Today, my husband and I announced a salary increase to our house staff (three guards, 1 cook, 1 Didi, and 1 driver). The salary increase does not necessarily mean they are doing a good job. We increased it because of the inflation. There was an inflation rate of 7.7 percent.
What is inflation percentage? It is the percentage rate of change in price level over time. This is when your thousand rupees cannot buy you a whole lot of things like it used to be. If you can buy chicken for 250 rupees per kilo before, now it is already 270 to 300 rupees. All commodities are increasing its prices, not to mention those retailers keeping their goods in a padlocked warehouse to create a fake food shortage. How evil is that???
No matter what stage of life you are in, you will always be affected by this price increases. Here in Nepal, it's worst. A big percentage of people in Nepal are not rich. They feel every single centavo of increase in prices. They suffer from it.
One thing more that makes the situation worst here in Nepal is what they call "Bandha" which means close. It is some sort of a big demonstration where all the establishments are being forced to close and all types of transportations are being stopped to function. Yes, it's a hassle. Our house staff have to walk 2 hours just to get to our house and 2 hours again back to their houses. Even if they have a bicycle, sometimes they will encounter demonstrators who will ask them to walk or will take their bike to dismantle or to destroy the tires. And hey, bandha is not a one time thing, it is becoming more and more regular these days. We can have bandha once a week or even 3 days in a row in a week.
Anyway, I'll just talk more about bandhas on my next post. It makes me furious everytime I think about bandha here in Nepal.
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