Ironically I do not have a bike of any sort and more
importantly I still do not have a motorbike. Last week was supposed to be the
week I started motorbike training. Previously I had been waiting for other volunteers
to arrive and then when they did I became spectacularly sick and couldn’t
participate but this week was finally going to be it. I did indeed start. On
Monday I had an eye test and sat in the road traffic office waiting for other
people to do various parts of their licences and that was that, the total
action for the week.
Maybe next week…
But that wasn’t really the reason for the title. I wanted to
just give a few examples of how bicycles are put to use as a means of transport
to carry anything and everything from people to chickens to eggs to maize to
charcoal, literally anything. I have seen some incredible loads and as always
the best examples have been when I was unable to photograph but still here are
a few I did capture.
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| One of my neighbours off to sell charcoal |
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| Scrambled eggs |
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| Maize |
Staying with the transport theme for a while, not having
independent transport yet led me to making the poor decision to try and use
public transport to get to some of the places I need to go to do my job.
Many countries around the world operate a minibus system to
move people around; in Peru they are called combis, in PNG they are called PMVs
and in Malawi just minibuses.
As well as monitoring 7 schools I also work in two offices,
the VSO Malawi country office and the Lilongwe district education office. The
two offices are both about 45/50 minutes walk from where I live in opposite
directions hence I generally don’t go to both in a day however one adventurous
day last week I somehow thought it would be a good idea to try doing it by
minibus.
Well I had seen buses passing on the main road at the end of
my street with the conductors hanging out the doors shouting ‘town, town,
town!’ so I knew I could hail one of those and get into town. What I hadn’t
predicted was the amount of time it might take, we went off road down every track
and alley we came across looking for possible passengers and in the end I think
it would have been quicker to walk and possibly even less sweaty!
Finally arriving in ‘town’ I was dead sure I knew how to
walk to the education office, straight on to the bank, left, first right, easy.
But it wasn’t there! They must have moved it! After being sent on several wild
goose chases and walking round and round in circles I gave up and sat down with
an ice cream to contemplate my next move.
Re-energised I decide it can’t be that hard to get a minibus
to the VSO office from town. It wasn’t hard to find the mass of minibuses
accumulating close to where I had arrived so knowing I wanted to get to area 10
and knowing the area 12 and the area 25 buses both went within 1km I tried my
luck.
A helpful man in a high visibility jacket asked me where I
wanted to go so I told him and he urged me to follow him but at that moment I
spotted a number 25 bus so I said it’s ok thanks this is the one I need.
Then there was a melee of shouting. Two men who’d jumped off
the bus were shouting at me to get on, the high visibility jacket man was
shouting at me not to get on and a couple of well meaning passers by were
trying to ‘help’ by repeating what the others were saying at an even higher
volume. Not seeing any other option I then shouted at everyone else to stop
shouting and got on the bus. This made Mr High Viz very irate announcing, ‘what
you are doing is illegal! We have laws in this country you know!’
The bus driver was gleeful, either because I was now sat
next to him in the front of the bus like his prize possession or because he had
got one over on Mr High Viz, I couldn’t work out which. More importantly I
discovered he did know the supermarket close to the VSO office in area 10 and
could tell me where to get off the bus and in which direction to walk once I
had done so.
So to get to the end of this rambling, long-winded account,
I arrived at the VSO office at 1.00 p.m. having left my house at 9.00 a.m. and
therefore proving it was a very poor decision to try and use public transport!
More next week
Zikomo
Papa Kate
