Day's Diary

June 22, 2007 ~ The Bicycle

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The bicycle is not a recreational vehicle in Malawi. It is a primary means of transportation. The majority of people in Malawi walk wherever they need to go, or they take a minibus if they have the kwacha to afford the ride. Only about 8% of the population can afford an automobile or truck. The workhouse of transportation, beyond feet, is the bicycle. In America it is reserved for recreation, either for the youth or for the young at heart. Here it is the primary mode of transport. It is a vehicle for commerce.

Pastors are issued bicycles when they are assigned to a church and it is a treasured possession. At Zomba Theological College, the students guard their bikes carefully. During the week, the bikes are locked in the students’ houses, only to be brought out on weekends to attend to the needs of the congregations to which they have been assigned. Sunday morning, beginning about 7:00 a.m., there is a parade of bikes and pastors-in-the-making that goes by my house on their way to their respective churches. Late in the day the procession reverses direction and then the bikes are locked up until the next week. During the week, the students walk wherever they need to go, saving the bikes for official use only.

Bikes constitute the second greatest danger on the road. (The first is pedestrians who don’t pay attention to cars or trucks, but walk on the roadway, day or night.) Silas and I have joked that you can tell that Malawi is true democracy by looking at the roads. In a true democracy, majority rules and the majority on the roads are pedestrians and bicyclists, and they rule the road. Bicyclists want to be on the tarmac on the main roads, not on the dirt. It is much easier to ride that way. On the dirt roads, they want the center of the road, where there are fewer potholes and ruts. The riders’ expectation is that the car or truck will go around them. That is usually the case, until there is a car coming in the opposite direction and one needs to stay in one’s own lane. Then maneuvering around the bike becomes a challenge for the motorist. The bicyclist is slow, if not unwilling, to yield to cars. This is especially true when the bicyclist is transporting something on the bike.

What is being transported is as much an issue as the bike itself. These vehicles frequently serve as taxis (much less expensive than a minibus). For those going a short distance, the bike is a good taxi for the price. Especially out in the more rural areas, these taxis are well used. That means there is someone on the back of the bike, throwing it off balance easily. But people are not the most frequent cargo. It is much more likely to see wood, chickens, charcoal, or produce of various kinds being hauled on the back of the bike, especially on market day. The wood hauling is the most fascinating. There is a great art to stacking pieces of wood on the back of the bike, to the same or greater height of the bicyclist himself, when seated on the bike. In many instances, the stack becomes too great for the rider to manage, and he gets off and pushes the bike and its load. This is especially necessary when coming down a hill. The owner holds on for dear life, holding the bike back, keeping it from careening down the hill. This takes great strength. Equal strength is needed to push the load up a steep hill. At this point, riding is not an option. The bike is merely the porter, of sorts. When chickens are transported, it is in one of two ways. Either the rider has a basket on the back of the bike that extends out beyond the bike at least 3 feet on either side and the chickens are contained in the closed basket, or the chickens’ legs are tied together and the chickens are hug by their legs over the handlebars or on the back of the bike. The challenge here is to see how many chickens one can transport in this manner. I have seen as many as twenty on one bike, front and back – no fun for the chickens. Keep in mind, these are all live chickens! Produce and charcoal are easier to transport. They do not tend to move around or shift as people or wood is able to do. Again, the challenge is to see how much one can stack at one time. The charcoal is in bundles that are about 3 feet high, wrapped in burlap and held up with sticks. A good biker can get five or six of these on the back of the bike. The produce stacking depends on the crop. Sweet potatoes, cabbage, sugar cane, casaba, whatever is in season, is placed in sacks, or is bundled and stacked well and it brings good money at the market.

With such valuable cargo, you understand why the biker is reluctant to yield the right of way to a car or truck. This is important commerce happening on the back of this bike. This is business, not pleasure, and a car shouldn’t get in the way of business. This is, after all, a democracy that is working to become a capitalistic democracy, one bicycle at a time.