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LIVING THROUGH CRISES
have eaten. Even these items became more costly in 2009 during the latter period of the first food spike as the middle and lower-middle classes also started to resort to some of these foods. Women in Notun Bazaar said they did not expect to eat meat other than during one of the two main Eid festivals. In both rural and urban Bangladesh, however, poor people complained that they got poorer cuts and smaller quantities of meat after Eid-ul-Azha, suggesting a source of charity that was in decline:6 “After I prepared the meat this year, my employer stored it all in the freezer, and gave me just bones and fats. They are still eating it after nearly one year.” Housemaid in Notun Bazaar, February 2009
There was also some rationing or prioritizing of who eats first and best. As in past crises and as is usual in poor households in general, it was sometimes reported that women were eating only after all other household members had been fed: “While cooking, I try to use less rice. Because if I can save some, I will be able to use it for another day. I always try to make sure that the male members have enough to eat. They are working hard and they need food to perform their laborious jobs. Then I try to feed the children. We [the female members of the family] eat the remaining food. Well, this is not enough. But what can I do? How can I give less food to my children? They need fish, meat, milk, and eggs, and we cannot provide them. The only thing that I can feed them is rice and if I cannot give them enough of that, how will they live?” Woman in Naogaon, February 2011
That women should always and automatically eat last was not heard from all households or all women, as had been expected. One response that had not been anticipated was that parents jointly prioritized their children’s food and ate only after the children had been adequately fed. Although the evidence from these two community case studies is limited in what it can suggest about the wider population, the prioritization of children’s food over that of parents seemed to be more common in circumstances where men were not in unusually physically demanding manual occupations (such as agricultural wage labor or rickshaw-pulling). Another reason may be that feeding children was more of a priority in households in which children’s education was seen as an investment, such as households employed in the garments sector, which requires more education than other