No where in the city are bicycles and bike shops more concentrated than Alabar. Sure there are many places in and around Kumasi where one can find a few bicycles on display for rent or sale. The density of bikes on display in Alabar market, however, is at odds with the local cycling culture which is (almost) non-existent. Who are going to ride all these bikes and where?
On Saturday, Essien, our main contact at the market offered an explanation. Customers are mostly dealers from Benin, Burkina Faso or Ivory Coast who buy in bulk, he says. As soon as we finally set off for the five hour trip to the lake I had the sensation of experiencing the city anew. On top of our lean metal frames with our helmets on, with seven other (european) cyclers justling for space with animals, humans, cars and motorbikes on the same streets, kumasi now felt like a city awkwardly mashed up with a different city from a different continent!
So this suburb of Kumasi is full of Burkinabes, Beninois and Ivorians who come and go, Essien goes on saying, as we pick up the discussion again on Sunday late afternoon when I return my bike. I bid goodbye and now on foot, with eyes wide open, I try to (re)discover this mashup of West African townships and peoples for myself. Just a few metres from Essien's shop I see a side of a one-storey building boldly engraved with the words Yoruba Palace.
Its the morning of the day of departure and I'm home in Ejisu packing. I check the map Mirjam shared in our whatsapp group for the meeting spot. It turns out its exactly where I thought we would or should meet.
I think of packing water and the thought brings forth a flash of epiphany. I scramble around the kitchen looking for the special water bottle. The Utrecht University branded dopper is a gift from an ex who schooled there. I can now get a sense of why this bottle is designed this way and it's now no surprise its made by a Dutch company.
I hop into a trotro and then into a taxi and finally I'm at the meeting spot. I see a line of Obronis, all seated together on a long bench as though they were little kids impatiently waiting for their parents to pick them up from the kindergarten.
In front of these seven friends were a good number of what will be our next mode of transportation: bicycles! I look at their frames and look at the dopper I brought along and smile. I think of the word lean and feel vindicated.
As we ride I feel more closer to the terrain of the city than I do in a car. A hard and tough moment paddling up a hill is soon followed by the joy of descending down a valley. Kumasi is very frustrating and very rewarding to cycle in. I feel both highs and lows in my body. The lean bike unites my body with the landscape.
