I’ve got a bike you can ride it if you like

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.

 

One of my neighbours off to sell charcoal

Scrambled eggs 

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