ktravula – a travelogue!

Are Bicycles Back?

One of the responses, that made sense, given in response to some of my regular complaints that bicycles haven’t become more ubiquitous as an effective and efficient means of transportation was that nobody cares about them. It made sense at the time because the evidence supported it. At least as far as Lagos was concerned, there seemed to have been a general consensus that public (or private) transportation in vehicles were the only viable means of transportation.

It also made sense in light of little regard by the city planners to the presence of the few number of bicycles currently on the road: palm wine sellers, elderly (Hausa?) men with scant regard for our “civilisation” on wheels, and occasional young men with all the time in the world. If people didn’t have a place to ride their bicycles, why would they buy it? Or, if they bought it, why would they risk riding it outside where they can be knocked down by an impatient Lagos driver?

Things, today, seems to have changed however. In the last couple of weeks, my attention has been drawn to the presence of many more bicycles on Lagos roads than I observed before. Young men (and sometimes women), professionals, and everyone in-between, seem to have finally come around to their use, perhaps in the final acceptance of its pragmatic utility in the face of the intractable city traffic. I have been taking their pictures, and will continue to do so.

This development is a good thing, which only means a few more things must happen:

Lagos MUST create better pathways for cyclists to ply. Except one is part of the elite club of cyclists who ride in groups every weekend, followed usually by an ambulance or a private car to protect their rear, most cyclists today are not safe on the road. Most of them ride on the opposite side of the road so as to see oncoming traffic. It is smart, but that’s still not safe enough, nor is it where bicycles are meant for.
Following the first bullet point, Lagos MUST amend its traffic laws to create clear instructions for cyclists, at least on large highways. But first, let’s fix #1

I was thinking, today on the way back from work, how nice it would be if thought was actually put into planning the city. The middle lane of the Lekki-Epe Expressway, where street lights are erected, is wide enough. One wonders how nicer it would have been if it had been well planned to include a cycling lane, protected on each side by the same wire mesh used to prevent people from illegally crossing the highway.

There is a heavy presence of Chinese construction/interest on the continent today. It’s not hard to imagine a Chinese company being very interested in a contract to create a network of bicycle lanes around the city. If advertising stations have to be put along the paths to make the money back for the state, wouldn’t it at least have been worth it? I decide eventually that I’m a linguist, and this is probably not my job to think about things like this. That why we voted a governor into office!

I got a new bicycle myself, last week, gifted to my by my erstwhile employers as a thoughtful parting gift. I haven’t yet found the need to ride it, or an avenue, or a reason capable of convincing my wife that I’m not embarking on a suicide mission. But the possession delights. Now to the harder work of making the society take serious the health and safety of all city riders.

Questions and Answers

Q: When exactly in May do you leave for Nigeria, and what is your flight itinerary?

A: I don’t know. When that day comes, a helicopter from the White House is going to land near the KTravulake, commando style, and smuggle me out before anyone knows, and drop me right at the base of the Statue of Liberty in NY where a boat will ferry me to the JFK airport. From then the Air Force Ten will pick me up and drop me into France since all commercial airplanes are no longer flying in there because of the volcanic ash clouds. After a few hours in the streets of France speaking poor French and confirming to myself once and for all that all the French I claim to speak is nothing but trash African Vernacular French, I will hop onto the Air France Concorde plane brought back from retirement just for my sake, and fly home into Lagos’s unsuspecting but hot embrace. French expressions learnt so far: “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”, “Je t’aime”, “Tu est belle.” and “Merde!” Why none of these have to do with getting directions, finding the nearest restaurant, or getting out of trouble is beyond me. My French friends are the most mischievous kind. From the sound of them, I know I’ll be getting into trouble. Ah, wish me luck. I’m gonna need it. 🙂

Q: What is the ONE experience that you will miss the most about the United States. I’d like to know.

A: Beside access to fast and stable internet and electricity access, it must be the opportunity to ride my bike every day on the bike trails around Edwardsville. Somehow, I wish I could change that about Nigeria’s high dependence on fuel and motorized vehicles. If we could only develop the bicycle transport system and make laws to construct paths for bicycle users. The sad fact is that there are no good roads for vehicles either, so bicycles are not a priority. And that is sad, considering how much we pay for fuel, and how much of the environment is destroyed by continues gas emissions, and how more affordable, and more sustainable a bicycle is as a means of transportation. The groups http://www.bicycles-for-humanity.org and http://bikesfortheworld.org are currently involved in securing used and unused bikes from people in developed countries, and sending them to developing countries. How could one claim such for the many thousands of elderly, poor or simply interested people in Nigeria who could have otherwise benefited from the programme if the environment in which they live does not even support a safe use of such a simple and yet effective means of transportation? Sad.

Here’s an article on cycling in berlin (thanks to Loomnie.com)

Night

Here are a few more photos of the fall (although I think that a little after the fall, we should start referring to the rot season. That’s when all the leaves that have fallen, start getting rotten on the ground. Along with the incessant rain nowadays, the feeling of walking or riding through the numerous leaves is one of the best things of the season. I heard that it’s raining non-stop in Nigeria as well. How do we explain that? I used to think that non-stop rain in a characteristic of the month of July at home. What am I missing? Well, enjoy these photos, especially the ones I took at night yesterday on my ride back from a long day of class and of teaching.

On Cycling

It is at times stressing, and definitely more exerting than driving a car. I have heard of the many advantages of riding over other means of transportation, and the best will have to be how it may help to protect the environment by reducing the amount of gas fumes in the atmosphere. And it’s healthy. With sufficient nutrition, the rider exercises his muscles and his mental alertness in a way that is not found in other vehicles like plane or car trips. The bike rider definitely lives in every second of the stretch, exercising his lungs as he takes in the breeze around his head. Besides this headache that I feel in my head as a result of yesterday’s daring long ride, I think I actually enjoy this new experience of cycling.

The bike trails in Edwardsville are some of the most advanced in this country, and they form a very beautiful network of tracks of tar for both runners and riders. Yesterday was my first long distance journey out of the campus by myself since the last time I’d made a similar effort about a week after I got my bike. That time, I didn’t go too far. I’d gone to the boundaries of the University, and returned when the signs began to read new names. But I had planned to return on another one of those trips whenever time permitted. The SIUE campus has been reputed to be one of the largest in the country in terms of land area, behind only a few other universities, so venturing out to the ends of the campus boundaries was something of a start. Yesterday however, I went out of campus – through a different route – into town for a visit.

But it was while returning, alone, at night that I had another one of my travula moments. I got to a traffic light that showed red, and I brought out my camera to immediately capture the contrast of the colours against the darkness of the night, only to hear some voices from inside a car on the road, also waiting for the lights to change, screaming in my direction.

“What are you doing?” Apparently they were concerned. For what, I had no idea.

My hand shook from the startling noise, and the camera moved. I had missed my target shot, and I looked back at them. From the distance, I couldn’t see who they were in the car or how many they were. There must have been at least one man, and a few other girls – most likely from the university, and most likely coming from a party. They sounded African-Americans, and the voices I heard were the girls’.

“I’m taking pictures,” I shouted back.

“What for?” I heard again.

“Why do you care?” I retorted, with a shrug. I just couldn’t understand their right to question my priceless appreciation of something of beauty even though, in my mind, I knew that their surprise must be one of these things:

1. That they’d never seen anyone on a bike at night.

2. They’d never seen anyone on a bike at night, taking pictures.

3. They’d never seen anyone on a bike at night, taking pictures of a traffic light!

They became quiet for a little while, and then the light changed. They must have then resolved the doubt within their murmurs, because I then heard: “Okay, have fun taking pictures,” and I said “Thank you” with a thumbs up gesture, before they went across the t-junction towards the university. In my surprise, I didn’t immediately move across the road myself, nor return to get another camera shot of the traffic lights, but later on the way home, I couldn’t immediately decide as well whether that was an awkward moment, or not.

PS: Today, I’m signing up for membership of bicycles-for-humanity.org and bikesfortheworld.com, two non-governmental organizations whose aim is to find unused bikes in North America, Europe and some other western countries and send them to spots in the world where they’re most needed, and where they might change someone’s life by providing an effective means of harmless transportation. Join them if you can. You might be helping someone, somewhere.