Last Monday evening, a friend of mine heard that sugar had been delivered to the TM supermarket near his house. So he left home at midnight, and spent a mercifully dry night outside queuing for sugar with a host of others. He got to the front of the queue at 11:30 that morning, and gave it to his sekuru as promised.

Tuesday, he heard that sugar had been delivered to the Bon Marche also near him. So at 2am on Wednesday morning he went to the Bon Marche to spend the night. On my way to work, I went to find him and bring him a flask of (unsweetened) tea. He was delighted and, he reported later, my dash-it flask delivery services ended up entertaining the queue long after my departure. A hot beverage. And some light relief. Not bad for 7am.

When he’d arrived at 2 in the morning, he’d found himself number nine in the queue. Brilliant. At the time, he reckoned he’d be served and home by 10. But as dawn approached, there was a power cut. Bon Marche didn’t switch on their generator till after 11. When they finally opened their doors, the police came – ostensibly to impose order on the queue. But instead they disrupted the numbering system those waiting all night had established among themselves, and started accepting bribes from people to get to the front. My friend ended up far back in the queue. It dragged forward slowly, and when he was fifth from the front, the diesel in the generator ran out, and the super market closed for the day.

When I saw him that evening, exhausted from two nights outside, he looked fed up and worn out. He knew some people would be taking their sugar and selling it on the black market for four times the price or more. All he wanted was a bag for his family, and one to send back to the rural areas. He said if he went back to the shops one more time he might be among the lucky few, but he was too tired and discouraged to bother – rather, he figured, hold out for another queue.

This entry was posted on January 16th, 2008 at 4:09 pm by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.