Riding in pickup trucks

I experienced another first while I was traveling in Malawi, seeing 20 people or more crammed in the open back cargo area of a pickup truck. Yes, you are reading this correctly. As we drove around central and southern Malawi such trucks crammed with passengers in the exposed cargo area were common sights.

Here in America, riding in the open cargo area of a pickup truck is illegal in many States. As a result I see fewer pickup trucks carrying passengers in the open cargo area than I did when I was younger. But, I have never ever seen more than a few people riding in an open cargo area. Perhaps four at the most, and they were always – if memory serves – sitting down in the bed of the cargo area,. I don’t think that I ever saw anyone sitting on the “rim” of the cargo area.

Another common form of transportation in Malawi involves people the owner or daily renter of pickup truck cramming as many paying passengers as they can in the cargo area of the truck and dropping them off along a route. People will be sitting in the bed of the cargo area as well as all around the rim. I’m not making this stuff up.

The Malawians have a name for this, but I deleted the e-mail from Stephanie where she reported on her experience riding as a passenger in the back of a pickup truck along with the translation to the local language.

I wondered what keeps people who are sitting on the rim of the cargo areas from falling off, especially on a rutted dirt road. But what do I know?