MALAWI CART 2002 PHOTO UPDATE

	26. Three transport modalities in Malawi:  one woman headloading flour from the maize mill; another pushing a wheelbarrow of flour; and a man on a bicycle taking a bag of maize to the mill.
	27. A wheelbarrow in use at Chitedze.  Note that the operator has to lift half the load as well as balance it.  It is totally unsuitable for the carriage of heavy loads over any appreciable distance, a fact not immediately apparent to the uninitiated elite.
	28. A scene at the Malawi Ministry of Agriculture’s Chitedze Agricultural Research Station.  This oxcart was available to carry bulky harvested groundnut plants to the goat-corral, but the oxen were not.  It was used as a handcart, and served to ease the burden of its operators.  There is an enormous and unmet need for handcarts in SSA.
	29. A donkey cart at work, some 15 kilometers to the west of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital.  Few of these carts are in use in Malawi because they are far too expensive for the average Malawian, as well as because their capacity is far more than is needed for most trips.
	30. An oxcart used to carry water.  A very useful IMT (intermediate means of transport,) but far too expensive for most smallholder farmers, and of little use in urban settings.  The cost of an oxcart is some $400 and the pair of oxen over $200.  The average subsistence farm in Malawi is but one hectare, and too small to both feed a family and pasture two oxen.
	31. A welded-steel ‘polio-tricycle’ in Lilongwe.  Notice that it employs three of the same rear (40 spoke) bicycle wheels as the Malawi Cart.  These rear wheels are affixed to the vehicle in frames similar in concept to the Malawi Cart, save that they are fabricated of welded tubular steel instead of wood.  This concept has been around for decades, but no one realized that it could be translated from steel to wood.
	32. This photo again illustrates the applicability of ordinary (rear / 40-spoke) bicycle wheels to handcart use.  The three wheels of this  ‘polio tricycle’ support the paraplegic driver as well as the heavy load of cargo.  The accompanying article (The New York Times, July 3, 2002) states that people using these tricycles “travel about two miles each way [between Goma, Congo and Gisenyi, Rwanda] to make their deliveries, and on a good day they might manage two or three trips.”  This is a distance of up to 12 miles per day, with a payload (including the ‘driver’ of some 100 kilograms.  The bicycle wheels are quite capable of carrying this load.  The caption below reads:  “Propelled by a group of young “pushers,” a Congolese man disabled by polio wheels into Rwanda with a load of goods to sell at Gisenyi’s Market.”  (Photo: Francisco Broli for the NYT)
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