Pousse-Pousse
This is a pousse-pousse.
This is a pousse-pousse and my mighty airplane. It is arguable which is more important to the local economy.These carts are found all over the Congo, and are always pushed or pulled or pushed and pulled by men. They are filled with dirt or washing machines or steel rods or stacked 12 feet high with jerry cans and everything and anything. The pousse-pousse is how things get from here to there in the DRC.
posted by Carl at 5:49 AM
5 Comments:
I saw a short video once about Goma where the people were bringing their goods to market using a cart made of timber with big wooden wheels. The cart looked like something out of the Middle Ages. Is that type of cart also called a "pousse-pousse"?
Is this word pousse-pousse from the French language or a local Congolese language? How do you pronounce it? Just kidding...:-)
when i was in goma i saw those things all over. they are called something else. i don't know what. i asked about it when i was there and they said the thing had a wooden axle and no bearings.
the ones i saw looked like giant cartoon bicycles, or a flintstones bike made out of wood.
Pousse, in French, means "push". As for the Goma wooden bicycles, their called Tshukudus. Those can cary over 250 pounds of good!
Hey Kim, you have any photos of those tshukudus? And do they really have wooden axles?
Hey Carl,
I (finally) learned how to correctly pronounce the phrase "pousse-pousse". It is a single syllable pronunciation, not the double syllable style that I had been using. A woman friend and neighbor from Kinshasa got me straightened out on that. Quick! Man was the right side of my face smarting...:-)
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