Kenya T HE bicycle reigns supreme in this rural town in south-western Kenya, performing much the same functions as cars and trucks in larger cities.
Youths carry passengers and goods on bikes.
Boys as young as eight can be seen riding through the streets with two or three 20-litre jerrycans of water hanging to their bicycles. The mayor and town clerk cycle to work. Old women pedal along in the hot sun. And sometimes coffins are ferried from the district mortuary to burial grounds on bicycles. The feeder roads, all made of earth, are rough and, in the wet season, muddy.