When food prices surge, poor families suddenly find themselves

Host: The marketplace was closing. The air still carried the mingled smells of ripe mangoes, fried bread, and the acrid sting of diesel smoke. The vendors’ voices—once sharp, once alive—had dimmed to tired murmurs. The sunset lay low across the city’s sprawl, bleeding orange light over the rows of half-empty stalls, where wilted vegetables clung to their last dignity.

Host: Jack stood near a fruit cart, holding a bruised banana, turning it slowly between his fingers. His shirt sleeves were rolled, his face half-lit, half-worn. Jeeny stood beside him, a small notebook in hand, her eyes moving—not across the prices, but across the people. A woman with three children haggling for rice. A man counting coins with trembling hands.

Host: The evening wind carried something heavier than dust—an ache you could smell, not name.

Jeeny: reading softly from her notebook “‘When food prices surge, poor families suddenly find themselves unable to afford enough nutritious food. If this happens during the first thousand days of a child's life, the damage to his or her body and mind can be permanent.’ —Ban Ki-moon.”

Jack: quietly “Permanent.” He looks at the banana. “That’s the cruelest word in that sentence.”

Jeeny: “It is. Because it means the hunger outlives the meal.”

Jack: gruffly “It’s strange how a statistic can sound so polite. ‘First thousand days.’ Makes it sound measurable. Predictable. But what’s really being counted is loss.”

Jeeny: “It’s not just loss. It’s inheritance. Hunger doesn’t end with the child—it passes on, like a language.”

Host: The wind picked up a torn plastic bag, sending it fluttering across the street—a pale, fragile thing trying to fly.

Jack: “You ever notice how food prices rise like tides, but the poor never seem to float?”

Jeeny: “Because they’re not given boats, Jack. Just promises.”

Jack: “And empty bowls.”

Jeeny: nods, voice tightening “Do you know what happens when a child goes without the right food for too long? It’s not just hunger. It’s their brain—the connections don’t form. Their body forgets how to grow.”

Jack: “You sound like a doctor.”

Jeeny: “No. Just a woman who’s seen a child faint in class because he hadn’t eaten breakfast. A teacher who learned that the world’s greatest test isn’t math—it’s malnutrition.”

Host: Her voice was calm, but her eyes—dark, unwavering—burned with quiet fury. The light from a nearby stall flickered, catching the gold in her irises, turning conviction into something almost holy.

Jack: “You always turn tragedy into poetry.”

Jeeny: “Because if I don’t, I’d drown in it.”

Jack: pauses, then softly “Ban Ki-moon was right. The damage is permanent. You can see it in their eyes—the children. It’s not just hunger. It’s the hollow where possibility should have been.”

Jeeny: “And yet we keep calling it a crisis, as if it comes and goes. It’s not a crisis—it’s a condition.”

Jack: “A global chronic disease.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. One we refuse to treat because it doesn’t affect our reflection.”

Host: A small boy passed by them, barefoot, carrying a plastic bucket filled with melted ice and the ghosts of what had been fruit popsicles. He didn’t look at them, didn’t ask for coins. Just walked, as if searching for something he’d already learned wasn’t there.

Jack: “You think it’s just food prices? Or something deeper?”

Jeeny: “Deeper. It’s about value. The world decided that profit feeds faster than people.”

Jack: “You think there’s any hope left in fixing that?”

Jeeny: closes her notebook “Hope doesn’t feed anyone, Jack. It just keeps them from starving spiritually while they starve physically.”

Jack: “So what do we do instead?”

Jeeny: “We make it impossible to look away.”

Host: Her voice was firm now, each word deliberate—like laying bricks. Jack studied her face, the faint streak of fatigue near her eyes, the steadiness that refused to fade.

Jack: “You think awareness is enough?”

Jeeny: “No. But awareness is the spark. Revolutions don’t start in the stomach—they start in the conscience.”

Jack: “That’s easy to say until you’re hungry.”

Jeeny: “Then say it louder, especially when you’re hungry.”

Jack: “You sound like you’ve been hungry before.”

Jeeny: quietly “Everyone has been hungry for something. Food. Fairness. A future.”

Host: A pause, heavy as the air before rain. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang—slow, mournful, as if tolling for someone no one could name.

Jack: “You know what breaks me about that quote? It’s not the hunger. It’s the first thousand days. There’s something sacred about that number—like it’s the world’s quiet promise to every newborn: ‘You’ll have a chance.’ And then the world breaks it.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because hunger steals time before a child can even measure it.”

Jack: “You think the damage really is permanent?”

Jeeny: “Science says yes. But I think the human spirit still finds cracks to grow through.”

Jack: softly “You really believe that?”

Jeeny: “I have to. Otherwise, what’s the point of fighting?”

Host: The market lights flickered out one by one. The world was reduced to silhouettes—the stalls, the carts, the tired faces—outlined against the dim glow of streetlamps.

Jack: “You ever notice how hunger has a sound?”

Jeeny: “Yes. It’s silence. The silence of a parent pretending they’ve already eaten.”

Jack: “And you think words can fix that silence?”

Jeeny: “No. But words can break it.”

Jack: nodding slowly “Maybe that’s where healing begins—not with food, but with someone finally listening.”

Jeeny: “Listening leads to action. Action leads to change. Change feeds.”

Host: A faint rain began—soft, persistent, blurring the edges of the night. The boy with the bucket turned a corner and vanished into it. The puddles shimmered with reflected light, small pools of color where the world’s exhaustion met its hope.

Jack: after a long pause “You know… I used to think hunger was just about food. Now I think it’s about belonging. The world keeps some people at the table and tells the rest to wait outside.”

Jeeny: “That’s why Ban Ki-moon called it permanent. Because it’s not just about biology—it’s about exclusion. Starvation of the body begins with starvation of empathy.”

Jack: quietly “You think we’ll ever learn?”

Jeeny: “Only if we stop measuring success in numbers and start measuring it in children who don’t go to bed hungry.”

Host: They stood in silence then—two silhouettes beneath the market’s awning, the rain falling in soft applause around them.

Host: Beyond the stalls, the city’s heartbeat continued—muted, uneven, but alive.

Host: Jeeny’s voice broke the quiet one last time.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack, sometimes the smallest mercy isn’t a meal—it’s the promise of one. The belief that someone, somewhere, still cares enough to feed the world before it forgets how to feel.”

Host: He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The look between them was enough—a shared grief, a shared will.

Host: And as the rain eased, and the market slept, the night carried their silence upward—part prayer, part protest—both heavier and holier than words could ever be.