business has been slow, hasn’t it? he answers. Items like cookies and chocolates now feel like luxuries and have been removed from the shopping list.
Though not much of a sweet eater, her children have a sweet tooth, one she has had little opportunity to indulge in lately. He points to the store on a corner near the entrance to the market. “Do you see Bombay Sweets?” he asks. Inside, behind its glass panels, squares and diamonds of white, cream and green candy sit neatly on metal trays. “Ask them, they know me,” he continues. “I used to be his favorite customer. Every day I used to buy something from there.” He bought Ladoos, and just about anything, he laughs. Now these indulgences feel out of reach.
Black market fuel, high electricity costs
The fight for fuel is also daily and permanent. Rajabdeen faces the same challenges as his compatriots. “There is no proper infrastructure to distribute fuel,” he says. Fuel costs between 450 and 550 Sri Lankan rupees ($1.25 to $1.53) and is almost impossible to buy unless you stand in line for days. But today he is somewhat happy because he has finally managed to refuel.
He has bought several liters of diesel on the thriving black market, a market that has prospered since the asymmetry between supply and demand has come to dominate the country. A month ago, he paid 1,000 Sri Lankan rupees for a liter ($2.78), but now it has skyrocketed to 3,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($8.34). “We talked to so many people, and with great difficulty we managed to do it,” he says.
His father was skeptical at first when they bought the fuel, not knowing if it was of good quality. They own two vans, including the tempo used for business, and a three-wheeler. The last time he used the tricycle was three months ago. He occasionally buys small amounts of fuel for this vehicle, but not to ride it. “We use it just to keep cranking the engine, to keep it going. We keep it in the same place,” he says.
His father often sleeps in the market because they can’t afford to bring his rhythm home every day; meanwhile, Rajabdeen travels 10 km (6 mi) round trip in each direction.
Rajabdeen has worked on the railways and in the textile industry, but for now she prefers to work with her father. He also has his own business ideas, although at the moment he has few resources to carry them out. “This is not my life,” he says. “I have big ideas and big plans.”
It starts to rain and Rajabdeen hurries to tear down a plastic sheet to protect their goods. He then quickly pulls out his electric bill, tracing the increasing numbers with his finger. He counts up to 835 Sri Lankan rupees ($2.32) during the last month, more than the usual 500 Sri Lankan rupees ($1.39). Arrears are also piling up.
Although there are frequent power outages, lasting up to four hours a day, managing electricity use is a challenge in itself. “We use the fan less and turn off the refrigerator at night,” he says.
‘Let’s hope’
The crisis has also pushed Rajabdeen’s wife, hitherto a homemaker, into the workforce. “How to do it in another way? How to manage? “He asks. She Now she goes to work in other people’s houses.
Her son and two daughters have not been to school in weeks. The government ordered the closure of schools in several areas during the crisis due to power cuts and shortages of fuel to transport children. “The children are so sad that the school is closed,” she says.
The country is also facing a severe shortage of medicines. Rajabdeen takes tablets to control his diabetes, but this has become irregular recently. “How to buy?” he asks. A combination of lack of fuel, drug shortages in government hospitals, and time constraints have led him to neglect his health.
But his ills did not begin this year with the economic crisis. COVID-19 was also a terrible time, with business shutting down and thinning out. And the roots of his cynicism go back even further. In April 2019, gunmen bombed a number of churches and hotels in and around Colombo. The Easter attacks, as they became known, killed 269 people. A wave of Islamophobia followed, fueled by some voices from the hardline Buddhist majority. “We face many problems. [The majority] campaigned and said don’t buy our [Muslim community’s] food, don’t buy our groceries, don’t come to our hotels,” recalls Rajabdeen. The country’s population is approximately 9.7 percent Muslim and 70 percent majority Buddhist.
What remains of the future of the country? “Dead,” says Rajabdeen. “But let’s hope for the best.”
He used to be a movie buff once, he shares, he often went to the cinema to watch movies, but now he has other responsibilities.
Thinking of the movies brings a smile to her face as she recalls a chance event from not too long ago. In April, when the protests began in Colombo’s Galle Face Green, Rajabdeen was queuing with his yellow tricycle, a vehicle he bought in 1987. A member of the film crew for an upcoming sports biopic saw him and approached him. Could they use it for their shoot? they asked.
Later, Rajabdeen also got a small cameo in the film, playing a soldier. He smiles as he shows off his green army cap, an accessory from the set that he managed to take home. It was a rare and exciting opportunity, perhaps one that would not have come had it not been for the peculiar circumstances of queuing for refueling. “God gave me this opportunity,” he smiles.
This reportage was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation.