Maputo, Mozambique
13 October 2000

Sometime in the recent past, a thinking individual came up with an ingenious idea that moved this corner of Africa forward into the mechanical age. His invention was the Donkey Cart. Why they are named Donkey Carts has never been explained to me since they are manpower propelled. These two wheeled vehicles are made of old car wheels fitted into a pipe axle with struts up to a 4 X 5 foot deck about three feet off the ground. It has a long tongue with a tee bar for pulling and a foot to keep it free standing and level when parked. There must be six or eight thousand of them here in Maputo and who knows how many others in the rest of the country. Most of these carts belong to well-to-do fleet owners who rent them out by the week to itinerant entrepreneurs who run their own freight business or mobile shops selling everything from bananas to flower pots to ripened tomatoes. The day before yesterday 5 missionaries came from Beira and got off the bus a mile or so from the church. They found a donkey cart operator to haul their luggage for a couple of dollars. These vehicles are always snarling up the traffic on the uphill road from the airport into the center of the city. Usually the carts in that area are loaded with a half ton of cement bags. Two or three skinny guys strain at the tongue with taut muscles and not an ounce of fat.

Of course, these handcart kind of machines are a nightmare to the growing traffic in this city and I don’t expect that it will be long before they are outlawed. The grandees can’t be held up in their air conditioned Mercedes as they hasten to carry exaggerated profits to the bank. The greatest challenge is to drive at night on unlighted streets and avoid running into these barely visible contraptions. Last week I whipped through an intersection where an operator was waiting to cross. Rather than pulling the cart, he was pushing from behind with the long handle sticking way out into the traffic lane. I saw the pipe tongue just in time to swerve and avoid a smashed windshield. Others have been less fortunate. Mangled carts and bodies testify to the incompatibility of daring drivers in fast cars and manpowered vehicles. Amish horse drawn buggies and cars similarly cause fatalities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

And which group should prevail in this competition to freely ply the roads? The race for wealth in many additional ways pits the laboring masses against the fast-driving dealers of this world. Where might makes right the poor are vulnerable and must duck and dodge in order to survive. Governments promise "um futuro melhor" (a better future) but melhor for whom? Around 80% of the population in Mozambique is unemployed. Yes, they have the right to vote (as do we all) but not the right to make a difference. In a coming day the poor will be exalted, in that the rich are made low. (D &C 104:16) Until that day comes the poor will continue to be with us always. (Mark 14:7)

LDS Charities receives a growing number of contributions into its coffers each year. Wealthy members contribute generously but also others send large checks because they like the idea that we spend little on salaries and overhead. Corporations and businesses provide equipment and materials for the benefit of the third world’s unfortunate. Will the needy ever join the first world or be given enough help to meet their needs? Perhaps not and, because of the enormity of the task, many aid agencies become weary in well doing. Wealth and self-sufficiency come to those who have the advantage to find their share of this world’s goods. The poor don’t even run on the same track.

Maybe Mozambique’s handcart buggies are called donkey carts because their operators labor in the heat of the day and are beaten by the cares of this world. Our blessings go with these noble laborers. May we slow our hurried driving pace to give them their rightful passage. They earn well their daily bread.
Stay well,
Elder Ray E. Caldwell