Things you might see on the back of a bicycle in Malawi

Many of the people in Malawi get around via bicycle. It is a developing nation, and motor vehicles are extremely expensive, so it makes sense to take a bike. We have seen hundreds of bikes in our time here. Almost all of them have a rack on the back for carrying things. Listed below are some of the things you might see on a bike in Malawi, and probably a number of other 3rd and 4th world countries. Some are normal, some border on the strange, and some are just bizarre. They are listed here in no particular order…
On the back of a bike you might see:
A car battery, multiple car batteries, huge reams of 1o foot long grass, firewood, a big stack of firewood, firewood piled 8-10 feet high, a person, two people, a small family, fish (actually, they’re usually hanging from the handlebars, but sometimes they’re stacked on the back), dead chickens, live chickens which appear to be dead (read kate’s travel tip #36 for more info on chicken transportation techniques), a goat, multiple goats (I’m pretty sure all the goats we have seen were alive), another bike, a person holding another bike, a person pushing another bike next to the bike upon which he is riding, bags of illegal charcoal, 50kg of flour or rice, 100 kg of flour or rice, 50kg of flour or rice with a goat tied on top and chickens hanging from the sides and fish on the handlebars (usually in this case the bike is not being ridden, but pushed from the side), a full wooden bedframe (the balance is incredible), a door, giant PA speakers, amplifiers, piles of dvd players, tv’s (I’ve no idea what they do with all the electronics, there’s not much of a market for them here), angle iron, bags of concrete, 10 foot long sticks of lumber, a welder (note: in my experience, there are NO welding masks here, they use cheap sunglasses instead), re-bar, a tool box, pottery, wicker baskets, wicker toys, wicker chairs, wood carvings, piles of sugar cane, a case of soda, 4 cases of beer, any amount of cases of Chibuku Shake Shake (maize “beer” in cardboard cartons; we’ve not tried it, but apparently it’s really, really gross and chunky, but it’s cheap), assorted car parts (I’m pretty sure I saw a transmission the other day), tires (bicycle, car, or truck, with or without the wheel), a 20 liter bucket of paint, 2 20 liter buckets of paint, bricks, a wheelbarrow, cabbage, other assorted vegetables, coils of wire or rope, and just about anything you could possibly need to build a house.
I’m sure there are things I missed, but that is a pretty good list of commonly seen items on the back of a bike in Malawi. We hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into life here. We’ll see what we can do about getting some pictures of the above mentioned sights up in the near future.
Zicomo Kwambili!
Jarrod and Kate