Beirut -

Traffic jams in Lebanon have one well-known cause: queues of cars in front of petrol stations. Some people park their cars the night before the zero hour notice at each station, to start filling their fuel tanks.

As for the price of fuel, it is on the palm of the imp.

Rationalization is the master of the situation. After rationing electricity and water for many years, the role of rationing and monopolizing fuel has come, forcing cars to be parked in queues that some call “queues of humiliation,” especially in these conditions of fuel scarcity.

As usual, the Lebanese made these queues, in which they spend half or all of their day, a space to practice their social life and work.

A military vehicle carrying detainees due to problems at a petrol station in Lebanon (Al-Jazeera)

Back to reading

Just as the stations became a hotbed of problems, and it became imperative for each station to be accompanied by elements of the security forces and the army with a truck to stop the violators of the security at some stations, the life of the Lebanese moved - at the same time - to the queue.

Michel Awad tells Al Jazeera Net that he used to spend his waiting time nervous and wary that a car would come and park in front of him, until he started taking a book with him to read while waiting, and he had tried to read from the phone, but the permanent power cut prevented him from charging the battery fully.

"Indeed, they brought us back to the paper and pen, after we forgot how to read a paper book or use a paper to write a note," Awad says. All he is tired of now is waiting in the sun, but he says he chose not to waste his energy and nerves on something he can't control or change. He turned it into a reading opportunity that he was missing due to work pressure.

Meet a poet and painter

For her part, Sherine Esber tells that on one occasion, someone's car passed in line, and after he allowed her to stop and talk together, she knew that he was a poet and was preparing to publish a book, and he told her about his poems and asked her to draw some paintings for the book.

“Maybe I will do it after he gave me some poems that I loved, why not?” she says.

Most of the gas stations in Lebanon raised their hoses and closed their doors (Al-Jazeera)

My new job queue

Young Ziad admits that he found a job after two years, looking for any opportunity.

Ziad, an engineering graduate, began offering his new services, which he thought of when someone offered him to stand in line because he had to take his mother to the hospital, and that in return he would pay him 100,000 pounds (it was equal to $65 and became $5).

At that time, Ziad agreed to give him his place without accepting the money, but every day he took his car full of fuel and parked it at the beginning of the queue, and sold his turn for 100,000 pounds several times a day to those who came late and in a hurry.

"Unfortunately, my job has become in engineering, which I should have paid thousands of dollars for, and I work all day to earn 300,000 Lebanese pounds, which is equivalent to $15 a day."

Ziyad says that a friend of his pursued this profession, which he calls "shameful, but useful because of necessity and need," but his friend takes people's cars and waits all night to fill them for 100,000 pounds from their owners.

Ziyad tells that he quarrels more than once with young men who come on motorcycles loaded with empty gallons and fill them with gasoline to sell on the black market at double prices, and the problems are permanent with them because they often skip the queue and need more time than a normal car.

Traffic crisis in a Beirut street due to queues at petrol stations (Al-Jazeera)

Tafweel Women's Day

By tafweel means full, and it is a phrase used by the Lebanese people when expressing their anger and saying “Volt with me”, and it is used to fill things such as fuel, juice cups, and others.

And because women are waiting in queues to fill up the fuel, and some are being bullied by some, the “Helweh Ya Baladi” association with one of the stations in the Bekaa region in Zahle established an initiative called “Volt with you, it’s from us”, on a day dedicated to women filling their cars with fuel.

Accordingly, comments began, such as “How many accidents happened at the station?”, and “They took coffee with them and worked in the morning at the station?”

 man on women's day

But it is funnier, one of the men disguised himself as a woman with a wig, covering his face with a mask and sunglasses to fill his car, and the video spread on the media.

Parsley and vegetables

Rayana tells Ibrahim that her mother was also inspired by a woman who took parsley on a waiting trip in the bank queues last year. I spend half my day in front of the station."

Rayana says that she once wanted to photograph her mother, "but she refused because she was ashamed."

Her mother tells her that she has always seen women tidying up their nails or make-up, or reading while waiting. She even saw a woman teaching her son his summer lessons and homework in the car.

From the bike to the delivery room

And the Lebanese doctor, Zaki Suleiman, in sportswear, documented his picture on his Facebook account, while he was carrying a new baby, and wrote, "Keep this picture, little boy, one day your family will tell you that your doctor came on his bicycle to give birth to you, because you were born in an era when oil, medicine and electricity were lost. Food, and above all in a country 90% of its citizens have lost their fitness.”