AUDIO & PHOTO UPDATE: Red tape and red clay: Bureaucracy in Mutjiku

Erasmus and Ludwig needed to go through a complicated bureaucratic process with the local tribal authorities in order to gain approval to open their bike shop, and this handwritten letter was the official okay they received. Even though they had jumped through all of the right hoops, as soon as the container showed up and word spread around the area that something big was happening in Mutjiku, there was apparently a bit of jealousy and suspicion as to the aims of these foreigners and their load of bicycles, and as to why Erasmus and Ludwig had gotten such fortune bestowed on them.
When we arrived on Wednesday morning to continue work on the site, we were surprised to find out that we had been summoned to meet with the tribal Headman for an interview. While its purpose ostensibly was so that he could be sure we weren't trying to lay claim to any of the local land (leftover mistrust from colonial days) or lay any claim to the business assets that we were donating to Erasmus and Ludwig, it was all simply a long and tedious exercise that we found out later on was caused by the Headman not having notified his superior, the Fumu (the tribal king) properly about the bike shop plans. It was an exact parallel to some of the bureaucratic nonsense that happens every day in the U.S.

As silly as it was (Erasmus and Ludwig were visibly annoyed the entire time), the experience was something we'll remember forever. This official meeting with the Headman took place under a thatched roof shade structure with chickens running around our feet and roosters interrupting the procedures with sporadic ear-splitting cries. The man himself was one of the few people we have seen here who had any kind of portliness, and in the heat of the day he wore a knit sweater and black pants with well-worn black dress shoes. He spoke dramatically in the local tongue and took every opportunity he could to try to impress us with his authority.

Click on the video link below to hear some audio from the camera that was in my pocket during all of this. At first you can hear the tribal headman talking, then Erasmus' father speaks and is interrupted at :27 seconds by a rooster.

Bureaucracy in Mutjiku, Namibia from Mike's Bikes on Vimeo.

After much pontification and back-and-forth about what meetings we should have scheduled and which forms should have been filled out, he thanked us for our kindness to their community and explained that when outsiders come in with money and resources it sometimes brings unforeseen consequences and obligations from the people of the village. To "make sure" everything was on the level, we were required to pick up the local Gentleman who was the local Land Board Member and have him do an "inspection" of the Makveto shop site.

We obliged of course, and this led to more running around and general wasting of valuable time. Following the "inspection" (which was nothing more than the Gentleman walking around looking important) we were asked to sit with this Land Board Official and the Headman again. And so the day went on like this, round and round, shuttle here, sign this there, etcetera etcetera. At long last we were told that these men had to be compensated for the time that they had taken (from us) that day, and they asked for N$200 (the equivalent of around $30 U.S.) We watched the two officials split this cash and pocket it before we dropped them off, and at long last we were allowed to continue our work.

Rugged and isolated as this land may seem, we learned this day that even in rural Africa red clay buildings sometimes turn out to be nothing more than factories for red tape.

PHOTO UPDATE: Bicycle Retail 101, or perhaps 98A.

Following the container unloading adventure we provided lunch for all of the workers. We also announced a donation to Mutjiku Youth Against Crime, who had been such a great group of helpers that morning. Almost immediately the youth group decided to use the money to have t-shirts made. This again demonstrated the popularity of the custom t-shirt in Mutjiku, but it also would be quite practical as most of the clothing the kids were wearing was in a very sorry state of repair.

The next step was to talk some business with Erasmus and Ludwig, and though we had been hearing amazing things about them from Kami we really didn't know what to expect from the guys in this regard. We headed back to Kami's house in Buffalo with the boys to look at some spreadsheets she had made with them and go over their receipt books.

Within an hour or so, we were pretty much floored. These guys really had excellent heads for this kind of thing. They had been keeping records of all of the supplies and expenses they'd had to date, and most everything was accounted for from our initial get-the-ball-rolling donation to them. They had set up a bank account and had already agreed that they would employ Mukena and Elisabeth on a volunteer basis for the first two months, before they had enough revenue to pay salaries. And they had pledged to not pay themselves at all until the business had started to earn a profit. It seemed most everything they had done so far was sensible and prudent, and frankly, it was impressive.

We helped them determine the best methods of keeping records for goods that they sold, and how best to track their expenses. Standards for calculating profit and loss were set, and Erasmus and Ludwig sucked it all up like sponges. We even had some discussions about marketing, and were enthused about the plans they had made in this regard. They were going to make flyers and ride to all the local villages to distribute them on bikes. They were even planning on organizing cycling events and group rides and claimed that there was already much interest in this within Mutjiku and the surrounding towns. We even heard the words 'bike race' spoken more than once, and we only hope there is a chance that we're somehow around to witness what a bicycle race on the Caprivi Strip would be like.

The entire theory behind the Mike's Bikes Sister Shop program is that with good management, hard work, a little time, and the kick-start of donation bikes, these fledgling shops would be able to bring more and more bicycles into their communities—many times more than just the initial donation container. With tools, training, and access to supply lines, they would also be able to service and repair bikes to keep them on the road and serving their owners. And, most importantly, they would be a completely self-sufficient force in establishing the use of the bicycle for transportation in areas where people have no other options.

While we were astonished at the steps Erasmus and Ludwig had taken before our arrival—not the least of which was constructing a free-standing office hut complete with a concrete floor, mind you—this meeting cemented in our minds the fact that these guys had the brains, the talent, and the sheer gumption to make this thing work. If anyone could establish a bicycle transportation movement in the Caprivi region of Namibia, Erasmus and Ludwig were the guys to do the job.

PHOTO UPDATE: 35 meters east of the Elephant Crossing sign in Mutjiku, Namibia, a bike shop was born.

When we arrived with the container rig at Erasmus' homestead in Mutjiku, we were blown away by what we saw. His entire extended family and many friends and neighbors were gathered outside waiting for us. Groups of children gathered in the shade to witness what was happening.

The offloading process with the truck's built-in lift was amazingly smooth, and so much easier than we had expected from our trials in trying to find a working crane and operator in Botswana last year. There were two moments of panic on our part when the drivers had trouble with an air line fitting and then couldn't get the hydraulic motor started. Both were solved, the box was placed down next to the small office hut that Erasmus and Ludwig had built, and we were ecstatic.

Almost immediately everyone dove into a flurry of activity. While the container was being opened, Erasmus and I rounded up the youth organization that he had founded, Mutjiku Youth Against Crime, who were to be our hired help for the day. As we returned to the container site, we saw that the crowd had grown and grown. Matt, Ken, Ludwig, and Mukena were offloading the bikes at a dizzying pace, and the crowds of local men, women, and children had made a game of matching bikes to their front wheels (removed to pack more into the container). Once both wheels were on, the bikes were then rolled down the path to a store room (formerly a family gathering place) in the middle of Erasmus' homestead. Many of the young boys made a race out of getting the bikes back and forth down the pathway to storage, with ensuing cuteness and hilarity.

I find it hard to put words to what happened that morning. To see the bikes bring such joy on the kids' faces, and excitement to the adults'—it was just indescribable. The whole activity of unloading and matching up bikes and wheels with us trying our best to help instruct the flood of people that were eager to help—it was raucous, chaotic, and one of the most utterly beautiful things I have ever witnessed or been a part of. I can only hope that pictures will do some small amount of justice to the story.

New photos added

I have just uploaded a few new photos to a post, click here if you want to see them. Every time I'm able to do this, I will update with a new post like this one.

When you need a big metal box to be proper habitat for a bike shop, you've gotta have a guy.

Note: Pictures will be added to this post as soon as we have a connection that will allow us to upload them.

Now we had a bunch of bikes, and a big metal box, but unfortunately these two things alone do not a bike shop make. We needed a second door and a window in the box to make it feasible as a work space, and we also needed to make an outdoor shade structure for repair work during the heat of the day.

We needed a guy, and Erasmus knew where to find him.

When we first drove up to Diwiwi Welding, we found a handpainted sign with a spider logo, a shack with a sliding metal door (instead of the wood ones that were typical), a bunch of random metal debris in the yard, and nothing else. The proprietor, Alex, was nowhere to be found. Erasmus walked behind the shack and disappeared for ten minutes or so. While he was gone we were more than a little worried. We had just three full work days before we'd have to leave, and there was a lot to be done. What if he was away from the area entirely? There wasn't exactly a lot of competition for metal fabricators on the west end of the Caprivi, and if this was the case we'd probably be completely out of luck.

Thankfully Erasmus learned from Alex's family that he had gone to the local market and that we could find him there. The exchange at the market was an interesting one. We indeed found Alex immediately, he stuck out from the crowd with his stylish woven fedora hat and oversized sunglasses. We introduced ourselves, outlined what we needed done, and asked him for an estimate.

"Neh-GWAH-she-ate" was his response.

After we figured out this meant he wanted to negotiate, it was pretty obvious he'd be doing his best to extract as much money from the foreigners as he could. It wasn't surprising of course, business is business, but we spent a frustrating little bit of time going back and forth with him and not getting any kind of number on the table. So we told him we'd pick him up early the next morning to get to work on the project. What else could we do?

Over the course of the next few days, our experience with Alex would prove to be pretty entertaining. We borrowed a generator from Ludwig's neighbor to supply him with power, and he brought a 110 volt hobbyist-style stick welder along with a large angle grinder and a power drill. These things were unheard of in the local villages, so we were more than thankful that he was so well equipped. He worked long, hard days in the hot sun the entire time, but let's just say precision was not his forte. He mistakenly cut the bottom slice for the door much too long, and he had to cut and re-weld the door frame section after messing it up more than once. Yet in the end, Alex did get the jobs done that we needed, and in the bush with triple digit heat and little shade, this was certainly no easy task.

The man was quite a character, to be sure. His mastery of english was not nearly as good as Erasmus and Ludwig's, but when he did speak it he would often do so in a drawling style that seemed, maybe, to be on purpose. Even a bit cocky, perhaps. And when the time finally came to "negotiate," he took his demands much farther, even, than we expected him to. For example, one of the things he tried to charge us for was travel expenses, even though we went well out of our way to pick him up and drive him home every day. He tried to charge us for materials as well, but we provided everything right down the the welding sticks and cutting wheels.

In the end, we handed the dealings with Alex over to Erasmus and Ludwig. We knew they had a real grasp of what constituted a fair price here, and we wanted to see how they would handle one of their first business deals. This proved to be a good move, and the boys impessed us once again. They went back and forth with Alex line-by-line, and after much hemming and hawing his fee ended up being one third of what he showed us to begin with. It was still a kingly sum for a typical worker in the Mutjiku area. But really, when you need metal fabrication done in the bush in Namibia, you've gotta have a guy. And sometimes that guy's just gotta get paid.

New photos added

I have just uploaded a few new photos to a post, click here if you want to see them. Every time I'm able to do this, I will update with a new post like this one.

Red tape and red clay: Bureaucracy in Mutjiku

Note: Pictures will be added to this post as soon as we have a connection that will allow us to upload them.

Erasmus and Ludwig needed to go through a complicated bureaucratic process with the local tribal authorities in order to gain approval to open their bike shop, and this handwritten letter was the official okay they received. Even though they had jumped through all of the right hoops, as soon as the container showed up and word spread around the area that something big was happening in Mutjiku, there was apparently a bit of jealousy and suspicion as to the aims of these foreigners and their load of bicycles, and as to why Erasmus and Ludwig had gotten such fortune bestowed on them.

When we arrived on Wednesday morning to continue work on the site, we were surprised to find out that we had been summoned to meet with the tribal Headman for an interview. While its purpose ostensibly was so that he could be sure we weren't trying to lay claim to any of the local land (leftover mistrust from colonial days) or lay any claim to the business assets that we were donating to Erasmus and Ludwig, it was all simply a long and tedious exercise that we found out later on was caused by the Headman not having notified his superior, the Fumu (the tribal king) properly about the bike shop plans. It was an exact parallel to some of the bureaucratic nonsense that happens every day in the U.S.

As silly as it was (Erasmus and Ludwig were visibly annoyed the entire time), the experience was something we'll remember forever. This official meeting with the Headman took place under a thatched roof shade structure with chickens running around our feet and roosters interrupting the procedures with sporadic ear-splitting cries. The man himself was one of the few people we have seen here who had any kind of portliness, and in the heat of the day he wore a knit sweater and black pants with well-worn black dress shoes. He spoke dramatically in the local tongue and took every opportunity he could to try to impress us with his authority.

After much pontification and back-and-forth about what meetings we should have scheduled and which forms should have been filled out, he thanked us for our kindness to their community and explained that when outsiders come in with money and resources it sometimes brings unforeseen consequences and obligations from the people of the village. To "make sure" everything was on the level, we were required to pick up the local Gentleman who was the local Land Board Member and have him do an "inspection" of the Makveto shop site.

We obliged of course, and this led to more running around and general wasting of valuable time. Following the "inspection" (which was nothing more than the Gentleman walking around looking important) we were asked to sit with this Land Board Official and the Headman again. And so the day went on like this, round and round, shuttle here, sign this there, etcetera etcetera. At long last we were told that these men had to be compensated for the time that they had taken (from us) that day, and they asked for N$200 (the equivalent of around $30 U.S.) We watched the two officials split this cash and pocket it before we dropped them off, and at long last we were allowed to continue our work.

Rugged and isolated as this land may seem, we learned this day that even in rural Africa red clay buildings sometimes turn out to be nothing more than factories for red tape.

Bicycle Retail 101, or perhaps 98A

Note: Pictures will be added to this post as soon as we have a connection that will allow us to upload them.

Following the container unloading adventure we provided lunch for all of the workers. We also announced a donation to Mutjiku Youth Against Crime, who had been such a great group of helpers that morning. Almost immediately the youth group decided to use the money to have t-shirts made. This again demonstrated the popularity of the custom t-shirt in Mutjiku, but it also would be quite practical as most of the clothing the kids were wearing was in a very sorry state of repair.

The next step was to talk some business with Erasmus and Ludwig, and though we had been hearing amazing things about them from Kami we really didn't know what to expect from the guys in this regard. We headed back to Kami's house in Buffalo with the boys to look at some spreadsheets she had made with them and go over their receipt books.

Within an hour or so, we were pretty much astonished. These guys really had excellent heads for this kind of thing. They had been keeping records of all of the supplies and expenses they'd had to date, and most everything was accounted for from our initial get-the-ball-rolling donation to them. They had set up a bank account and had already agreed that they would employ Mukena and Elisabeth on a volunteer basis for the first two months, before they had enough revenue to pay salaries. And they had pledged to not pay themselves at all until the business had started to earn a profit. It seemed most everything they had done so far was sensible and prudent, and frankly, it was impressive.

We helped them determine the best methods of keeping records for goods that they sold, and how best to track their expenses. Standards for calculating profit and loss were set, and Erasmus and Ludwig sucked it all up like sponges. We even had some discussions about marketing, and were enthused about the plans they had made in this regard. They were going to make flyers and ride to all the local villages to distribute them on bikes. They were even planning on organizing cycling events and group rides and claimed that there was already much interest in this within Mutjiku and the surrounding towns. We even heard the words 'bike race' spoken more than once, and we only hope there is a chance that we're somehow around to witness what a bicycle race on the Caprivi Strip would be like.

The entire theory behind the Mike's Bikes Sister Shop program is that with good management, hard work, a little time, and the kick-start of donation bikes, these fledgling shops would be able to bring more and more bicycles into their communities—many times more than just the initial donation container. With tools, training, and access to supply lines, they would also be able to service and repair bikes to keep them on the road and serving their owners. And, most importantly, they would be a completely self-sufficient force in establishing the use of the bicycle for transportation in areas where people have no other options.

While we were astonished at the steps Erasmus and Ludwig had taken before our arrival—not the least of which was constructing a free-standing office hut complete with a concrete floor, mind you—this meeting cemented in our minds the fact that these guys had the brains, the talent, and the sheer gumption to make this thing work. If anyone could establish a bicycle transportation movement in the Caprivi region of Namibia, Erasmus and Ludwig were the guys to do the job.

Last Sunday, 35 meters east of the Elephant Crossing sign in Mutjiku, Namibia, a bike shop was born.

When we arrived with the container rig at Erasmus' homestead in Mutjiku, we were blown away by what we saw. His entire extended family and many friends and neighbors were gathered outside waiting for us. Groups of children gathered in the shade to witness what was happening.

The offloading process with the truck's built-in lift was amazingly smooth, and so much easier than we had expected from our trials in trying to find a working crane and operator in Botswana last year. There were two moments of panic on our part when the drivers had trouble with an air line fitting and then couldn't get the hydraulic motor started. Both were solved, the box was placed down next to the small office hut that Erasmus and Ludwig had built, and we were ecstatic.

Almost immediately everyone dove into a flurry of activity. While the container was being opened, Erasmus and I rounded up the youth organization that he had founded, Mutjiku Youth Against Crime, who were to be our hired help for the day. As we returned to the container site, we saw that the crowd had grown and grown. Matt, Ken, Ludwig, and Mukena were offloading the bikes at a dizzying pace, and the crowds of local men, women, and children had made a game of matching bikes to their front wheels (removed to pack more into the container). Once both wheels were on, the bikes were then rolled down the path to a store room (formerly a family gathering place) in the middle of Erasmus' homestead. Many of the young boys made a race out of getting the bikes back and forth down the pathway to storage, with ensuing cuteness and hilarity.

I find it hard to put words to what happened that morning. To see the bikes bring such joy on the kids' faces, and excitement to the adults'—it was just indescribable. The whole activity of unloading and matching up bikes and wheels with us trying our best to help instruct the flood of people that were eager to help—it was raucous, chaotic, and one of the most utterly beautiful things I have ever witnessed or been a part of. I can only hope that pictures will do some small amount of justice to the story.