This Country Runs on Bikes

23 July 2007

For someone who commutes to work on her bike, and uses her bike more often than the car for errands (even now that it has nothing to do with my ability to drive a manual:)), living in a country with so many bicycles feels right at home. You cannot be on a road here and not be inundated with bicycle travel. Even for a girl who thinks nothing of riding to work in a skirt and heels with a load of books strapped to my bike rack, the multitude of ways that bikes are used here in Malawi has not yet ceased to amaze me:
 personal transport,
 public transport,
 to carry your wares to market (charcoal, maize, vegetables, sugarcane stalks 12 feet long, baskets of dried fish 4 feet in diameter and 2 feet deep, 4+ chickens hanging off the back or in a reed cage, a live goat or 2, etc.),
 to deliver products from the wood-working shop (e.g. doors, tables, and bed frames),
 to transport empty bottles (3 or more crates) to the processing plant,
 to carry a stack of egg cartons 12 high each holding 30 raw eggs from one town to the next,
 to get fuel or a new battery for your car or motorbike (because here you run vehicles until they are dry or dead!),
 to carry another bicycle to be repaired,
 to gather and carry home loads of firewood,
 the list goes on and on.

What is usually most amazing is the shear weight of what’s being transported, some of the loads I’ve seen (people or otherwise) have to be 200+ pounds! Unfortunately I am rarely able to whip out the camera in time to get a picture of some of the more amazing loads on the back of bikes, however here are some pics: