Back-of-the-Motobike Calculations

Some Westerners have a policy when visiting Rwanda: Never get on the back of a motobike taxi. True, motobikes zip around faster and are more susceptible to falling over than taxi cars. Some people would never choose to drive a motorcycle in Kigali city traffic, and the thought of perching on the back of one someone else is driving is hardly more appealing. Still, if you don’t have a vehicle of your own, motobikes tend to get you from point A to point B in the capital city of Kigali faster and cheaper (about $1.50) than any other available option. If you can make your way to any significant road in the city and raise your arm, you’ll likely summon the nearest motobike to swoop in front of you. Using a combination of place names, maps and gestures, your destination can usually be conveyed to the driver. The driver quotes a price easily twice what the locals pay if you’re a “Muzungu” (white foreigner), but will back off 30% with a little negotiation. At that point, you’re handed a battered motorcycle helmet with a cracked visor, throw your leg over the back of the bike, and get a good grip onto something. My first motobike driver, the one I learned such protocol with in Rwanda, is pictured below.
Over the course of two weeks in Kigali, I caught over 35 motobike rides. Typically, I was wearing business attire and had a laptop bag swung over my shoulder and back. Three times my driver gave up en route…admitting he didn’t know the place I had asked him to take me. Twice, my driver deviated from the paved roads to take a “shortcut” over ruts most 4X4 trucks would avoid. Once (when I suggested we go faster because I was late for a meeting), my driver let me handle the throttle so I could determine the speed... and together we yelled the destination into the night air to the amusement of curious onlookers. On all these rides, we never crashed, and I grew to enjoy the cool wind blowing past us and the fluid, unpredictable dances we did with oncoming and parallel traffic… and that is when I remembered a story…

Randy Komisar (a Silicon Valley start-up guru) wrote a simple yet profound book for entrepreneurs called “The Monk & the Riddle”. In it, he talks about finding passion in business venturing, and he describes a vacation where he drove a hitchhiking monk in Burma for hours on the back of a motorcycle. When they arrived at a monastery, the monk got off and Komisar was given a riddle: ''Imagine I have an egg and I want to drop this egg three feet without breaking it. How do I do that?'' As Komisar got back on his bike and continued his journey into a beautiful sunset in a foreign land, his answer came to him: don’t focus so much on the objective that you fail to live fully today. In other words, learn to enjoy the journey as much as reaching your destination… if you can, you may even find yourself reaching a better destination.

Perhaps such wisdom is easier to grasp when closing your eyes and flying between traffic on the back of a Kigali motobike. Regardless, this is a perspective I highly recommend.

Onward & Upward,
-Carter