EcoAfrica Social Ventures

Hi everyone

If you have ever wondered what it must be like living in a world without fuel, for those in my circle living in the normal world I thought that a slice of life from fuel-challenged Zimbabwe might be of interest.

With fuel and how to obtain it dominating one’s every move in Zimbabwe, you find yourself in some unexpected situations. You have to see the funny side.

Take yesterday - Friday for example.

We left our mission campus at 2.30 pm. The heat was getting to me and by accident I had left my Zimbabwe Personal Air-Conditioning System at home (T-shirt soaked in cold water and worn till it dries - then soaked again - very effective if you can handle the incredulous looks from all around)

My driver Ivan looks twelve but is actually married with two children. He has a high voice and speaks in both English and Shona at two hundred words a minute. He also has a joyful and optimistic personality. The intention is to go home to Harare and do food shopping on the way. Now we remember the fuel gauge is nearly on empty - not enough to get home let alone last me the weekend.

Twenty two cel-phone redials later we reach our operations director. We are happy - that's quite quick for the normal Zimbabwe network overload. He is en route half way between our paper making operation and the mission. He gives us instructions for a rendezvous at a certain nearby service station. We head up the highway towards Chitungwiza, the satellite town near where our paper-craft workshops are located.

These days all the regular BP’s and TOTAL’s etc., service stations are closed and dead. When I was here last there were two-mile lines of vehicles winding from the ones that rumour had it were expecting a tanker. Now, unless you know someone, or something, or have access to scarce foreign currency, there is no fuel available al all. What continually astounds me is that there are so many vehicle owners who must know someone or something because there are STILL traffic jams at rush hour in spite of sky high black market prices. Unfathomable!

The deadly mix of fuel illegally stored in homes-and power cuts, has resulted in the sharp rise of houses complete with occupants exploding in deadly conflagrations as sparks from cooking fires ignite petrol fumes. Anyway on with the story....

We turn off the highway into a road on the edge of Chitungwiza. It is lined with several dead service stations. Now-days if one happens to pull up near one, a flock of black-marketeers descend on one's car all jostling for business. When a suitable price is agreed the approved vendor slips into the back seat and directs one to a less conspicuous location where plastic canisters appear - fuel is furtively siphoned - money changes hands and off one goes for another couple of hundred kilometers.

The rendezvous is to be at a new service station and Ivan does not know the location so on this occasion we stop only to ask directions. We are descended upon by the flock, directions are given, and disappointed at the lost opportunity, they turn away.

We head off into a small side road leading directly into the bowels of Chitungwiza.

Several enquiries later we pull over to the side of a narrow street. On the one side is a bar that is blaring out deafening pop music, and on the other is an unmarked high wall with a gap. The rear end of a giant fuel tanker is facing us through the gap. Heaven alone knows how it got in through the gap from the narrow street. Among the crowd outside, with relief I spot our ops director, a 25 year old pillar of calm among the chaos, holding on to his battered laptop bag. (The bag - not the laptop, is battered, for disguise). He jostles over to us. "Ten minutes", he reports, "When the tanker has offloaded"

Forty-five minutes later the Zimbabwe ten minutes is up and I am now frying under the pitiless sun. Natural instincts to keep all windows and doors closed and locked under such circumstances are abandoned and they are all flung wide open, The crowds are genial. Ivan and our ops director are happily chatting nearby with various friends and acquaintances. I am now beyond nervous and into amiable acceptance, responding cheerfully to various Hallo-how-are-you’s from passing strangers.

Suddenly the tanker moves forward and out through another gap further along in the wall. Ivan leaps into the car. We slip into a compound where a strangely out of place, shiny new fuel pump is waiting to fill us up with petrol, all just previously arranged by our ops director together with the owner. He explains that this is a recently opened legal service station (go figure – don’t ask), with which he is now acquainted for future transactions.

The pump attendant, an attractive girl, fills our tank to the brim for the first time since I arrived in Harare. Ivan is totally exultant, as if he has just eaten his first proper meal in weeks. "We can go anywhere," he screams joyfully. “We can drive to Bulawayo, or South Africa”!

I bring him down to earth saying all I want is enough fuel to go food shopping over the weekend. Shopping means driving from supermarket to supermarket in various suburbs seeking scarce necessities. One advantage for me of the latest food shortages is involuntary weight loss. No bread, no ice cream, no chocolate bars. This does not stop one from vainly scanning the empty shelves in hope.

We drive home, no longer on the smell of an oil rag wondering whether we will make it.

Another day - another tank of petrol.