Diary of a Zambian bike shop- pt 1

For the last two weeks I have been driving from Windhoek Chibobo, a village in the northeast of Zambia, visiting a number of projects and people en route. Chibobo and the surrounding region is inhabited mainly by Zambia’s Lala people, and as far as I can tell, is the original ‘Lala land’.

BEN Namibia has been invited to participate in a new bicycle shop project in Chibobo, based on the Bicycle Empowerment Centre model we have developed in Namibia. We’re working with HMP (Help Ministries Project), the organisation that founded the orphanage, and with Bicycles for Humanity Melbourne, who have previously shipped a container of bikes to Namibia and will again be providing the bicycles and shipping container to get this project started. The container will be located at the Chibobo orphanage, and the bike shop will create employment for local people and generate income to support the orphanage.

It’s cold when I arrive in Serenje, the nearest town to Chibobo, after 6 hours on the road from Lusaka, and it’s also raining—the first time it has rained here in August for at least 15 years. This is not what I expected from northeast Zambia. I also didn’t expect a modern and reasonably plush motel, though I wasn’t so surprised to learn that there was no running water, and that the electricity supply was patchy.

Staivos, the coordinator of the orphanage, arrived for a chat, and we agreed to meet again in the morning for a tour of the existing local bicycle market before heading to Chibobo.

These 'cheap' fixed gear bicycles sell for up to US$140 in Serenje, and are generally of poor quality.

Buying a bicycle in Serenje means a choice between a mountain bike with poor quality construction and components, or a fixed gear bicycle with poor quality construction and components, although the latter are more likely to be able to carry the 50kg sacks of maize that are the local food staple, and the main source of income for local people. The mountain bikes will need custom racks fitted by local welders to replace the flimsy ones that come as standard.

Whichever bike people choose, they will have to pay what amounts to a big chunk of their annual income for it (US$100 for a mountain bike, or up to US$140 for a fixed-gear bike), and they will start paying for replacement parts within a couple of months as their bike begins to disintegrate. The spare parts available in the local shops will have come from India via Tanzania, and will likely be worse quality than the ones that came with their bike. If they’re not mechanically inclined, they will need to take the parts to a bicycle repairer for fitting. The local bicycle repairers are self-taught and very resourceful, but don’t possess a single specialised bicycle tool. If the repair is a complex one, their hammer and screwdriver techniques may cause further damage to the bicycle.

A hammer, nut and nail serve to remove chain pins in Serenje

Chibobo is 30km from Serenje, and a few hundred metres before we reach the orphanage there is a mountain of maize sacks that has been collected and made ready for sale. I estimate there are more than 5,000 sacks, and a total of over 260 tonnes of maize. Every sack that has been added to the mountain has arrived by bicycle, awaiting purchase by buyers who will cart it off by truck and mill it, mainly to become nshima, the stiff porridge that is served as the staple with meals in Zambia.

Maize sacks in Chibobo awaiting purchase

Bicycles are used to transport maize sacks to this depot prior to purchase

There is a group of local men waiting for me at the orphanage, and as we do the introductions, it’s apparent that people here speak better English than in many Namibian villages. I talk about BEN Namibia, Bicycles for Humanity, and our network of 23 Bicycle Empowerment Centres in Namibia. I express the hope that some day they will be part of a similar network in Zambia. I tell them that I had a good meeting with Zambikes in Lusaka, and that it should be possible to form a partnership to supply spare parts, bicycle trailers and bicycle ambulances if they wish. I wonder whether they’ll think I’m batty when I tell them that half of the 90 people employed in our Namibian shops are women, but there are nods of approval and someone proclaims ‘yes, we must have gender balance’.  The one woman who turns up later for the meeting agrees.

We run through questions. Before mentioning that almost all the bicycles arriving will be geared mountain bikes, I ask them what they think about mountain bikes. They say that they’re very good, as they enable the rider to go up hills with heavy loads. They also mention that the consignment of 10 second-hand bikes that came from Australia five years ago are all still running, outlasting anything available new on the local market.

Meeting with community members about the upcoming bike shop in Chibobo

There are questions that suggest there has already been a lot of discussion in the community about the project. Most people only have money after the harvest sale, so what about sales for the rest of the year? We discuss micro-finance and sales to cooperatives. There are the usual questions about supply of spare parts and who will pay for resupply of bicycles. I explain that the project will need to pay its own way after the initial stocks run out.

We finish the session by looking at some tools I have with me. I demonstrate how to use a chain tool, which nobody here has seen before. “It’s so fast”, says someone, “and quiet”.

We say goodbye and look forward to meeting in late September, when the container will have arrived and the training in bicycle mechanics will begin. In the meantime they will have to choose up to five participants who will be trained in how to run a bicycle shop. I wonder how they will address the issue of gender balance, but leave feeling confident that this is going to be a successful project, and have no doubt that having access to affordable, quality bicycles and maintenance services is going to have a big impact in this community.

(BEN Namibia’s involvement in this project is funded by AusAID)