29 June 2009

Diary: Village Bicycle Project Founder in Benin

 

Saliou’s bicycle shop in Natitingou, Benin

Saliou’s bicycle shop in Natitingou, Benin

American David Peckham went to Ghana in 1999 to study ways to make bicycles accessible to more people. He founded Village Bicycle Project soon thereafter. Since then, the project has worked in 12 African countries, where it has provided 36,000 bikes, trained 5,500 people in bicycle maintenance and distributed 15,000 tools. In 2005, the project partnered with Bikes for the World to deliver bikes to several African nations.

By David Peckham
Special Correspondent

June 2009

In December 2008, I traveled from Ghana to northern Benin to learn about its bike scene. I arrived at Natitingou, a town surrounded by hills, or “montagnes” as the locals say. Natitingou is Benin’s commercial hub in the northwest. It is on the main road leading from Cotonou, Benin’s major port city, to Burkina Faso. Dozens of huge tanker trucks with Mali license plates pass through daily. I think they carry crude oil. Their journey of more than 1,000 miles [1,600 kilometers] is extremely inefficient, expensive and dangerous.

Motorbikes, or motos, outnumber bicycles in Natitingou by 4-to-1, with costs starting at about $600. Many men make a living driving “moto-taxis.” I see two significant ways that policy in Benin favors motos. First, there is an apparent lack of registration: I didn't see license plates on any motorbikes. Second, the authorities turn a blind eye to fuel smuggled from neighboring Nigeria, where fuel prices are low. Probably tens of thousands of Beninois ingest small amounts of gasoline every day, as most of the gasoline sold in Benin is siphoned from one receptacle to another. The highway outside Cotonou is lined with 20-liter bottles of gasoline for sale. Filling stations are rare.

Most bicycles I see are second-hand European models. I saw a half-dozen secondhand Japanese imports for sale for $90 — nearly double what you'd pay in Ghana.

I found only three or four repairers in Natitingou. They were interested in my tools and charged about a quarter less than repairers in Ghana.

I got to talking parts with Abel, a repairer. He told me that most of the bikes stored in his shop needed tires and tubes. He had as many as 30 bikes there and at home, some kept as long as five years. He said new tires and tubes made in Asia are rubbish because a new tube won't hold air and you often find tears along the seams.

I get the same complaint in Ghana, only not so severe. Ghanaian bike owners pay more for punctured U.S.-made tubes than new Chinese-made tubes. Apparently, many more tubes and tires are needed in Africa.

I also met Saliou, a parts seller, who travels around the region on market days. He stocks parts mostly for roadsters as opposed to increasingly common mountain bikes. Saliou said he travels to Lomé, Togo, for parts. As Lomé is not far from Accra (171 km), I noted a potential partnership.

When I got back to Ghana, I caught a whiff of the soiled shirts I had worn on my bike trip through Togo and Benin. I was overpowered by the smell of exhaust fumes. The towns are angry swarms of motorbikes. I can't imagine the respiratory problems people face.