Fill her up with $2.50 of gas!

I had a wonderful conversation with my new taxi driver friend Diamond last night.  I thought I would share it as a mere glimpse into another culture (this post has nothing to do with water).  This isn’t the first time I have come across this practice but it’s the first time I have ever had such a thorough explanation.

Since this post is about a glimpse of another culture. I think I should start by setting the scene of Ndola, Zambia just a bit.  It is a thriving city. It is still quite small and relatively quiet, but there is an obvious middle class sprouting up. In the past year, they got a pick n pay (grocery store, they already had 2 but none so nice), a subway, a nandos chicken, debonairs pizza etc. in a brand new shopping complex.  There is currently a new building going up in the downtown area very modern with all glass. There are even some roads that are newly paved and smooth as can be.
 Now that I have set this lovely scene of urbanization don’t get carried away or anything.  There are still sellers lining the main streets with vegetables, live chickens, and used clothing.  There are buildings with paint peeling, cars puffing out black smoke, and potholes that would eat your car on most streets.  There are thousands of homes without electricity, sanitation or water (okay I just couldn’t help myself).

Back to my new friend Diamond, sporting the ever so popular acronym of YMCMB (a friend on facebook tells me this stands for Young Man Cash Money Billionaire – I asked Zambian men wearing the acronym but they didn’t know or just made up something).  I hop in the car, start a little chat, ask if he likes drinking (a safe thing to ask before getting in anyone’s taxi at night – I don’t usually go anywhere after dark but I just got off a bus from Lusaka) and we set off.  As an aside, Zambia has started to severely crack down on drunk driving which is awesome!  We went 100 meters in the direction of home and he pulls off to fill up with gas. Fill up wouldn’t actually be the phrase I would use in this instance.  He put a whole $2.50 of gas in the tank – which he tells me will take him approximately 17-19 km as he resets his odometer.

You might be thinking why so little? And then you might jump to the conclusion that he just can’t afford more.  Well that’s not true, although he might not be able to fill it all the way to the top in one go, he can certainly afford a little more than $2.50!

The answer that he gave me was that it is for theft prevention.  If anyone is to steal his car (the thieves mostly come from Congo and from Lusaka – capital of Zambia), they can only go up to 19 km before they have to stop and get more gas.  And he has every number of every gas station within 25 km.
Lots of love from the land of frequented gas stations,
Taryn

PS.  We finished making our new hand pump repair workshop last week and started piloting it this week.  Stay tuned for a story on that experience and some of the amazing people I work with!