Life on Earth

As the introduction on the Project Rwanda Web site states: “Coffee and bicycles go hand in hand.” Rwanda’s coffee industry is overwhelmingly made up of small scale farmers with less than 200 trees. Despite the small scale, coffee is a leading source of cash for Rwandan farmers. Due to Rwanda’s intense population density, there isn’t a lot of room for coffee farmers to expand, so if they are to increase income they desperately need to improve efficiency. Many of them are accomplishing this through cooperative membership, improving the quality of their beans and getting Fair Trade certified. Project Rwanda is helping by providing affordable transportation. The goal is to develop and provide a load-bearing longbike for Rwandan coffee-growing families get their coffee to first the washing stations in an efficient means.

I wish I would have met someone from this project while I was in Rwanda. I saw so many bicycles that I would often dream about training a championship Mt. Bike team and looking through the Project Rwanda Web site I saw that there indeed is one! Also, Check out the Wooden Bike Classic.

All over the place, people were impressively using bicycles to travel and to transport goods despite the hilly terrain. I didn’t see any of the wooden bikes, but I did see a lot of Shanghai made Phoenix, which are a sturdy Chinese bike. I was impressed with the loads people were carrying on these bikes. The task portrayed below isn’t as easy as it looks. If you get a chance, visit their Web site to learn more, and if so inclined, make a donation.