395 bikes headed to Zimbabwe, loaded in record time

Our Zimbabwe Sister Shop container is loaded up and in transit. Wondering how we stuffed all 395 bikes in there, plus crucial components and supplies? Click below:

How to load 395 Bikes (and a ton of components) on a 40ft. Shipping Container from Mike's Bikes on Vimeo.

The strike strikes!

Africa donation bike container #3 has come quite far on its journey from San Rafael, California. As far as Johannesburg, South Africa to be exact. Yet, as we've so often found with our philanthropy projects in Africa, unexpected complications have a habit of tossing a monkey wrench into the gears exactly when you think things are going smoothly.

This time striking South African rail and port workers have stopped the container of 474 bikes in its tracks (so to speak). It's awaiting loading onto rail transit in Jo-burg, in order to head to Mike's Bikes Sister Shop Jonmol Bicycle Services in Gaborone, Botswana. The strike is now in its sixth day, and we're hoping along with Bones and the Jonmol crew that the strike reaches a resolution posthaste. As we've experienced first-hand, the people of Gaborone need bikes!

Gabs needs bikes

Gaborone, Botswana is a place of many contradictions, and this is what fascinated me most over the brief time that I spent there. These contradictions really hit home as we crossed town on our way to Bones' shop.

In the space of a half-hour drive, we passed through entire neighborhoods of corrugated metal shacks and dirt roads with chickens and children playing in the dust. There were shells of stripped cars on the sides of these roads, and  everywhere there were people walking. And walking, and walking, and walking, sometimes with their burdens of goods balanced impossibly on their heads.

Yet directly adjacent to these places were areas of dramatic development and, frankly, consumerism gone wild. There were strip malls, indoor malls, car dealerships, and billboards everywhere in Gabs. Many of the residential neighborhoods looked like lower middle class U.S. suburbs in fact, and there was, to me, an almost shocking amount of construction going on. All over the city there were buildings and roads being built. Development in Gabs was very clearly on the rise.

A side effect of this situation that was extremely relevant to our mission was the traffic. Some of the traffic jams we encountered, particularly when you compare them to the lack of population density, were just horrendous. It could easily take an hour to go 10 miles at the wrong time of day. And the lines for the combi transporters, which are privately owned vans that serve as public transit in Gabs, sometimes stretched for hundreds of yards (or meters, as it were). These lines were where people waited to pack into the combis and sit in traffic just like we were doing. With public transit in this kind of state, it quickly became clear why there were so many people walking everywhere. Despite the fact that the city of Gaborone is very low-density and very spread out—meaning that it would probably take a very long time to get where you're going—there were always throngs of people walking from place to place.

One thing we saw almost none of, until we arrived at Bones' shop, were people on bicycles. And yet, the city was in many ways so utterly ready for this most perfect form of transportation. Almost all of the major thoroughfares were wide enough to allow bicycle traffic alongside the cars. In addition, there was an entire network of dirt paths along all of the major routes where people were walking. Most of these paths were easily wide enough to share with bikes. And unlike, say San Francisco, the city of Gaborone is utterly flat. One could ride across town to work without sweating any more than they would on an easy stroll.

It was crystal clear to us that so many people here could have their lives completely transformed by a simple bicycle, and we needed to help Bones make that happen.

On the road again

Yesterday after bidding a fond farewell to Bones and the boys at Jonmol Bicycle Services in Gaborone, we hopped a plane back to Johannesburg and then another out to Windhoek, Namibia. We spent the evening dining with Peace Corps Volunteer Kami who works with the villages we're headed to and who will be traveling with us today and helping us to establish the new shop in Divundu. We also had the invaluable company of Clarisse from the Bicycle Empowerment Network, who is taking us to some of their upstart shops in the Windhoek area as we head out of town this morning.

It will be something like 10 hours until we reach the villages on Namibia's Caprivi strip. Connectivity continues to be a challenge, so once again this must be just a brief update. The whole story of our time with Bones will be posted here as soon as we have the connection to do it. 'Til then, it's time to hit the road!

If you're trying to clear customs in Gaborone, Botswana with several boxes of bicycle parts, you may want to budget more time than your flight took.

Literally.

The turbo-prop flight (a little bumpy for my already-queasy stomach, thanks) from Jo'burg to Gaborone took a little over an hour.

Clearing customs took almost three.

We were quite thankful that our checked bags along with all four boxes of much-needed supplies that we brought for Jonmol Bicycle Services made all three of our flight legs and arrived safe and sound in Botswana's one-room and non-air-conditioned airport. Little did we know, however, getting them into the airport would prove to be much easier than getting them out.

Our two customs agents were understandably baffled when we insisted that the contents of our boxes were a donation of bicycle parts, since they really had no idea who the heck would need or want bicycle parts in Gabs (as Gaborone is affectionately known to locals).

What made the process drag on for hours was that the agents, really just trying to do their jobs, insisted on counting and cataloging every single thing we brought in. This gets to be pretty challenging when you have to explain things like what a replacement bicycle handlebar grip is used for. It was also an eye-opener for me as to how "official" things work in this part of Africa. Nothing is rushed or formal in any sort of authoritative way like it would have been as a U.S. airport, and there was lots of back and forth banter and certainly some, let's say fudging, of the numbers here and there.

Once all of the boxes were opened, unpacked, counted (including hundreds of inner tubes), the haggling began. Since the purpose of the goods and our mission didn't really fit neatly into any of the Botswana standards for customs charges, duties, VAT fees and the like, Ken and Matt had some negotiating to do. After going round and round at the counter with our friendly agents, they ended up having a sit-down in the customs office (more of a walk-in closet really).

After at least another half hour of discussion, everyone emerged weary but smiling. The charge ended up at 10% of the value of our donated bike parts, dutifully "estimated" by the customs staff. While it was no paltry sum in the end, it could have been higher even than the wholesale price we paid for the parts and accessories in the first place, which wouldn't have gotten a smile from Ken or Matt, that's for sure.

To see more pictures of our adventure at the airport in Gaborone, Botswana, click for here.

Touchdown in Johannesburg

Matt (right, in green) and I (center in maroon) as we deplaned in Johannesburg. Obviously we were feeling pretty good to be back on the ground and walking around.

Now there is just one more short flight until we're in Gaborone, Botswana. The biggest challenge at the moment is trying to find a way to be sure that our 7 boxes worth of bike shop supplies actually make the connection to the prop plane we'll be taking.

We will meet Bones at his bike shop, Jonmol, immediately when we get into town tonight. As someone who has worked in five bicycle stores spanning my entire adult life, I'm anxious to see the space in person, to walk around it, breath it in, and feel what our first Sister Shop in Africa is like in the flesh. I'll be sure to post pictures both here and en masse at the Mike's Bikes Flickr page.

So, how do we pass this bit of layover time? Working, apparently

En Route! Five Hours Down, Fifteen to Go.

We're having coffee at JFK International Airport in New York City after a red-eye flight last night from San Francisco. And your author, who is not much good at sleeping on planes, has definitely made this red-eye live up to its name.

Our flight to Johannesburg, South Africa leaves in a couple of hours and is a whopping fifteen hours long. Yep. Fifteen hours. Possibly longer, depending on winds apparently.

Ken and Matt have been through this, but I've never been on an airplane anywhere near that long. I'd better learn to how to sleep on planes real quick, or I won't be much good to anyone once we get to Africa.

The final leg of our journey to Botswana will involve a short connecting flight from Johannesburg to Gaborone, where we'll need to move quick to help Bones with his shop as we only have two days on the ground there before we head to Namibia.

And the whirlwind has begun, now time for more coffee. . .