VALENCIA: All the lady wanted was some chicken. But in shortage-plagued Venezuela, she waited in line five hours, only to go home empty-handed.
"I got here at 5:30 am and came away with nothing! It is just not fair that you have to work so hard -- and then put up with these lines," said an exasperated Lileana Diaz, a 49-year-old receptionist at a hospital emergency room.
Venezuelans have been enduring shortages of the most basic goods, such as toilet paper, for more than a year.
In Caracas, a cottage industry has emerged with people who will wait in line for you -- at a price.
But things are even worse outside the capital.
The problems are staggering here in Valencia, an industrial city west of the capital of this oil-rich country.
Valencia has big factories that produce food and other essentials. Still, the list of goods in short supply is long.
It includes coffee, cooking oil, cornmeal, soap, detergent, you name it.
Chicken is one of the most coveted.
Frustrated shoppers like Diaz are legion.
One tells the story of people who climbed over a fence to get a good place in line outside a store, prompting police to intervene and stop scuffles that broke out.
Another lady shopper shows off a nasty bruise on her right leg, thanks to a fight she got into as she tried to buy disposable diapers.
In recent weeks, the lines of people waiting hopefully outside supermarkets and stores have grown longer in cities away from the coast, such as Maracaibo, Puerto Ordaz and Cumana.
Venezuelan media have reported situations of nerves running very, very high and shoppers coming close to looting.
At times it has gotten that bad, in fact. In late January, one person died and dozens were arrested in the chaos of a looting outbreak at stores in the town of San Felix in the southern state of Bolivar.
Pedro Palma, an economist, says that historically governments in Venezuela try to keep Caracas better stocked with essentials, to the detriment of other cities.
"It is in their interest to avoid critical situations in Caracas so as not to see a social explosion with truly dramatic consequences," Palma told AFP.
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