Waiting in line

Oh, how funny! A shortage of diesel in Alberta! We love it!

It is November and it is time to harvest the soy and seed the rice. That means diesel! As many of you know, there was a complete shut down of deliveries of diesel, especially to more rural areas, during September. One the 'incidents' had died down, every returned to normal but there still is a great diesel shortage.

Our little truck uses diesel. We went into Yapacani, hoping that there would be diesel. We had some in a jerry can but things were getting pretty tight. It seems like one gas station would have diesel and one had to listen around town to find out which station would be open that night. Km. 9 was the station so off we went. Teodoro and Geraldo were already in line. Teodoro brought 4 - 200 liter barrels to the station at 8 a.m. and was waiting for the station to start pumping at 7. He thought we would have diesel by 8 or maybe a little later. Both he and Geraldo would have to be there when they were pumping since there was a limit of 2 barrels per person. Many of the people had brought their containers or their vehicles and left them in line. Everyone took turns watching each other's containers. Jake returned at 9 p.m. No diesel.

The next morning we went again to the station to find Teodoro and Geraldo still waiting in line. What do we do? Go to Santa Cruz and chance getting diesel there? We had a friend coming through that said there were station pumpind diesel in Montero, midway between Yapacani and Montero. We decided to try it. If nothing else, we could leave the truck at our friend in Montero and take a taxi to Santa Cruz. When we came to Montero, the wife of Zenon Flores graciously sold us their jerry can of diesel so that we could make the trip. When we returned in the evening we visited with them and they urged us to take their remaining diesel also, saying that they lived in town and were able to get diesel much easier than we could. What great friends! With that diesel we were able to get back to Patujusal (we would have to spend the night waiting in line of we wanted more) and then again to Yapacani.

We bought two barrels -- one had a crack in it -- but we now have one barrel of diesel. It took waiting two nights in line, a couple of hours each time, to get the barrels and the truck filled but we feel comfortable that we have enough for a couple of months.

And Teodoro? He got his 4 barrels that night and returned to buy more the next night. They are stockpiling so that they will have diesel for their tractor but they use 1 barrel each day.