Bike BetteR
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Kelli Gilbert:
In August my family and I left Baton Rouge for Tanzania where my husband is a
Fulbright Scholar at the College of African Wildlife Management. We live in the
northern part of the country, literally on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. On the way down the mountain to take our sons to school we drive past children walking to school and adults walking or riding bicycles to work, sometimes three to a bike. Walking and cycling are the main modes of transportation though there are lots of motorcycles, or piki-pikis as they’re called here and minivan busses.
Much of this is out of necessity. Relatively few people own cars. They are just too expensive to buy and maintain, plus the cost of gas is quite high. Tanzania is a developing country and mostly rural. About two-thirds of the population makes a
living in agriculture, most of it subsistence farming. The average annual income is around $2,000 US.
Where we live this means bikes are used for more than just transporting people in town, in small villages and up and down the mountain. Tanzanians are incredibly inventive. Men with as many as six 20 litre plastic containers strapped to their bikes ride uphill to fetch water, as many homes do not have running water. At least the jugs are empty on the uphill portion of the trip to the stream! Fuel for cooking fires is expensive so lots of people collect sticks to burn. Above is an example of a typical load. The rider had just fixed a puncture. Imagine riding with that load down Dalrymple!
Pick-Up Truck, Family Car and Power Tool: 101 Uses of Bicycles in Tanzania