Zebu cart

The sunrise over the Sambirano Valley is typically coincides with a small traffic jam on the bridge leading into the town of Ambanja. This congestion is not caused by cars but by slow-moving zebu carts. The drivers and passengers of these ox-powered carts are transporting crops to the town's central marketplace.

Zebu carts, or Charrettes à zebu as they are known, are common in and around Ambanja and across much of the country.

Dozens of workshops produce charrettes in Ambanja. One workshop is run by Mr Theodore, who with his team of six skilled carpenters builds around 50 charrettes per year, all manually assembled without the use of electrical power tools.

The design and model are always the same: A simple two-wheeler which easily attaches to one or more zebus.

These charrette remains as practical and relevant among farmers today as they have for some hundreds of years.

A charrette takes about one week to build and costs 1,800,000 (USD 400).

Respect to the thousands of Malagasy farmers for not polluting the environment more than necessary by keeping their traditional way of transport.

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