Mercenary Drivers

I’ve mentioned before the fuel crisis that Malawi is currently suffering. Pastor Kunje, his wife and Pastor Nkosi missed the Naminjale church service because they couldn’t find fuel. They were thankfully able to join us at the lodge and we were able to hear the story of his trouble in getting fuel.

Pastor Kunje had one of his workers go out Friday morning around 9am to get into a queue for fuel. He waited until 10pm that night and came up empty handed, the fuel was gone. The worker heard about another station that was going to get some fuel the next day, so Pastor Kunje went with his driver on Saturday morning, around 5am (if not earlier) to get into yet another fuel queue. As Pastor Kunje waited in the car, his driver went to see if he could figure out any way to get farther up in line (they were at least 50 cars back) or have someone buy fuel for them. The driver returned and said he found someone willing to sell his place in line for K3,000 (which is about $20). Pastor Kunje didn’t want to spend that much and told his driver to negotiate with the man, but when he returned, the man had already sold his spot to someone else. He told the driver though, that if they ‘topped up’ and gave him K500, he would let them both come and take his place. So when the line started moving, the man stayed in his car and Pastor Kunje and the other car came in to take his place and get fuel.

People were yelling and shouting at this man to move his car; that is when they realized that his car doesn’t even work. When the man hears that fuel will be arriving, he’ll push his car to the queue and sleep in it overnight so he is close, then he’ll sell his spot in line to make some quick money.

That story led to another one, this time by Pastor William and Chrissy. Though there are fuel queues that go on forever, once the pumps are open, many people just drive their vehicles into whatever space they can find, cutting in front whenever possible so that it looks like a giant vehicular ameba around the pumps rather than a line. This practice has created the need for driver’s that can take the offensive and squeeze into tight spaces: enter the ‘Mercenary Drivers’. These gentlemen will approach someone’s vehicle and tell them that they can get their car up closer to the pumps so they’ll be able to get fuel faster; of course there is a price for this as well. Both of these stories made me laugh, but I was also a little sad because these are desperate measures that people in Malawi have to resort to just to get some fuel. The best part about the Mercenary Drivers, though, was when Chrissy said the drivers were big men, like bouncers, and then she said, like Rick. Rick joked about coming back to Malawi to work as a mercenary driver – what an interesting sight that would be! J