Every day while riding the roads through the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia, we were face to face with people. Whether they were going to work, coming home from work or at work, the road sides were a bee hive of activity of normal everyday people going about their daily tasks.
Some days were special days where once a week markets offered almost as large a variety of goods sprawled out on a grassy green as a modern day mall.
But everyday was filled with roadside stalls selling every necessity of life from cribs to coffins.
As we rode through the country side some of us thought we were pretty accomplished cyclists. In my defense, I identified with Peter, a urologist from Tacoma, who said, “I’m just a guy that likes adventure and knows how to ride a bike”. But there we were, with multi-geared bikes and equipment worth thousands of dollars, supported by two big trucks carrying all our gear while functioning like our own personal food trucks.
Meanwhile, take a look just to the left of my elbow in the above picture, these are bags of charcoal. These lined the roads, sometimes in small groups like above, other times dozens lined the roads. Charcoal sales were a booming business along the byways of East Africa and the bags were always the same, slender white bags filled with charcoal overflowing the top. When standing upright hey looked like large five feet tall licorice ice cream cones standing in the hot African sun. The un-sacked, overflowing top was contained in a mesh, I guess to allow the buyer to see the quality of the charcoal.
The counterpart to the African women carrying items on their heads, African men on bikes contribute to a large portion of the roadside commerce. Unlike our bikes, theirs were almost all old, single geared and well worn. Here a man balances six large charcoal bags on his bike. In the background is a biker with sticks piled high above his head.
Wood in all shapes and sizes and charcoal were common items but we saw just about anything imaginable transported on bikes. Stacks of vegetables, piles of hay and alfalfa, cartons of eggs and coups of chickens. There were pigs and goats and kids, lot of kids(the human kind) loaded on bikes.
We saw only a few women on bikes and when we did they were using the bike for transportation only with no cargo aboard. Likewise there were many men and kids on bikes along the roads. Occasionally, one would ride along with us, the kids we could shake after a while I think because they were getting too far from home. But the young men who challenged us had no problems, they could kick ***. . .
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