DPP: Diesel, Petrol, Palibe

Its 530am. I'm sitting in a petrol queue. Normally I wouldn't queue at 530am, but today I am bitter.

The fuel crisis in Malawi is getting out of hand. Petrol and diesel used to be available on a rotation. There would be no diesel, but petrol, then diesel and no petrol. But, you knew eventually you could get fuel because it would ease off in cycles. Not now. For the last month and a half, there has been no ease. Every time you need fuel, its a struggle. You hear there is fuel or a delivery coming and you RUSH. My friends and I utilise social networks, such as facebook and Blackberry chat to alert one another about fuel availability.

So why am I bitter and sitting in a fuel queue at 530am? Well, its the same fuel queue I sat in last night for 3 hours, and didn't get petrol. I heard from a friend that the Bisnowaty Total station was getting a delivery of fuel in 30mins. So I dropped everything and booted it there. In the 10 minutes it took me to get there, the queue was already quickly growing. I was about 25 cars back - not bad. So, we waited for the tanker to arrive, then about 45 minutes for it to offload its fuel. 3 hours later, I was finally 3 cars back from the pump. The reason that it takes so long to get to the front, is not the number of cars, but the number of people with jerry cans that race to the pumps. Its the fault of the attendants for filling the jerry cans before the cars. But the people with the jerry cans will force their way in, and pay off the attendants to fill their can. It was illegal for sometime to fill jerry cans, which at the time I thought was ridiculous, but now I am totally on board. Especially after I watched a man pull over across the road from where I was queuing, go with a jerry can to the pumps and be back to his car in 10 minutes while I still sat in the queue. I'm not entirely sure if this law is still in place as I have heard conflicting rumours.

Anyway, back to my story, so I was three cars back from the pump. Three hours of queuing was about to pay off. Then all of a sudden, the overhead lights at the filling station mysteriously turn off. We can't blame ESCOM (the Malawi Electricity Company) for this, because it clearly wasn't ESCOM as the street lights were still working, all surrounding lights were still on. Even the filling stations office where they were counting the money was conveniently still on. So the attendants now start refusing to pump fuel even though the pumps are still working. "Its dark, its a security risk. We might get robbed." To put it lightly, this is bullshit. What these places do, is make an excuse to stop selling (in short, they turned off the lights themselves), close down and then sell fuel back door overnight for inflated prices and pocket the extra money. 'Come back tomorrow at 6am.' I was raging. I pushed my way into the office and was yelling, properly yelling. I will not repeat the words I used, but they were colourful to say the least. And I wasn't the only one. The police now show up - because heaven forbid they show up while the station is filling jerry cans illegally (i.e. They are paid off to stay away).

So, here I am: now 630am in the same queue. I've moved about one car length. I'm sure they are once again filling the jerry cans. I can see people pushing cars further up in the line that are completely out of fuel. If I don't get fuel today, I will go on a proper rampage. And when I get up there, they are filling my damn jerry can too.

To explain the title of this post (DPP: Diesel, Petrol, Palibe); this saying has become a joke across the country. The current ruling party led by President Bingu is the DPP. 'Palibe' is the chichewa word that means 'not available' or 'don't have.'

The joys of living in Malawi continue ....