Gabarone - the city where cyclists are unwelcome

The city where cyclists are unwelcome

Cyclists battle hostility in many cities worldwide, but in Gaborone, Botswana, the social stigma around cycling has made the streets “more dangerous than lions”.

By Sharon Tshipa

5th February 2020

“I will hit you with this car,” Mpaphi Ndubo remembers a driver of an open white truck screaming at him. Ndubo was cycling safely on the opposite side of the tarmac, but it was the kind of abuse he was used to. “You should not be on the road,” the driver’s passengers in the back had added to the onslaught.

It is just one example of the many threats that cyclists have to deal with on the streets of Gaborone, Botswana’s capital city. Just because motor vehicle drivers pay road tax, they think they own the road, says Ndubo, a bicycle entrepreneur who has resolutely been cycling the streets of Gaborone for 22 years.

“Honestly, they have made streets seem more dangerous than lions,” he says.

The hostile attitude of local drivers towards cyclists emanates from a deep-seated belief that cycling is for the poor. In modern Botswana, drivers have enjoyed the respect that comes with owning a car as opposed to a bicycle, which is now considered archaic.  

But this preference for motor vehicles has brought problems with it. The number of cars registered in Botswana has doubled over the past decade. Two-thirds of these were listed in Gaborone, and the majority were second-hand imports. Many imported vehicles to the region do not meet emissions standards in their countries of origin and are not properly maintained or checked for their emissions.

“The state of air pollution in Gaborone is worrisome. The city is growing, and urban migration means more cars,” says Wiston Modise, a physicist researching air pollution at the University of Botswana. “High traffic congestion can result in high levels of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, lead and hydrocarbons that pose major threats to human health, especially in the morning and afternoons during peak hours. City dwellers could suffer from respiratory diseases.”  

The result is that the burgeoning number of low-efficiency cars contribute considerably to air pollution in Gaborone, which is regularly ranked among the worst for air quality in the world.

Mpaphi Ndubo has dealt with hostility against cyclists in Gaborone for 22 years (Credit: Sharon Tshipa)

For Mpaphi Ndubo, the answer was simple: encourage cycling in the city as an affordable, flexible and emissions-free method of transport. He wants Botswana to fall back in love with cycling.

Ndubo grew up a village called Masukwane in the north of Botswana, at a time when cycling was still held in high esteem. “When I was young my father bought a bicycle which my mother used to carry us children to the clinic,” he recalls. His mother would carry the youngest on her back, while either Ndubo or his older brother occupied the back carrier or crossbar.

At another village in northern Botswana called Sinete the role of the bike in the country’s past is celebrated in the form of a competition dubbed Dengenzela Bicycle Race. In this annual contest, elderly women race while simultaneously carrying a bucket of water on their heads, a mock baby on their backs and 25 litres of water on the back carriers of their bicycles. These cumbersome burdens – something that would never be seen at the hyper-efficient bike races of Europe – are intended to mimic the way bicycles were once commonly used in Botswana.

The Dengenzela Bicycle Race takes place every year in the village of Sinete, celebrating the role that cycling has played in local culture (Credit: Kenneth Middleton)

But this celebratory attitude towards bicycles in Sinete is not shared in the rest of Botswana. As soon as his business, AYS Cycling Solutions, had sprouted, Ndubo realised just how deep-rooted societal prestige around cars really was in Gaborone.

“My concept was welcomed by retailers. I was going to distribute to them, but they later turned their backs on me,” says Ndubo. Distributing bicycles for everyday transport wasn’t seen as a sound business plan, as bike shops tended to be viewed as niche outlets for those interested in cycling as a competitive sport, not for everyday travel. So, for his plan to go ahead, Ndubo had to become a retailer himself. “Generally people liked the products, but did not actually buy. I can’t help but think that my business came too early. Though cycling is leading in the first world, we are still decades behind development here.”

It was a discouraging start. Ndubo was stuck with a large fleet of bicycles that only a few people were buying. He did not give up, but instead started a non-governmental organisation called Cycling Embassy Botswana. Through it, he educates locals about the health and environmental benefits of cycling, and offers cycling tutorials to help people learn to ride. He is also became Gaborone city’s bicycle mayor, supported by BYCS, an Amsterdam-based social enterprise encouraging cycling in cities worldwide. 

Young people, university students and government officials are among the people beginning to take up cycling day-to-day in Gaborone (Credit: Sharon Tshipa)

The European Union’s ambassador to Botswana Jan Sadek is working to encourage cycling in Gaborone too. “Dialogue on pollution and climate change inspired me to promote cycling in Botswana as a mode of transportation,” says Sadek, who is trying to cycle to and from work during his appointment in Botswana. For him, this is not a challenging commitment as he has been cycling since he was seven years old. When he came to Botswana in 2018, he brought his old bicycle that he has ridden in Sweden, the Czech Republic, Moscow, Russia, Belarus, Stockholm and Sudan. As Ambassador to Sweden in Sudan, he also cycled to and from work.

“Many people in Gaborone appreciate seeing me on the streets, but some want me off,” Sadek says. “Especially taxi drivers – they are annoyed by my presence on the road.” An upside for him are the groups of fascinated people who wave and greet him, as it is unusual to see leaders opt for an “undignified” means of transport. To date, Sadek says he personally knows of two other people he has inspired to take up regular cycling, and many others have expressed an interest.

Slowly, attitudes in Gaborone are changing. “Cycling is a perfect solution to air pollution in Gaborone,” says Opha Pauline Dube, a leading environmental change scientist at the University of Botswana and a resident of Gaborone. “We need to reduce our air pollution so there is no person who finds themselves exposed to levels that are higher than what is stipulated by the World Health Organization (WHO),” she says.

Botswana’s air pollution levels often rise higher than the WHO’s guidelines for particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. As well as emissions from vehicles, Botswana struggles with air pollution from industrial and indoor heating as many people continue to rely on traditional fuels for heating and cooking.

A cultural shift towards cycling in Gaborone has been slow, but entrepreneurs like Ndubo and Sadek hope it will continue (Credit: Sharon Tshipa)

But perhaps the biggest hurdle standing in the way of cycling returning as a popular mode of transport is the lack of proper infrastructure – good bicycle lanes, showers at workplaces, and clothing-changing facilities, among others. Without these people’s attitudes towards cycling will not change, says Dube. She recently received a bicycle as a gift, but has not yet learned to ride it. “Both my parents were cyclists, but they stopped cycling once they acquired cars,” she says. “So the bicycle disappeared in the home.” Regardless of the disadvantage, she intends to overcome her fear of falling and learn how to ride.

Ndubo’s Cycling Embassy Botswana lobbies for the provision of the infrastructure and policy changes that would make cycling safer in the city, seeking to contribute to the broader achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. “When I started this business, I also wanted to address the problem of traffic congestion in our city,” says Ndubo. “But as time went by, I strove to contribute to the fight against climate change because bicycles are eco-friendly.”

Though still small, Ndubo now takes pleasure in his promising customer base of university students and government officials. His network of cycling lovers, though they are not full-time cycling lovers, he says is also expanding. Right now he has two electric bicycles that people rent out regularly at a shop in Molapo Crossing Mall in Gaborone.

With time, Ndubo aims to erode the social stigma around cycling in Gaborone. He hopes that one day the residents of the capital city might see the bicycle with the same appreciation and respect that the local people of Sinete view the elderly women racing through the village towards the finish line. And if Gaborone does become the next city to rediscover its love of the bicycle, it could enjoy much cleaner air as a result.

Biking Toward Women's Rights in Afghanistan

Every day, the Women's National Cycling Team of Afghanistan faces ridicule and threats. And still they ride—with their eyes on the 2020 Olympics.

Shannon Galpin

Low literacy rates. High rates of sexual violence. Maternal mortality. Domestic abuse. Forced  marriage. Afghanistan has long been one of the most difficult places to be a woman, and despite great progress since the days of Taliban domination, legislation designed to protect women and give them civil rights has been fought at every turn by some who claim it is “un-Islamic.”
One small group of Afghan women, however, is finding freedom and self-determination through the mastery of a simple machine: the bicycle.
The Women’s National Cycling Team of Afghanistan is only a few years old. Its 10 members, most between the ages of 17 and 22, have yet to finish a race. But they are determined to persevere in their chosen sport despite multiple barriers, and are aiming to ride in the 2020 Olympics.

"They tell us that it is not our right to ride our bikes in the streets. We tell them that this is our right. Then we speed off."

Men driving by insult them. Boys along the road throw rocks at them. Sometimes they don’t have enough money to buy adequate food to fuel their rides. Every day, they are reminded that it is taboo in Afghan society for a woman to get on a bicycle. And still they ride.
“They tell us that it is not our right to ride our bikes in the streets and such,” says Marjan Sidiqqi, one of the young women on the team. “We tell them that this is our right and that they are taking our right away. Then we speed off.”
Sidiqqi is featured in Afghan Cycles, a film in production about the team, slated to be completed next year. One of the producers of the film is Shannon Galpin, an activist and National Geographic Adventurer who has been working in Afghanistan trying to promote women’s rights since 2006.
Galpin, who is also a mountain biker, says that when she first started riding in the country in 2009, she wasn’t aware of any Afghan women who dared to break the biking taboo. It was only in 2012 that she found out that a few women had formed the national team, with the support of their families and of the coach of the men’s team.
“He’s amazing,” says Galpin, whose memoir, Mountain to Mountain, comes out later this month from St. Martin’s Press. “It’s a country where men are the gatekeepers, and you meet these men who are breaking the mold. They are making this revolution happen by facilitating this opportunity.”
Galpin says that for the generation of girls coming of age in a post-Taliban Afghanistan, bicycling is another manifestation of the freedom to be an educated person in the society. “Young women who are in university and high school, young women who are educated, their families have promoted that and helped that happen,” she says. “These young women look at it very cut and dry: ‘My brother can ride a bike, why can’t I?’ They’re cognizant that they have this right.”
Through her nonprofit, Mountain2Mountain, Galpin has been helping to raise funds and get sponsorships for the team. She’s also been connecting with a couple of other small groups of girls and women in more remote areas around the country who have been learning to ride for transportation. If women were allowed to ride bikes, Galpin points out, it would open up educational and health care opportunities, especially in rural areas.
The taboo, however, remains strong, with women on bikes being told that they dishonor their families. Galpin points out that those same types of insults were leveled at women in the United States and Europe at the dawn of the bicycling age, when two-wheelers were embraced by many in the nascent women’s rights movement. “They were called immoral or promiscuous,” she says. “It’s essentially the same insult in a completely different culture.”

"Biking with fear and trembling doesn't work. When getting on a bike, one must throw these feelings to the wind."

There is real risk involved for the Afghan women riders of today, acknowledges Galpin, and she worries about the potential for harm coming to team members. She knows, however, that this is a challenge they have gone into without any illusions.
Fawzia Koofi, the most prominent female politician in Afghanistan, talked to Galpin about the dangers the team faces. “One of the things she said about risk is that whoever’s on the front lines is stepping up to assume that risk,” says Galpin. “She said, Afghans know that risk much better than you do. They live it daily. These girls take those risks going to school. They know it, they live it, they’re making the conscious choice.”
Galpin says her group is trying to help mitigate the risks by providing opportunities to train on roads in safer areas. The team might even take a trip to ride in Europe at some point, hoping to get closer to their Olympic goal. Reaching that milestone would be a source of national pride, and might change the way women’s cycling is viewed in the nation as a whole.
“A winner is a person who can make Afghanistan proud and be a hero here,” says one young woman in the film’s trailer. “We cannot become a hero by sitting at home.”
“Biking with fear and trembling doesn’t work,” Siddiqi adds with a smile.  “When getting on a bike, one must throw these feelings to the wind.”


"We can not become a hero by sitting at home"  -good quote!
 

Teenage cycling prodigy leads Afghan women to new freedoms

Teenage cycling prodigy leads Afghan women to new freedoms




By Mike Taibbi, Correspondent, NBC News
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Salma Kakar just turned 16 but she’s already leading a revolution on two wheels.
She’s the lead rider on the new Afghan National Cycling Team and, says Coach Abdul Seddiqi, the joyous face of a new phenomenon in the war-torn country: females riding bikes.
“I assure you...in the next two or three years you will find girls and women riding bikes, all over Kabul," said Seddiqi.
Right now, even though Seddiqi says scores of young girls are waiting in the wings, it’s just Salma and her dozen female teammates making a statement in the face of Afghanistan’s male-dominated society: that while women rarely drive cars almost never ride bikes, that’s now history.
“We are changing minds,” Salma said through an interpreter. Then, her serious expression changed back to the 100-watt smile that glows like a headlamp when she rides.
Her dream, she says, is “to wave the flag of Afghanistan in the Olympics, to prove to the world that women in Afghanistan have progressed.”
Taking risks to ride
To get there, Salma and the team have a guardian angel in the U.S.: Colorado cyclist Shannon Galpin, who spent years doing relief work in Afghanistan and, in the process, rode her own bike over miles of the country’s remote mountain trails.
Galpin met Seddiqi and set up nonprofit Mountain2Mountain to find donors of bikes and gear to get the national team off the ground. And when Seddiqi told her he planned to have a co-ed team, something Galpin hadn’t anticipated, she kicked her non-profit into overdrive.
“If they’re willing to take the risks ... then the least we can do is support them,” Galpin said of the female riders racing against tradition.

 

It’s not an easy road, of course; change in this stubborn, struggling country never is. Seddiqi has the team train in secret, changing locations, sometimes at night. His female riders, all of them “good Muslims,” wear long pants and full sleeves, and headscarves under their helmets. They still get yelled at; and there have been death threats.
And at Jada Maiwand, Kabul’s main bicycle emporium where hundreds of male riders gather every morning to tinker with their bikes or buy or trade for a new one, the very idea of women riding bikes -- to go to work, to the market, or anywhere -- gets a uniform "No!"
“Women should be in the home, in the kitchen,” one bike shop owner said. “And if they are outside, their faces should be covered.”
“Some men try to humiliate us,” Salma said. “But more and more they encourage us.”
A symbol of freedom
With a mother who’s a pediatrician, a father who’s an engineer, and a big sister who publishes Afghanistan’s first feminist magazine, "Riudad," Salma says women will be riding bikes from now on, and other freedoms will follow.
Galpin, ready to bring another roomful of high-end bikes and gear to Salma and her teammates, says bikes have always been a symbol of freedom, even in the U.S. where the women won the right to vote soon after they first started riding bikes over the objections of men at the dawn of the 20th century.
“I did not expect to see Afghan women biking now,” Galpin said. “I thought it was still several years off. But the bike is an incredible vehicle for social justice … a vehicle for change.”