‘This petrol station is my home now’: Malawi’s fuel crisis forces desperate drivers to queue for days
Originally published by Africa | The Guardian — Read the original article →
Shortages caused by the country’s lack of hard currency have escalated into a national emergency, with drivers waiting for a fuel tanker that may never arrive
From the driver’s seat of his rusted minibus, Sido Sombeja stares out at a stationary sea of rear lights stretching for almost a mile down the road. It is 3am in Zomba, the old capital of Malawi, and cold night air comes through the cracked windscreen. For eight consecutive days and nights, the 40-year-old father of four has lived out of this vehicle, waiting for a fuel tanker that may never arrive.
Sombeja chews on a cold piece of fried mandazi – a doughy snack that has been the only food available. The Meru petrol station is no longer just a place of transit; it has transformed into a makeshift village of drivers in parked vehicles. In these queues, strangers form uneasy alliances. Motorists group together to guard one another’s vehicles during rare bathroom breaks, and coordinate to aggressively block any queue-jumpers. Men sleep under the bellies of trucks. They wash their faces with bottled water on the kerbside and gather around charcoal braziers (mbaula) at night.