Life lived in line in inflation-racked Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe — We have been waiting for bread for nearly two hours in a rubbish-strewn lane behind a supermarket. It is midmorning, the sun blazing down on the 50 or so people in line, when three policemen stroll to the front.

A rumble of discontent rolls along the line like a thunderstorm.

Then a stranger named David Kaodza materializes behind me, out of nowhere.

"I was right behind you, remember?" Kaodza says. "You saw me before."

He has a ready smile and the ingratiating patter of someone jumping the queue.

In Zimbabwe, where runaway hyperinflation has reached 7,900 percent and people have used their entire savings just buying food, life has been reduced to this: the queue. Go to any Zimbabwean town these days, and you'll find lines everywhere.

Kaodza, a hustler in a country where the flour has all but run out and bread has become a luxury, gives a quick tutorial on how to get ahead in a queue. You don't just line up and wait to buy. There is an unspoken etiquette with subtle rules. Only those in a police or army uniform get to ignore the queue entirely.

For people such as Kaodza, queuing is no dull necessity; it's a business. They are queue tacticians, managing to be in line in three or four places. They reserve a place at the top of the queue, scamper to the end and reserve a place there by making a deal with the last person to let them back into line later. They wait for the queue to build up a little more and scurry to grab another place at the end.

According to local etiquette, you can leave the line, but never for long. To rejoin, you need the recognition of the person you made an agreement with. But if you neglect to pay the guard in charge of the queue, you still won't be able to creep back to your place, Kaodza says.

"It's every man for himself. Sometimes you say you were in the queue and you just came back and someone says, 'I didn't see you.' And you're just canceled from the queue."

Kaodza always carries old newspapers to read. His mantra: Trust no one. And develop a thick skin. He is used to people calling him insulting names.

"There are people in the queue who hate me because I manage to get four twists [loaves] and they can't even manage to get one twist. It's do or die. One has to win. The other has to lose."

Spend their days waiting

Misleading newcomers about the length of the wait, and even what the queue is for, is a common ploy to minimize the competition, Kaodza says.

Not everyone in line is as lucky or pushy as he is. Many are hungry, tired, desperate to get food for their family, and spend their days waiting.

"That woman behind you, she came a long way," Kaodza says. "She was dirty, that woman, because where she comes from there is no electricity and water's a problem. ... She wakes up very early, and by the time she's walked to town she is all dusty."

He says some people collapse in the queue, but others are afraid to help for fear of losing their place.

"It's better not to be a witness for anyone who's sick in line because if they die, the police will take you away to the next of kin and you will have to explain what happened," Kaodza says.

As we wait, several women wearing the uniforms of city street cleaners trawl by, loudly proclaiming that they should join the front of the line because they have to work all day. At first, people guffaw at their clumsy attempts to queue-hop. But when the smell of freshly baked bread wafts out the doorway, there are shouts of indignation. The women squeeze inside the door just as the first loaves are handed over.

The first batch runs out. The doors close. The line grows restless.

"People are prepared to fight in the queue," Kaodza says.

Kaodza usually gets six to eight twist loaves, each of which he cuts in half and adds a smudge of margarine and a couple of slivers of sausage to sell at a profit. He makes up to 3 million Zimbabwean dollars, or $6, a day on sandwiches and in five days earns more than teachers did in a month before their recent pay raise.

Forming an alliance

In another queue at another supermarket, an unlikely friendship was born. The two men were essentially rivals for bread. One of them, Shane Johnson, 35, hoped to get bread rolls for his wife and two children; the other was a profiteer, determined to get hundreds of rolls to resell at an inflated price. They struck up a cautious conversation.

"You have to be so careful who you talk to. You should have the freedom even in a queue to say what you are thinking, but you can't because you're too afraid," Johnson says, fearful that the queues are full of "dodgy characters" and police informants.

But long hours wore down their reserve.

"Eventually, we started becoming very close," says Johnson's friend, a 27-year-old who gives his name only as Nicholas. "If he has to go somewhere, I'll go and wait in the queue for him. Or if I can't wait in the queue, he'll wait for me. We look out for each other."

The main bread factory ran out of flour weeks ago: Now only small bakeries in supermarkets have bread.

"We all line up for bread, for milk, meat, for cooking oil and sugar," Johnson said. "You talk to the guys in the queue, and they all feel the same way: There's nothing you can do."

People also queue for hours for cornmeal, a staple known as "mealie meal," or for matches, candles and plastic buckets to catch rainwater.

"I hate queuing. I absolutely hate it, because I don't like to be pushed around," Johnson says.

But Nicholas has undergone a transformation, thanks to the bizarre economic conditions. In late August, he quit his job as a truck driver, giving up a wage gobbled up by inflation, and discovered he had a talent for trading.

In August, his wage was $3.20. Now he makes about $70 a week selling drinks. Selling bread rolls is a sideline that earns him $5 a day. By comparison, teachers earned $4.80 a month until the government raised their wages last month to a minimum of $28.

The people who struggle most are workers who don't want to give up the security of a meager salary for the uncertainties of profiteering.

"There are a lot of people who don't know how to do it," Nicholas says. "They have it worse because they don't know how to go out and buy and sell. They wake up a bit late. They don't know where to go and who to see. They don't know how to talk to people."

Johnson's path could not be more different from his friend's. He had owned a thriving electronics repair business since 1995. But rent kept going up and customers evaporated. In a decision he likened to a painful divorce, he closed down in March.

Between trips to queue up, he does freelance repairs for old clients while his wife works.

Concerns outside the lines

While in line, Johnson frets about his children. He always dashes out of the line to pick up his little girl from nursery school. He knows he can't afford a decent school for her next year. His 3-year-old son has asthma. With hospitals unaffordable, no transportation and the family savings gone, what happens if the boy has an attack? If there is one main conversation in the queue, it is about the queues themselves.

Rumors fly about how a fight broke out in one somewhere, or how a supermarket fridge or window was broken when tempers frayed. Inevitable are stories about another, better queue somewhere else for sugar or mealie meal, stories no one is sure whether to believe.

In Zimbabwe, people live with fear all the time. Even so, the conversation in the queue eventually drifts to politics. People blame President Robert Mugabe for the chaos.

"They say he's killed our country," says Charles Moyo, 45, a night-shift worker who queues every day for bread for his four children.

Nicholas is something of a success in today's Zimbabwe, earning enough to save a little and even lend cash to friends, but Johnson realizes that he never will have the aggressive edge that makes his friend such a talented trader. After losing his business, Johnson knows he is not made for Zimbabwe's dog-eat-dog economy.

"I'll be honest with you, it's not for me," he says. "To buy and sell? I don't do that. I prefer to work for a living."

Ten years ago, Johnson considered leaving for a job possibility in another country but decided against it.

"You say to yourself, maybe it will get better. It just gets worse and worse and worse."

Now, Johnson plans to seek a better life in South Africa or Britain.

"If there was some sort of hope, I'd stay," he says.

The low mutter of gossip is interrupted as trucks chug along the supermarket lane, emitting foul black fumes into our faces.

All at once there's a surge forward, a whiff of exhilaration.

Finally, I shuffle through the back door of the bakery with the crowd and exchange my 80,000 Zimbabwean dollars — about 16 cents — for two small twist loaves, still hot.

The smell of baked bread is intoxicating.

People carry their loaves carefully, as though holding small and fragile creatures. They walk out with smiles of victory.