"Uwunguruza abantu n’ikinga," in the Kurundi dialect of Burundi, means “bike taxi-man.” In the small East African country’s capital, Bujumbura, cyclists transport everything from human passengers to huge bundles of bananas and sugarcane to bricks and bedroom sets.

In 2013, German photographer Stephan Würth took a two-day road trip around the hilly country, snapping images on his iPhone of these ubiquitous “bike taxi-men.” He documented how “the bicycle has become an integral part of [Burundian] citizens’ daily survival,” as Joseph Akel writes in Ikinga, a new book of Würth’s photographs. In a country the IMF ranks as one of the poorest in the world — the average annual income is below $300 — many Burundians rely on bicycles as a means of supporting themselves.

“While the history of Burundi and its legacy of civil war and ethnic conflict cannot be ignored, Würth’s photographs, far from eschewing this legacy, offer new insights into how the nation strives to overcome its past by presenting a unique glimpse into life there today,” Akel writes. “The bicycle has become a potent symbol of how that change is playing out … Indeed, the bicycle in Burundian culture has, in many ways, come to stand in for the resilience and the ingenuity of its people.” In these candid images, a smiling young mother with her baby strapped to her back rides sidesaddle on a bike-taxi; a bike’s handlebars are decorated with stripy knitted fabrics, tassels, and reflectors; and a group of boys on bikes cling to the bumper of a fuel truck, hitching a ride.