When the Pension Stays Fixed in Cape Verde

A fixed pension is a promise about the number, not about what the number buys.

By Neil Solomon · 2 min read

Picture a couple named Ruth and Anselm. They have a pension that arrives on the same day every month, in the same amount. When they first looked at Cape Verde, the question that mattered to them was simple: what does that pension buy there?

That question comes up again and again among people who are thinking about the islands. I think it is the right first question. It is also only the first one.

The first year and the fifth year

A fixed pension is a promise about the number, not about what the number buys. In the first year, most people are watching the market stalls, the rent and the small treats, and the sums look kind. In the fifth year, they are watching something different. The same bags of groceries cost a little more. The landlord mentions a new figure. A flight home is a bigger piece of the month than it used to be.

None of this is a fault of the place. It is how a fixed amount behaves anywhere. What stands out to me is that on a small island, a lot of goods arrive from far away, so people often feel changes in price more directly. I cannot give you numbers for that. I can only say that readers who live on islands tend to describe it as something they notice at the till.

What people say they watch

When people describe a squeeze, they rarely describe one big bill. They describe many small ones that have crept up together. Rent, food, the electric bill, the trip to see family. Each one is easy to explain away. Together they change the feel of the month.

Ruth and Anselm talk about it over coffee.

"We still have money left at the end of the month," Anselm says.

"We have less left than we did," Ruth says. "I would like to know how much less, and by when."

That last sentence is, I think, the whole skill. Not to worry in general, but to name how much less and by when.