Two women, a boy, baby and shopping all on their way to Mwanasasa Village
Gregg Hayward is a Peace Corps Volunteer in the African country of Zambia . He has been living in a village working on environmental issues since August of last year, and will be doing so until July 2007. He is a resident of Dover, New Hampshire, and is 23 years old. Periodically he has been writing us from his post in Mwanasasa Village, 30km outside of Mansa, Zambia. This is his third article since arriving in country.
As I meandered down the dirt road that connects my hut in Mwanasasa Village with the city of Mansa, Zambia, in the fading light of the afternoon, I saw the ultimate picture. It was not the austere beauty that caught my eye. It was not some magnificent animal that happened to wander up into our village. There was no crowd, no sirens or shrieks of fear. There was no zenith rising, and God was not descending from the heavens. People passed by puzzled not by what I was staring at. More likely they were puzzled by the fact that I was staring at all. There in front of me, leaning up against the tree, as its owner casually talked with a friend, was a bicycle... with a full, two hundred pound, three person, upholstered, overstuffed and zealously decorated couch, balanced in the vertical position, upon the bike's rack.
I just couldn't believe it. As is the case with all of the best moments of life, my camera had unexpectedly jumped ship. I looked for a bystander to chirp about this ridiculous feat of nature, but alas, I was left with a sore neck. How is this physically possible? Honestly. Just the fact that it was resting there was ridiculous, but to then elaborate that this fake velour couch had not merely appeared in our village, 18 miles from Mansa, but that it was actually walked out here on the back of this bike was beyond my realm of understanding.
I pointed and looked to the owner of the bicycle. “Malesenda ku Mansa?” You took this from Mansa? I had interrupted his conversation. “Eh.” He nonchalantly confirmed without a passing thought. He continued on talking, as I sat there, staring as though I had just discovered the eighth wonder of the world. A few more moments of bewilderment passed. Then the thought that I was looking more obnoxious than usual broke over me, and I cradled up my sagging jaw, wiped the wrinkled brow off my forehead, and tried to walk on, looking like I had some bit of sanity left within me.
My AWOL camera of course reappeared for duty the next day, but the feat of nature had passed, on to some distant village, where some wrinkled, comfortable and happy old people are now resting.
That was my first, and as with all things, most powerful experience of bicycle bewilderment. But it was, and will certainly not be the last.
The bicycle or inginga , as it is called in Bemba, has a completely different meaning in Zambia. Check Webster's. The seventh star at the bottom of the passage makes it quite clear that their definition does not even begin to enter the realm of completeness in Zambia, and for the matter, the rest of Sub Saharan Africa.
The bicycle is the forged steel workhorse of Zambia. It is a bridled animal only lacking in the need food. Looking over its body, you are taken aback by what all living things have, and those with a soul shout, a heart. Painted across its down tube chest are words like Atlas, Hummer, 4x4, Hero, and King. The names are branded and scared with cuts from labor of the past. The brands are worn like a badge, and with the marks of wear, they gain rank and respect.
From the heart and chest you work your way back to the crank and the pedals. The buttocks of the beast, the power center, the torsion that these endure to move the load must be staggering. Like a chipped hoof, the pedals are often cracked, or half missing. Bolts are hammered into the cranks with tools found lying around the village, an axe head or a hardwood branch. Those little bits of metal keep these wild parts in line, and channel their energy together. The bridle of the beast, they flow up into the chain. There, the links slowly make their way over the teeth of the gears, cracking and popping under strain, like the knees of Blue, Paul Bunion's ox.
The rear wheel is the back of the beast of burden. Here, you measure the true strength of the animal. The weight of the load rests squarely upon the skewer of the hub. They will take all they can hold until they explode like a ripped tendon. A good handler knows to never overwork their animal. Every axle has its breaking point.
And lastly, adorned upon the back of the beast is the rack. In Zambia, an unusual custom breed has been reared. The fancy light aluminum of the western world has been shunned. In its place, is the material every man wishes they could weld onto all accepting surfaces, solid, cold-forged rebar steel.
The racks are wide and reinforced. By themselves, they probably weigh fifteen pounds. Some are painted, others are left to weather into their unadorned, unquestioned luster of brown.
I stand back as the beast is prepared to receive its load. A one hundred and seventy pound bag of the staple food cassava is being loaded. I cringe. My eyes squint and my teeth grind as it takes two to lift the bag. They quickly shuffle their feet around the beast and lower the load. It rears out with cricks and cracks, the tires, the dark eyes of the animal, bulge. But with the hold of a controlled hand, it steadies and bears the weight.
Sweat is dripping from my forehead, as the men turn their shoulders and rest their eyes upon me. I am called over to hold the mane of the top tube and the horns of the handlebars. If this thing kicked and fell over on me, I'd be in a world of hurt, a long way from a hospital. I wait a few moments, without being able to see what is going on behind me. I hear more scuffling and quickly they are back. Oh my God, another bag.
Up into the air it goes again. I close my eyes this time, the terror is excruciating. They are clamped shut through the ordeal. A dusty hand on the shoulder makes me open my eyes. Two massive bags now rest on the rack. One of the men walks back to the house, while the other begins wrapping a tough quarter inch thick rubber from wall of a semi truck tire around the loads. He puts all his weight behind it. The load will not be bucked. As the man finishes the final knots, the other person comes out with one more bag, this one is easily carried, likely some maize and some clothing for town. Smiles greet each other as they look over at the struggling, terrified white man. The last bag is slipped under the slack, and the tall man, black as midnight takes the reins, pushing his beast into the dusty wind of the dirt road.
Once again, as the dust blows over me, I am lost for words.
Then there was last week. I was riding back to the village from Mansa on my trusty steed Trek. In the distance I saw another bicycle ahead, stoutly weighed. As I got closer, I tried my best to figure out what was going on. It had been a long ride thus far, and my eyes were a bit foggy with the dusty air. For a moment, I was sure I was seeing double. You can't do that, how would you balance? They are going to lose it any minute. Like the scene of an impending fight, I had to get closer.
I came around from the back right, as not to spook them, and this time, my camera had not deserted me. In true showman fashion, I reached around to the bag beneath my saddle, the whole time looking ahead, keeping my bike in line with a solitary hand. By feel I identified my former abandoner, and fished out my camera. I turned it on and rode with one eye on the road directly, and the other eye sort of on it, through the camera.
Up ahead, two full-grown women, a ten year old and a baby, were all riding on one bicycle, down this steep gravelly hill, and there were two bags to boot. One of the women was sitting sideways on the top bar of the bike, while the woman that was actually steering the thing had her hands wrapped on either side of the lady in front. The lady in front had two bags. I'm not sure how the lady that was steering the thing could see where she was going, but she was doing it. Sort of ride by feel I guess. Well, on this woman's back, wrapped in the traditional citenge sling, was a baby of her own, asleep of course, in the chaos. Finally, sitting on the rack in back was a boy of a good fifty pounds or so, holding onto the saddle his mother with sitting on, vision completely obscured by his mothers back, and it was no big deal. He looked at me.
I'm not sure which was more impressive, the three hundred pounds of weight that this bike was carrying, or the relaxed manner with which the four passengers careened down the hill. Well, they made it down the hill just fine, and as I peddled past them going up, I was once again that strange European-looking fellow that was always staring at things.
On the ride in to town this time, I passed thirty or forty people at least, rustling enormous loads on their bicycles. Each and every time poor old Trek seemed to coy in embarrassment, her candy apple green paint job blushing, and I, her meager, soft-handed wrangler wishing I could hide my fancy helmet and gloves. A comparatively rich kid with the flashy equipment, I felt like a city boy, a bit too far out of town.
But in these queasy moments and forced modest smiles, the last moment of awe rushes through me. I am almost always met with happy greetings from the lanky, muscular midnight black men and women I meet along the way. They know whose turf I'm on, but they are happy to share.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship. And since its founding the organization and its volunteers have been has been guided by the goals of the Peace Corps' mission: To help the people of interested countries meet their needs for trained men and women. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served. And to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of all Americans.
Gregg Hayward can be reached by mail at: Gregg Hayward Peace Corps Volunteer PO Box 710150, Mansa, Zambia, Africa. He will be living in Zambia through July, 2007.