A kilo of pasta gets you a packet of diapers. A bag of flour buys a bottle of shampoo.
Short on basic supplies, Venezuelans have reverted to ancient shopping habits: bartering whatever they have.
However, the tools of the trade are right out of the 21st century: WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
With food and toiletries in ever shorter supply, their smartphones are helping them survive.
“I have diapers, I will exchange them for a kilo of pasta,” a message on one group on the messaging app WhatsApp said.
It is one of hundreds on the “Puerta del Bosque Swap Shop,” a group of 250 neighbors in Guatire, east of Caracas.
Countless groups like it buzz with messages on various online networks.
“I only have flour. I’ll swap it for sanitary napkins,” one message read.
“My baby has no milk, I need some,” another said.
Teaching assistant Plalla Alvarez, 34, said she shares groups with about 400 neighbors on WhatsApp and a further 600 on Facebook.
“We have forgotten what it was like to chat about other matters. All we talk about now is how to get hold of food, toiletries and medicine,” she said. “People are bartering like this all around the country.”
Venezuela’s economy has plunged in line with the price of the crude oil exports on which it relies, as the government’s state-led economy sputters from shortage to shortage.
The situation has worsened in recent months due to inflation and the devaluation of its bolivar currency.
For the best part of two years, citizens have had to line up at supermarkets to buy rations of subsidized goods.
“I don’t have children, but when I queue up and find there are diapers that day, I buy them and exchange them for things I need, like sugar and soap,” said Jophelin Primera, organizer of one online bartering group.
A survey last month by polling firm Datanalisis estimated 80 percent of food goods were in short supply.
As scarcity has risen, so has the black market. Rogue retailers buy up rationed goods and sell them at a markup.
That practice is banned in the online bartering groups.
“The idea is not to make money, but to keep yourself supplied,” said Primera, a 30-year-old computer specialist.
There are also set hours for exchanging messages so members are not disturbed by the constant beeping of their phones.
“The administrator of the group watches that no one breaks the rules,” Primera said.
One Facebook group, “United Moms,” specializes in baby bottles, formula milk, wet wipes and the like.
In others, users swap hardship cooking tips.
“We have to improvise, so we also share recipes: homemade tomato sauce, how to make a cake without flour or eggs or butter,” Primera said.
Venezuela’s minimum wage is 35,000 bolivars — about US$60 at the official exchange rate or US$35 at black market rates. A bag of flour from a black market retailer costs 2,000 bolivars.
Users of the online swap shops tend to hand over their goods in public to avoid being tricked and robbed.
“We make an agreement on WhatsApp or Facebook, we send each other photos or tell each other how we will be dressed” at the meet-up, Primera said.
“It’s all very well to barter, but it’s bad that we should have to resort to that to subsist,” she said. “That’s disappointing, and sad.”
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