On Bicimaqunias and Community

A country torn apart by more than a decade of civil war, Guatemala is a place of un-precedented beauty, mystery and pain. 

With warnings from friends and strangers alike about the state of Guatemala’s security, I left Guatemala’s capital city as soon as possible.  Arriving at 4:30 a.m. on a Friday morning, I did my best to cram everything I owned into my already overloaded backpack. Shoes, a sleeping bag, a thermarest and a camp pillow dangling precariously from my backpack, I navigated the strangely small Guatemala City airport in search of a cab, 3 bicycle polo mallets in tow.

I hit the ground running with my Spanish.  Negotiating in Spanish the 60 km trip from the airport to MayaPedal was fairly easy, though the sum shall not be repeated here.  In retrospect I’m quite grateful for that ride, though, having now experienced the raw insanity (yet also efficiency) that is the Guatemalan Chicken Bus System.  My driver did manage to hit a dog on the highway out of the city, an event that alarmed me but didn’t seem to phase my driver.  “He’s still walking,” he replied in Spanish. 

Arriving at MayaPedal around 6:30 a.m., a jovial and handlebar moustached volunteer named Ian greeted me with more enthusiasm than befits such an hour.  Eager to make me feel welcome, he put on the kettle (a busted tin pot) and began to show me around. 

MayaPedal, founded in 1996, receives shipments of used bicycle parts from Bikes Not Bombs and the Working Bikes Collective in the United States.  They use the bikes and parts for two purposes: 1) they repair the used bikes and sell them to locals for general use.  2) the build bicycle powered agricultural machines, bicimaqunias, for local farmers (campesinos). 

Bikes Not Bombs had been a guiding light as I founded and ran Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop in Memphis.  I had peripherally followed their international programs through their newsletter updates and websites, though I’ve always retained a certain amount of skepticism about international aid, in particular the distribution of American “stuff” in poor countries with the idea that our stuff might make their lives better. 

But because a central component of my thesis for this year states that the bicycle retains the potential to bring people together into communities with a common passion and focus, MayaPedal—being a volunteer based organization—provides a unique opportunity to test the power of a bicycle based program to bind a small group of people into a collective infused with a purpose.  

Self-motivation is critical at MayaPedal.  Carlos, our leader, engineer, and bicimaqunia mastermind, always has his hands full with the affairs of the business.  The nuts and bolts of MayaPedal, that is the day to day work of organizing parts, repairing bikes, and building the various components of the machines, is left largely to the individual volunteers.  As a small group of norteamericanos, we work together to organize ourselves and the work.  Which means, if the group is less than coherent or marred by a shiftless soul or two, things could get rough. 

Amazingly, the group we’ve got here at MayaPedal works like a well-oiled bicimaqunia.  My own perception of fluidity might be informed, in part, by the arrival of one of my oldest friends.  My old friend Sarah and her boyfriend Nick were waiting outside the door of MayaPedal on my second afternoon here in Itzapa.  Hugs and words of welcome were exchanged and I secretly marveled at life’s ability to bestow grace through a perpetual process of providence. 

And so, almost two weeks into my stay in Guatemala, I’m learning again why History matters. It washes over people and places, the dusty roads and marvelous mountains of Guatemala, leaving it with a sheen of promise covered by a veneer of insecurity.  I’m becoming re-acquainted with the energetic bicycle kids of North America, a group distinguished by their flailing ambition to use the bicycle to improve the quality of life for all people in the Americas.    I’m learning about poverty…and role of the bicycle in the lives of a people who spend most of their day felling their own cooking fuel.   And I’m glancing at my own country, closer now than it has been in more than 9 months, and I’m thinking hard about the changes it is going through; and where the bicycle might take us all.

Baisikeli

Being that I helped to found a Recycle-a-Bike program back home in Memphis--that is, a program that accepts donated used bikes and rehabilitates them to ensure that the bicycles end up back on the roadway--I've been intent on finding similar programs worldwide.

In Copenhagen, I haven't found a program that makes use of the thousands of bicycles found on the streets each year. Mostly, the police place a yellow tag around the top tube of bicycles which lay around for months untouched, and after 30 days or so, they come back to cut the locks and pick the bikes up. The abandoned bikes are scrapped (recycled) but the bikes that turn out to be stolen belong to insurance companies.

People here in Copenhagen can chose to insure their bicycle through their homeowners coverage, so if the police report back to insurance companies that bicycle WW965734D has been stolen, typically the insurance company has already paid the owner, which means the insurance company now owns the bicycle.
This is where Baisikeli comes in.

Baisikeli has made a deal with the insurance companies: Baisikeli purchases the stolen bikes from the insurance company for a nominal fee, fixes them up, and then rents the bicycles out to people (mostly tourists) in Copenhagen.
(A few keys from for the rental bikes at Baisikeli.)

A good idea, right? It gets better: Baisikeli is a "socially conscious business," so they use the money generated from bicycle rental to fund the shipment of bicycles and bicycle parts to a workshop they operate in Tanzania. Their goal is to create a sustainable bicycle industry in Tanzania, which starts with the funds generated from these initial shipments of bicycles, but which will grow to make enough money to create a frame building factory in Tanzania that can create bicycle ambulances and other helpful mobility devices.

This is Lisa, my friend and the lead mechanic at the shop. She is also quite a dancer, apparently. Beside Lisa is a stack of bikes, replenished daily, in need of repair.
The shop at Baisikeli is quite modest. They're constantly improving their facility, as well as their business model, as they are a new and innovative business. Places like Bikes Not Bombs in Boston have been doing this sort of thing in the U.S. for years. For Copenhagen, however, the idea appears to be quite novel.

I mostly work to fix flats, which on a bike with a coaster brake, rear fenders, a 7 speed internal hub and an axel bolted light system, can take some time.
The closest thing to a bicycle recycling program I've found in Copenhagen, Baisikeli excels in a number of areas. They are very visible and highly respected amongst most Copenhageners, particularly those interested in growing the already vibrant bicycle culture in the city. But whats more, they are authentic community builders. The crew at Baisikeli welcomes everyone with a smile and a bicycle map (a free map illustrating all of the bicycle routes in the City of Copenhagen), and occasionally, a warm cup of coffee.

Check them out on the web: http://www.baisikeli.dk/