In Zomba, drivers like Sido Sombeja are living in their vehicles for days, waiting for a fuel tanker that may never come.
Malawi is running on empty, and the strain is showing in everyday life. A shortage of hard currency has choked fuel imports and grown into a national emergency, leaving drivers stuck in queues that last for days and keep the country's roads, businesses and livelihoods at a standstill.
In Zomba, the former capital, the line of vehicles outside the Meru petrol station stretches for nearly a mile. At 3am, Sido Sombeja sits in his rusted minibus with cold air coming through a cracked windscreen. The 40-year-old father of four has spent eight straight days and nights in the vehicle, hoping a tanker will arrive. His meals have been cold fried mandazi, the doughy snack that is about all he can find.
The station has become a makeshift village. Drivers take turns guarding one another's vehicles when someone has to step away, and they work together to block anyone trying to jump the line. Some men sleep under the bellies of trucks. They wash their faces with bottled water at the roadside and gather at night around charcoal braziers known as mbaula.
For people like Sombeja, a minibus is a livelihood, so every day in the queue is a day without income for the family waiting at home. The crisis shows how a shortage of foreign currency can ripple through a whole economy, and how ordinary Malawians are making do with patience and solidarity while they wait for relief.
