Saturday, June 12, 2010

Boda-Boda in Uganda

On my month long vacation in East Africa, I got to see a lot of cycles and people who are dependent on cycles totally. The above photo was taken on way from Nakasangolo to Kampala. Uganda being a poor country, people are dependent mostly on public transport which are usually motor van taxis, or boda-boda. Here's is what a Boda-boda means and is a very interesting part of the Ugandan lives.

From Wikipedia,

Boda-boda (or bodaboda) is a bicycle taxi, originally in East Africa (from English border-border). The bicycle rider can also be called boda-boda.

The boda-boda taxis are part of the African bicycle culture; they started in the 1960s and 1970s and are still spreading from their origin on the Kenyan - Ugandan border to other regions. The name originated from a need to transport people across the "no-mans-land" between the border posts without the paperwork involved with using motor vehicles crossing the international border. This started in southern border crossing town of Busia (Uganda), where there is over half a mile between the gates, and quickly spread to the northern border town of Malaba (Kenya). The bicycle owners would shout out boda-boda (border-to-border) to potential customers - not to be confused with poda-poda, which is a form of shared taxi in Sierra Leone.

Motorbikes replacing bicycles
While the boda-boda bicycle is still spreading to other areas, in its area of origin, especially in cities in Kenya and Uganda, the bicycles are more and more replaced by motorbikes. The motorbike-taxis have taken the name bodaboda as well, though in much of Uganda, the Swahili term for motorbike, piki-piki, is used to describe motorbike boda-bodas. In 2004 it was estimated that more than 200 000 men in Uganda were working as bicycle bodaboda and already almost 90 000 as motorized motorbike bodaboda.
Okada or Achaba is the Nigerian equivalent to motorbike bodaboda.

photo source: Wikipedia

1 comment:

  1. ya gunveen sorry to miss out.The information is surprising as with the mentioned 200000 people in Uganda are bicycle Boda boda .But how about the bicycle as a product is available in forms and source, to people?