Cycling with Zambia’s young sorghum supervisor

By Mike Quinn CBC Viewpoint, September 14, 2006

"Are you feeling tired?" Sydney Muzukutukwa shouts from behind as I labour up a hill on my borrowed, one-speed bicycle. Apparently, I am not hiding my struggle very well. My left foot keeps sliding off the pedal-less bar and the crankshaft groans with each stroke. "I’ll make it," I huff, and kick it up a notch to race him up the hill. I get the feeling he’s taking it easy on me and stays close without passing. I am sweating profusely, whereas Sydney is not and is wearing his trademark grin.

Sydney is the 19-year-old sorghum supervisor of the Kazungula Agricultural Cooperative. I was present when the co-operative interviewed him in late February and he very nearly missed out. He arrived breathless as we were just finishing up the interviews, pleading that he had a flat tire on his old bicycle that was missing a seat and both pedals. Halfway through Sydney’s interview, I looked at his application and noticed he wrote that he was 25. When I asked him his age, he said he was only 19. When prompted as to why he wrote this, he replied, "When I handed in my application the sales lady at the co-operative told me to write 25 for my age so that I would be considered for the position."

Outright honesty was a trait that was lacking in the other candidates, so Sydney got the job.

Since then, Sydney has never looked back. The co-operative gave him a new bicycle and he seems to spend his entire life on it. He is Zambia’s Lance Armstrong without the technology or the training. Each morning, he cycles 15 kilometres along a hilly highway from his village to the co-operative before riding out to visit farmers in the surrounding villages to train them in growing sorghum, a grass that can be raised for grain. Some of the farmers extend an additional 20 kilometres from the co-operative along very sandy, bumpy, single-track roads, but this doesn’t seem to slow down Sydney. He is an absolute workhorse.

Bikes are good ways to get around

Bicycles are the developing world’s most appropriate technology. They serve as transportation for people, livestock, and produce. Many entrepreneurial cyclists operate bicycle taxis, ferrying around women for a small fee. I have also seen many a squealing pig being carried to the market. Yet bicycles in Zambia aren’t quite built like they are in Canada, lacking gears, brakes, and almost always at least one pedal.

To get a first-hand experience before heading back to Canada after 15 months in Zambia, I wanted to spend a day with Sydney on one.

The journey from Sydney’s village to an area called Sikaunzwe 50 kilometres away gave us a lot of opportunity to talk. When asked what his ambitions are, he was very clear.

"I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, but now I think I can do better in agriculture," he said. "But first I want to learn computers."

Post-secondary school is both expensive and hard to access in Zambia, but Sydney has a plan. He wants to work two years as sorghum supervisor, learning everything there is to know. He plans on carefully saving his 150,000 Kwacha ($50) per month salary and investing some of it into trading maize. The price of maize is very low following the harvest season and increases dramatically in the months following. This season, Sydney has already bought five bags and is storing them until the price goes up.

The road seemed never ending ahead as we passed uninhabited farmland and the odd mud-and-thatch household. Our conversation was only interrupted by shouts of "muzungu!" (foreigner) from nearly everyone we pass. They were surprised to see a muzungu on a local bicycle.

I am used to the attention, but couldn’t help but laugh when a fellow muzungu stopped his truck and asked, "Where are you going?"

"Sikaunzwe!" I replied.

"On that bicycle?" was his response in disbelief.

Sydney and I left him in our breeze. It’s strange how an activity so fundamental in a Zambian’s life seems so unusual when imitated by a foreigner.

Sydney also owns a few cattle, some goats and chickens, and farms a little himself. Every villager is a farmer in Zambia, even with a full-time job. But his priority is clearly with the co-operative in its quest to get Kazungula’s subsistence farmers to diversify away from maize towards the more drought-tolerant sorghum in response to a decreasing rainfall pattern.

Sydney has been instrumental in the early success of the project, already adopting the nickname "Mr. Myla," or "Mr. Sorghum" from all of the farmers. For a 19-year-old who has been working his first job for only a few months, I am inspired by his maturity and dedication.

In the end we made it to Sikaunzwe. My bicycle broke down three times along the way though. The chain fell off, the crankshaft loosened, and the seat broke. Each time Sydney had it repaired in less than one minute, as if he belonged in a Ferrari pit-crew.

I feel good about leaving Zambia, knowing that there are people like Sydney, dedicated to driving change at the ground level. I just hope his bicycle doesn’t slow him down.