Reinventing the wheel
All day, every day, they come streaming across the Montserrado bridge in both directions, carrying everything from freshly baked goods to soggy trash. Policemen direct the wheelbarrow traffic like they would cars. One wheelbarrow rolls by with a load of bras of all sizes, hawked by a young male entrepreneur talking on his hands-free mobile phone. An older teenager pushes a load of dried bush meat, the legs and arms of small furry animals sticking out in all directions. One guy has decorated his rig with an old telephone and walkie-talkie, along with a row of cheerful stuffed animals.
The use of the ‘wheel’, as it’s known among operators, is by no means unique to Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, but nowhere else are wheelbarrows so plentiful or so much a part of economic life as in the city. As soon as daylight breaks, thousands of wheelbarrow operators begin moving goods all over town, either as independent sellers or as unionised deliverymen. Many of these mostly young men were combatants in the civil war that ended in 2003, and the wheelbarrow is the key to their survival in an abysmal economy.
Liberia was founded in 1847 by former slaves from the USA, much to the dismay of the area’s original inhabitants. The tiny Americo-Liberian minority proceeded to conquer the countryside by brute force, creating a de facto apartheid system that lasted until 1980, when the government was overthrown by a ‘native’ Liberian, Samuel Doe.
Political instability gave way to a full-scale civil war that lasted from 1989 to 2003, when President Charles Taylor fled the country and 15,000 UN soldiers arrived to keep the peace. In 2004, Taylor was taken into UN custody for alleged war crimes, and in 2005, Liberia elected the first-ever female African president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Throughout the country’s often rocky history, the wheelbarrow has prevailed.
Many wheelbarrows are modified, outfitted with a car wheel, reinforced with welded steel braces and repeatedly repaired. Anybody can rent one for 20 or 25 Liberian dollars per day (16–20 pence), depending on the size, although the operators make a lot more from making deliveries. On a good day, they can rake in as much as £2.50.
Jerry Scott works alone in the suburb of Congo Town, pushing an artfully arranged load of coconuts held down by homemade rubber straps. ‘I climb for the coconuts in the morning and then I sit down and cut away the peels. Then I go out selling.’ Twenty-six years old, Scott recently finished high school. ‘I paid for all my education with the money from this business,’ he says.
Young male immigrants from Mali and Guinea are well known in Monrovia for their own particular wheelbarrow business: supplying roasted ‘cow meat’ for lunch. A small charcoal grill is attached to the bottom of a metal box, often a two-drawer filing cabinet, which is then welded onto a wheelbarrow and painted in bright colours. Other young men install a car battery and a home stereo system on their wheelbarrows, blasting the latest tunes as they walk the streets selling cassettes and CDs.
‘The wheelbarrow is very important because most people can’t afford cars and trucks to transport goods,’ says TR Sieh, who makes wheelbarrow deliveries in Duala Market, north of town. ‘And many of our roads are narrow, so we use the wheelbarrow to reach customers where trucks can’t go.’
Wheelbarrows are so ubiquitous that some corporations have taken to purchasing advertising space on the sides of the bins, much as they do on buses in more developed cities.
‘The wheel is important in the history of Liberia,’ says Tiklo Teah, whose laminated ID card names him as the security chief of the Duala Market branch of the National Wheelbarrow Operators Association of Liberia (NAWOAL). ‘During the war, the forces would steal your car if they caught you driving. So people had to use wheelbarrows to do everything. We would even carry the injured people to the hospital.’ When President Doe was killed by rival warlords in 1990, his assassins reportedly carried the body around Monrovia in a wheelbarrow to show what they had done.
At least three competing unions are struggling to organise the wheelbarrow operators in the post-war economy, where unemployment is estimated at more than 80 per cent and droves of young people migrate to the city every day in search of work.
‘You register with the association and we paint the serial number on the side of your wheel like a licence plate,’ says George Wilson, financial secretary of NAWOAL’s Duala Market branch. ‘Our branch has 394 members. We’ve been here since 1991. It’s in our constitution that it’s every member’s duty to make a contribution. Then, when you get sick, or if you die, NAWOAL can help with the arrangements.’
Jeff Douglass, an official from the competing, almost identically named organisation, the National Wheelbarrow Operators Union of Liberia (NAWOUL), says the proliferation of wheelbarrow operators is due mainly to the economy’s ill health. ‘In our membership, we have qualified people, people with high school diplomas and people who are going to college even. They’re not doing this because they like it. They have families to feed.’
With incomes so low, the unions admit that they have few material benefits to offer. ‘Sometimes your tyre gets a puncture, and we can fix it on credit until you can repay,’ Douglass says. ‘Or if you get sick, we can pay for the medicine until you are well. That is the idea for the union. But because of the economic circumstances, we can’t always provide.’
The Liberian economy is showing signs of improvement: international observers predict that economic growth will reach eight per cent this year, and the government is poised to launch a raft of labour-intensive infrastructure projects to create better-paying jobs for ex-combatant wheelbarrow operators such as 34-year-old Sackie Nameni.
‘I was shot in the war. You see my foot?’ says Nameni, waiting on a corner for someone to hire him for a delivery. ‘We fought the war and we died. I thank God for bringing peace at last. But now this work is all that I have, and I can’t be satisfied. These are my only wheels in this country.’
Photography by Christopher Herwig
September 2007
The use of the ‘wheel’, as it’s known among operators, is by no means unique to Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, but nowhere else are wheelbarrows so plentiful or so much a part of economic life as in the city. As soon as daylight breaks, thousands of wheelbarrow operators begin moving goods all over town, either as independent sellers or as unionised deliverymen. Many of these mostly young men were combatants in the civil war that ended in 2003, and the wheelbarrow is the key to their survival in an abysmal economy.
Liberia was founded in 1847 by former slaves from the USA, much to the dismay of the area’s original inhabitants. The tiny Americo-Liberian minority proceeded to conquer the countryside by brute force, creating a de facto apartheid system that lasted until 1980, when the government was overthrown by a ‘native’ Liberian, Samuel Doe.
Political instability gave way to a full-scale civil war that lasted from 1989 to 2003, when President Charles Taylor fled the country and 15,000 UN soldiers arrived to keep the peace. In 2004, Taylor was taken into UN custody for alleged war crimes, and in 2005, Liberia elected the first-ever female African president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Throughout the country’s often rocky history, the wheelbarrow has prevailed.
Many wheelbarrows are modified, outfitted with a car wheel, reinforced with welded steel braces and repeatedly repaired. Anybody can rent one for 20 or 25 Liberian dollars per day (16–20 pence), depending on the size, although the operators make a lot more from making deliveries. On a good day, they can rake in as much as £2.50.
Jerry Scott works alone in the suburb of Congo Town, pushing an artfully arranged load of coconuts held down by homemade rubber straps. ‘I climb for the coconuts in the morning and then I sit down and cut away the peels. Then I go out selling.’ Twenty-six years old, Scott recently finished high school. ‘I paid for all my education with the money from this business,’ he says.
Young male immigrants from Mali and Guinea are well known in Monrovia for their own particular wheelbarrow business: supplying roasted ‘cow meat’ for lunch. A small charcoal grill is attached to the bottom of a metal box, often a two-drawer filing cabinet, which is then welded onto a wheelbarrow and painted in bright colours. Other young men install a car battery and a home stereo system on their wheelbarrows, blasting the latest tunes as they walk the streets selling cassettes and CDs.
‘The wheelbarrow is very important because most people can’t afford cars and trucks to transport goods,’ says TR Sieh, who makes wheelbarrow deliveries in Duala Market, north of town. ‘And many of our roads are narrow, so we use the wheelbarrow to reach customers where trucks can’t go.’
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Wheelbarrows are so ubiquitous that some corporations have taken to purchasing advertising space on the sides of the bins, much as they do on buses in more developed cities.
‘The wheel is important in the history of Liberia,’ says Tiklo Teah, whose laminated ID card names him as the security chief of the Duala Market branch of the National Wheelbarrow Operators Association of Liberia (NAWOAL). ‘During the war, the forces would steal your car if they caught you driving. So people had to use wheelbarrows to do everything. We would even carry the injured people to the hospital.’ When President Doe was killed by rival warlords in 1990, his assassins reportedly carried the body around Monrovia in a wheelbarrow to show what they had done.
At least three competing unions are struggling to organise the wheelbarrow operators in the post-war economy, where unemployment is estimated at more than 80 per cent and droves of young people migrate to the city every day in search of work.
‘You register with the association and we paint the serial number on the side of your wheel like a licence plate,’ says George Wilson, financial secretary of NAWOAL’s Duala Market branch. ‘Our branch has 394 members. We’ve been here since 1991. It’s in our constitution that it’s every member’s duty to make a contribution. Then, when you get sick, or if you die, NAWOAL can help with the arrangements.’
Jeff Douglass, an official from the competing, almost identically named organisation, the National Wheelbarrow Operators Union of Liberia (NAWOUL), says the proliferation of wheelbarrow operators is due mainly to the economy’s ill health. ‘In our membership, we have qualified people, people with high school diplomas and people who are going to college even. They’re not doing this because they like it. They have families to feed.’
With incomes so low, the unions admit that they have few material benefits to offer. ‘Sometimes your tyre gets a puncture, and we can fix it on credit until you can repay,’ Douglass says. ‘Or if you get sick, we can pay for the medicine until you are well. That is the idea for the union. But because of the economic circumstances, we can’t always provide.’
The Liberian economy is showing signs of improvement: international observers predict that economic growth will reach eight per cent this year, and the government is poised to launch a raft of labour-intensive infrastructure projects to create better-paying jobs for ex-combatant wheelbarrow operators such as 34-year-old Sackie Nameni.
‘I was shot in the war. You see my foot?’ says Nameni, waiting on a corner for someone to hire him for a delivery. ‘We fought the war and we died. I thank God for bringing peace at last. But now this work is all that I have, and I can’t be satisfied. These are my only wheels in this country.’
Photography by Christopher Herwig
September 2007
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