Since COVID-19 food has been too expensive and I get heartache every time I go food shopping because I have to care for my family and end up penniless a few days after payday. I’m able to buy what is needed at the moment, though I always worry about losing my job and not being able to provide for them.
I live in Umlazi, outside Durban, with my siblings and my sons and I send money to uMtwalume, my family home, for my mom to buy food for herself and my brother’s kids who stay with her. We spend R4000 a month to feed 6 people in Umlaz and I send R2000 home for my mom, who combines that with her pension and the kids’ social grant money to buy food for home.
In general, our diet has less fresh fruit and vegetables because I go grocery shopping once a month. I’ve added a lot of ginger, lemon and pepper to our monthly grocery shopping so that I can make make a drink to boost my immune system. I try to drink this every day after work.
I have not been able to start a vegetable garden, though it’s in my heart to plant a little vegetable patch in our garden. Unfortunately, most of the time I’m tired and too stressed from work pressure to work on a garden and I always come home late from work.
I skip a lot of meals so that there’s enough for my kids, especially not eating many fruits because they need to eat them and take one fruit to school a day.
