You can transport anything with a Zimmy Jhan!

Bottles:


Furniture:




A refrigerator:



Baskets:


Children:




It doesn't take very long to notice the streets in Benin are unlike any other in the world. Not only are they filled with the normal traffic, merchants, pedestrians and everything else you can imagine... but "zimmy jhans" (pronounced Zimmy Johns) are everywhere. Zimmy's are basically motorcycles, but they are dirt cheap to get a ride on and you do not need a license to operate one... so you can imagine the craziness of the streets here. Mercy Ships strongly discourages anyone from using zimmys as they are very dangerous. One friend of mine put it this way.... Katie I want you to come back in peace, not pieces. :) I have only found myself forced to take a zimmy 2x since coming to Benin and am not going to make a habit of it... both times being because of time issues. But hey! I have to experience all of Benin, right?? One of the times there were 3 of us girls at the market and we hired 3 zimmys to bring us back and one of them ran out of gas en route to the ship, so chelsea had to jump off of one zimmy and ran to another that was sitting at the light with us and told him to follow us! Apparently he understood because he followed and we made it back safe and sound.

Other perils on the roads in Benin: