On rising gas prices and greedy vendors

There is nothing more pathetic than a country that cannot heat its food.  Especially a country like Yemen where every dish requires heat to prepare because fresh fruits and vegetables are used as condiments rather than as a significant portion of a healthy and balanced diet.  Imagine eating cold salta or uncooked bint al-sahn.  Shafoot is fine a little chilled, but without cooking the lahooh the dish would taste awful. 

For the past couple weeks, propane gas has been prohibitively expensive and to make matters worse, propane vendors have been hoarding their supplies like pack rats, waiting for prices to rise even higher.  Their assumption is that the public will be so hungry two or three weeks from now that we’ll be willing to write gas vendors into our wills of inheritance for a tank or two. 

So, now, many people are facing threateningly low supplies of propane gas to cook their meals with—during Ramadan, no less—when coming home to an empty tank of propane could drive a person over the edge. How can the government expect civil obedience when citizens can hardly find or afford cooking fuel?

In the developed world, while the price and availability of propane gas tanks may be a topic of concern for campers and people living in trailer parks, the average family does not have to survive on fingernail clippings and powdered milk when gas vendors illegally squirrel away their supplies.  But here in Yemen, a country hungry from fasting and general malnourishment, the shortage and high cost of propane nearly brings us to our knees.   

Propane should be subsidized by the government, if not forever, then at least until the end of Ramadan. And the government must find and punish those guilty of drying the market of propane tanks.

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