By the end of tomorrow I will be safely back on English soil (I hope), ready to get my own piece of the Swine Flu action. In typical fashion my ability to write any kind of continuous prose is completely evading me; however, in an unusual step, I’m not going to carry on regardless. So, instead, I’ll take a different approach. Actually, it’s the same approach I took earlier on in the trip at one point, if I remember rightly, but I think I can probably get away with recycling it without anyone remembering.

I’m going for a list of things I’ve learned along the way, and interesting (and not-so-interesting) points about the trip. Hope you don’t mind!

1. It took me 109 days to get from London to Mwingi by bicycle.

2. In total, 122 days will have passed while undertaking this trip.

3. That means I’ve spent 1.3% of my life on it.

4. 1.3% of my life doesn’t sound like a lot.

5. It’s felt like a lot.

6. It will take me less than nine hours to get from Nairobi to London.

7. I regularly wonder why I didn’t think of that when deciding how to get here.

8. On the other hand, I did have more legroom on the way out (unless that begged for upgrade comes through. Please, please, please!!!).

9. Most people regularly exaggerate the dangers and difficulties of travelling through the countries I’ve been through.

10. It would be impossible to exaggerate the extent to which I would dissuade people from ever cycling through Ethiopia.

11. The things I’ve had which received most admiration were my lights, sunglasses and tyres.

12. A light was stolen in Sudan, a tyre in Turkey and a pair of sunglasses in Ethiopia.

13. Next time, I need to bring five pairs of sunglasses.

14. Next time, make sure there isn’t a next time.

15. Most people assume you’ve misunderstood the question when you respond to “Where have you come from?” with “England”.

16. Most people think you’re a bit silly when they find out you didn’t.

17. It’s quite possible to get by in countries where you don’t speak a single word of the language.

18. That’s a very good thing when you don’t speak a single word of the language in 13 and a half (that would be Belgium) of the 17 countries you’re visiting along the way.

19. You can get a good night’s sleep in a hotel room costing about £1 per night.

20. You can get a better night’s sleep in the Ambassador’s house.

21. Kenyans like to sing and dance.

22. I can’t sing or dance.

23. There’s something slightly magical about sleeping under a mosquito net.

24. Some of that magic is removed when there are multiple holes in the aforementioned net.

25. The Sudanese are some of the friendliest people in the world.

26. The Sudanese Government are arguably less so.

27. Many Ethiopians come in a similar category to the Sudanese Government.

28. The Turkish are pretty good too and they have better petrol stations, so Turkey wins overall.

29. The favoured gift from FARM-Africa beneficiaries is a bag.

30. I haven’t yet worked out what to do with a sizeable collection of bags.

31. They also like to give chickens.

32. My chicken didn’t taste very nice.

33. FARM-Africa’s project in Mwingi, despite severe drought, is still working.

34. You should donate some money to it.

35. Putting a suggestion to donate money in the middle of an unrelated list is a good way to make people do exactly that.

36. I hope that point 35 is true.

37. I don’t know how long a list such as this should last for.

38. I think that this is probably long enough.

Tonight is my final night here in Mwingi. By the time I fly out of Nairobi on Tuesday morning, I will have spent exactly 120 nights away from England, staying in everything from rat-infested hotel rooms to ambassadorial residences and pitching my tent both in ditches and picturesque lake-side spots. It’s certainly been a trek, but what has been the point?

When I set off, four months ago, I had three aims for this trip: firstly, I wanted to visit the project for my own benefit, to find out exactly what it was about and to meet the people it was helping; second, I felt that it was important to show the many people who have supported my fund-raising over the last few years that it was worth the effort; and third, I hoped that it would inspire more people to donate some of their hard-earned money to FARM-Africa.

I certainly achieved the first one, you’ll have to let me know about the second one and, as for the third one, there’s still time!

One of the most reassuring things about visiting the project here in Mwingi has been that it is not perfect. That may seem like a strange thing to find reassuring, but the fact is that nothing is perfect. Therefore, if it appeared perfect, then I clearly wasn’t being shown a true representation of what’s going on. Most importantly, the individuals running the project know that it isn’t perfect, and are always looking for ways to improve it. When I visited Meru, the location for the original implementation of this model, a number of points came up where I was told that it didn’t quite go to plan first time around, but for each one they’d made necessary amendments here in Mwingi in an attempt to ensure the same mistakes didn’t happen again.

And they’ve certainly had their fair share of obstacles to success. Mwingi has what is technically entitled a “semi-arid” climate. Well, when you’ve had six failed rainy seasons, that starts to appear a very loose term. Yet, despite the environmental problems which are set to continue to cause huge problems across major parts of Kenya, the project has been successful. Given more favourable conditions perhaps it could be even more so, but any project that can survive the kind of challenges this one has faced deserves significant support.

I could recite all kinds of figures giving the number of goats that the beneficiaries now have, the volume of milk they’re producing and the sums of money they’re raising through the sale of their offspring, but I won’t. Partly because I have no idea what they are, other than the fact that they’re large and impressive, but that’s not the point. I’d much rather resort to pathetic cliches that, in this case, just happen to be entirely true.

Every beneficiary I’ve met – and it feels like I’ve met nearly every one of the more than 1,000 in Kitui and Mwingi – has a story to tell about how the project has affected their life. Every beneficiary had a smile on their face and was desperate to show off their pride and joy: their goats. In the relatively short time that the project has been running, these individuals have gone from being the poorest people within a poor country to being able to feed their families, to being able to fund their children through school, to being respected by their peers and, perhaps most importantly, to having pride in themselves and their accomplishments.

It hasn’t turned them into wealthy families, by any means – they’d still make a mockery out of what is regularly labelled as “poverty” in the UK – but FARM-Africa has assisted them in taking that first step up the ladder. The rest is up to them and, armed with the confidence and skills they have gained, there is no reason they can’t continue climbing higher and higher.

Should the Kenyan Government be doing more to help its own people? Probably, yes, and I hope that the appropriate people are putting pressure on them to do so rather than relying on NGOs to continue to do the work for them. But until that changes, I’m very thankful that there are people willing to help organisations like FARM-Africa do the work they’re doing and continue to make a difference to people’s lives.

(Maybe now would be a good time to remind you about www.justgiving.com/pedallingalltheway. No reason, just felt like mentioning it!)

Having seen a lot of the FARM-Africa project around Kitui and Mwingi, it’s been great to see the successes they have achieved in a relatively short space of time. But what can happen in another five years? Today I’ve come to Meru, where the project started over ten years ago.

Having said that, the farmers up here at the foot of Mt Kenya have a different set of challenges to face. While those in Mwingi are having to deal with a crippling drought, here in Meru there is no shortage of water at all; in fact, yesterday it was even drizzling slightly. That means that feeding the goats, and themselves, is less of a challenge, although feeding the right things isn’t always easy.

One of the bucks has recently died having eaten a poisonous plant. I bet the farmers in Mwingi would love the opportunity to find any plant, poisonous or not, to feed the bucks!

Overall, however, the Meru Goat Breeders’ Association has been doing very well. Breeding stations are set up in numerous locations, and many of the farmers are enjoying the fruits of their hard work, selling some of the offspring to raise funds for school fees or other costs. Last month alone, members of the Association sold goats to the value of over 1 million KSh – that’s around £8,000.

But that’s not all they’re doing. A few years ago, with the support of FARM-Africa, they set up a milk processing plant. They can collect the surplus milk from the members before treating and packaging, selling both fresh milk and yoghurt. It has great potential, but is unfortunately being held back at the moment due to delays in getting the necessary quality-mark from the Government.

Of course, not everything is perfect. FARM-Africa rightly has very little direct involvement in the activities around Meru anymore, so my visit also gave them an opportunity to have a look round. It wasn’t all as it should be. Some of the goat housing is not in fantastic condition (they assured us that the wood on the floor was just waiting to be put up to repair them), and a few of the kids were underweight and needed worming.

I was also a little disappointed to hear a request from one of the members (admittedly a new one who perhaps wasn’t aware of exactly how the project was supposed to work) for more funds so that they can restock some of their breeding stations with more Toggenburgs. But FARM-Africa have learned lessons from the way they implemented the project in Meru, and the problems that arose, and tried to rectify them as they adapted the model for Mwingi.

One issue that I feel is a big challenge is how to change the overall financial mindset of the farmers. Prior to getting involved, they were exceptionally poor. In that kind of situation, you can’t afford to worry about tomorrow too much; your focus must be on getting enough food and water to survive today. Therefore, when they find themselves with a kid that has a market value of 10,000 KSh, there will always be a great temptation to sell it in order to have that money, rather than thinking about the potential for milk and further offspring from that kid. Trying to get them to start planning and investing in their own future will always be a challenge, and the savings and credit scheme that has been set up in Mwingi is one way to tackle that.

Another issue is one of general financial management and thinking like a business. Each farmer is effectively becoming a self-employed businessman, producing and selling milk and goats in order to earn a living. They still seem a little reluctant to stand on their own two feet, as shown by their delight at the visit from me and FARM-Africa. The milk processing plant clearly has a lot of potential, both in local markets and in the capital, Nairobi.

Recently, a new quality standard was introduced, and they have needed to send samples off for testing in order to be able to sell their products again. Despite the fact that the test results were due back a week ago, and every day that passes they are losing money, they hadn’t yet followed up what was going on, simply explaining that they hadn’t seen the person who was supposed to be dealing with it yet. That’s something that needs to be different in Mwingi and, based on what I’ve seen among people like Macdonald and within the SACCO committee, I suspect it will be.

As for Meru, despite the minor problems, the successes are inspiring. Every farmer has a story to tell about how the goats have allowed them to send their children through secondary school or something equally valuable. The whole area is now littered with Toggenburgs, as other members of the community have seen what can be achieved with them and approached the MGBA to purchase goats.

With a few small changes, who knows where they can end up. Do Tesco need a new goats’ milk supplier?!

I’ve had the great privilege to go around visiting many of the groups formed as part of the Kenya Dairy Goat Capacity Building project over the last week. It’s been fantastic to hear about the successes they’ve achieved over the past four years, despite the challenging climate. But past successes are one thing; the future is what matters.

Thankfully, that’s equally promising.

The project is designed in a way that allows it to continue. The basic principle is that Toggenburg goats (a British dairy goat) have been brought in, and they are cross-bred with a local breed. The female offspring, known as F1 goats, are then cross-bred again with a pure Toggenburg (don’t worry, it’s not with their dads!) to produce a goat that is 75% Toggenburg and 25% local. Once sufficient animals of that mix have been bred, they will be bred with each other, as that is considered the ideal compromise of milk production and the ability to withstand the harsher climate than is found in Britain.

Every goat that is given out is given as a loan-in-kind, on the condition that the first kid is returned. Breeding centres have been set-up, both to produce new pure Toggenburgs and also for the cross-breeds. This obviously takes careful management and, rather than FARM-Africa being in charge, that is now handled by the Kitui Mwingi Goat Breeders’ Association, currently under the supervision of FARM-Africa.

And they have big ambitions.

Other than the goat activities, the Association now also has a SACCO, a savings and credit scheme. Participants are encouraged to save a regular amount, initially small but increasing from there as their income grows. From these funds, members can apply for a loan for setting up businesses or other activities requiring a cash injection. Previously they would have been unable to acquire such funding, as they have too few assets even to qualify for the various micro-credit organisations that can be found.

Due to the community nature of the scheme, defaulting on the loan is discouraged through peer-pressure; the loan is guaranteed by the rest of your group, so any failure to repay will affect their savings. I don’t suppose they’d let someone get away with that very easily.

I went along to a meeting of the SACCO’s committee the other day, and it was very impressive to see a group of five individuals who just a few years ago were classed as the poorest people around confidently and competently managing what is essentially a small bank. For now, FARM-Africa remain as a signatory on the account and ensure that everything is operating correctly but, from what I saw, that doesn’t appear to be necessary, although I’m sure it’s a good idea just for safety.

The meeting was held in a tiny room in Mwingi Town with no glass in the windows and barely enough room for the six of us to fit in. Everything is recorded diligently on paper, as they don’t have computer facilities available – it would be impractical to get any even if the funds allowed, as they wouldn’t have anywhere secure enough to keep them. In time, that will hopefully change.

Given the opportunity, they would ideally purchase a piece of land in Mwingi on which they could build an office. With sufficient space, they could also move the main KMGBA breeding station there, a facility which is currently housed on land donated by the Government – should power change hands, you’re never quite sure if it will be taken away again.

Such a move would allow them to expand both their goat breeding activities and the SACCO, helping the current members and the community as a whole. The security afforded by having their own establishment would also mean they could be even more ambitious with longer-term ventures. I’m currently in Meru, the location for the original Dairy Goat project whose model was adapted to work in Mwingi. This was set-up nearly ten years ago and, although the climate here is very different (it’s green at the moment!), it’ll be fascinating to see what can happen after FARM-Africa leaves.

There are so many opportunities that could be exploited to raise the standard of living of those around Mwingi. They certainly have the ambition, drive and ability to make a success of them.

All that’s required is the necessary support.

(And, on that note, have you visited www.justgiving.com/pedallingalltheway yet? You should, you know. It’s very pretty.)

Since arriving in Kenya, I’ve become aware of something that I had no idea about before getting here: large parts of the country are currently suffering very badly due to drought. It’s affecting the landscape, it’s affecting the economy and, most importantly, it’s affecting the people. Yet how many outside of Eastern Africa know anything about it?

Most households around Mwingi and Kitui, as well as much of the rest of Kenya, are having to travel large distances to collect water. The lucky ones can collect it by car. Others by motorcycle. Some hang water-containers from their bikes, pushing them up the hills back to their homes. The rest have to walk, often for several miles.

The water they’re collecting isn’t even free; the current rate seems to be 10KSh per 20 litres. While a cost of 8p may not seem like a huge amount, when some are earning less than £1 a day, that’s not an insignificant amount, by any means.

The other approach is to dig large holes in the now dry dams and river-beds. Having spent a morning undertaking hard labour, they can then sit around waiting in the hope that the hole will fill with enough water to take home, often finding that it is very poor water if they get any at all. Several failed rainy seasons are starting to take their toll, so it’s no surprise that people are flocking to anything that offers hope.

One approach that is receiving a worrying amount of support, even in the national media, is to use dowsing in order to decide where to create a shallow well. A Canadian man has set up an organisation that is encouraging this method all over Kenya. Success stories are well-documented and publicised; I’ve seen little mention of any failures.

Yet dowsing has been proven on numerous occasions in tests to be a complete waste of time. Trial results invariably come out to show that the success rate from dowsing is statistically no better than pure chance. Essentially, Kenyans are undergoing huge amounts of hard work to dig these wells and putting their faith in something that has no basis whatsoever.

But maybe it’s not all bad. Undoubtedly, shallow wells are one very good way of sourcing good, clean water. I don’t know exactly what equipment is required to get a true indication of where is best to dig, but I’m sure it would be impractical for the average rural Kenyan to get hold of it. Persuading them to pick a random spot on their land and continue digging for weeks on end in the hope of finding water would probably be virtually impossible. So, if you can persuade them that their efforts will be worth it, even if you are completely fabricating evidence in order to do so, is that such a bad thing?

I can’t decide at the moment.

Given the very strong religious following in this area, whether Christian or Muslim, putting your faith in something intangible is not uncommon. I lose count of the number of times people are praying every day, thanking God for everything they have, not really mentioning the things they don’t. Personally, I’m very happily agnostic, and have no issues at all with someone choosing to follow whatever religion they like; if it gives them comfort and keeps them happy in an otherwise difficult situation, how can you criticise it? A similar thing can be said about dowsing, I suppose.

But problems arise if you start expecting God to solve your problems at some point. Whether it’s reassuring yourself that the rains will certainly come next time, or He will protect you from disease in yourself and your animals, then you start to have problems. The most important thing to do when faced with problems in life is not to expect something or someone else, whether from heaven, another country or anything else, to come along and fix them for you.

You need to act to help yourself. And one of the ways is undoubtedly to build shallow wells.

Is it right to use any means to convince them to do that?

It feels like I’ve seen every FARM-Africa beneficiary in the Mwingi area since arriving. But I hadn’t really had a chance to properly meet any of them. Today I had the great pleasure of spending the day with Macdonald Munuve, Community Animal Health Worker and Chairperson of the Kitui Mwingi Goat Breeders’ Association.

I’m not going to say a lot though because, as I mentioned the other day, I don’t want to overload you with day after day of rambling on about how great everything is and you should give all your money to FARM-Africa. (You should. Ok, maybe not all of it. But perhaps a little. Or a lot.) Besides, I managed to get my video-camera out today and recorded a lot of the day, and the story of Macdonald’s life, on that. When I return to the UK, I’ll ensure I put it up for everyone to see; if you can resist pulling out your wallet after listening to it, I’ll be surprised. It’s not a sad story; it’s an inspirational one.

But I also don’t want to sound as though I’m looking at everything FARM-Africa does through rose-tinted glasses. I don’t work for them. I’m not being paid to write nice things about them. I just think they’re doing something worth doing, and I think they’re doing it right. When I see something I don’t like, rest assured I’ll mention it. And, today, the morning started very worryingly.

Having been dropped off at Macdonald’s house this morning, he wasn’t there at the time; he was out treating an animal in his role as a CAHW. Instead, I started off by talking to his brother. Trying to get anyone to act naturally when you turn on a camera out here is next to impossible. Almost all of my photos and video footage has a few heads in the foreground desperately trying to get in the way. I think that Macdonald’s brother was no different, and saw his chance to shine.

I told him several times that I wanted him to act as though I wasn’t there, and just to get on with what he did normally while I wandered around. Apparently, he was going to look for somewhere to build a shallow well, so that they could get some water. Fair enough, and off we went.

Well, off he went to his hut and pulled out a couple of wires. Speaking in an almost trance-like manner, barely loud enough for me to hear, he stepped forward with these two straightened-out coat hangers oscillating in his hands. Every now and again he would stop:

“There is some water here … but not enough. I am now going … to move forward.”

This went on for a good twenty minutes until we reached the final point:

“There is lots of water here. I will dig a shallow well.”

As I put the camera down, he immediately started talking in a more normal voice. He pointed at the stick in the ground, marking the point. Hang on. If there is already a stick in the ground, marking where they are planning to build a shallow well, he can’t have just been looking for it, can he? It was all one big farcical charade. I decided to turn the camera back on and ask a few more questions.

The big one that I was dying to hear the answer to was simple: how does this work?

The camera came up and, at precisely the same moment, so did the wires again, swinging in their usual manner, apparently indicating the presence of water. Allegedly they work because of something to do with a reaction between ions in his hands, the wire and evaporation of the water. I did point out that it might be something to do with the way he was rocking his shoulders, but he assured me he wasn’t. I even offered to show him the video recording of him moving, but he declined. I have no idea whether he really believed what he was doing, or thought it was funny to see if an Englishman would, but he insisted it was foolproof.

Being told that he was taught this technique by FARM-Africa was a big concern. I don’t believe it was, but rest assured I will check because it’s not exactly the kind of approach I’d like to encourage. If you’re suffering a crippling drought, I suspect you should use a marginally more reliable method. Or even a method that has any rational basis whatsoever.

(UPDATE – FARM-Africa has told me: “An organisation we collaborate with has used dowsing. However it is not a technique we necessarily trust in”. I must admit I’m still a little concerned by the presence of “necessarily” in that, but such is life. Please feel confident that everything else I’ve seen has been sensible, well thought out and properly implemented.)

Apparently he was going to start digging the well today, but that didn’t happen when I walked off. Then, when I reiterated that I just wanted him to do what he would normally do, he informed that he was going to prepare his land for crops. He started, but lasted all of five minutes when he realised I wasn’t filming it.

But please don’t let that put you off. Macdonald arrived and he is an incredibly bright, articulate and sensible man, fully deserving of his position as Chairperson of the KMGBA and with an incredible story leading from his childhood, when he struggled to pay his school fees at best and eventually couldn’t afford the exams, through the death of his parents and aunt, following which he has had to care and provide for four younger siblings earning a maximum of 100KSh (less than £1) per day doing casual labour, to now.

Prior to his involvement in the FARM-Africa project, he was trying to find the money so that his younger brother, a promising student, could go to secondary school. People in England often talk about sacrifices in order to be able to send their children to a good school. Perhaps they can’t go on holiday as much. Well, in order to pay the fees for just one brother to go to school at all, the family fasted for three days, ate for one and then fasted for another three.

Thanks to the income Macdonald receives from his work as a CAHW (a position for which he was trained by FARM-Africa and they provided a loan by which he could purchase the necessary equipment to practise) and from the goats he keeps, that brother is now finishing his third year at university; he should be graduating next year.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again, but the most important thing to remember when trying to improve the situations faced by people in countries like Kenya and Ethiopia is that you can’t be there forever. More importantly, you shouldn’t be there forever.

And that is precisely the reason why I believe FARM-Africa are doing things exactly the right way.

I’ve spent the last few days visiting countless beneficiaries of the Kenya Dairy Goat Capacity Building Programme around the Mwingi area. Initially there were 21 groups; in the time since I started the row, that number has doubled to 42. As there are approximately 25 members in each group, that means that there are over 1,000 people directly benefiting from FARM-Africa’s work in Kitui and Mwingi, not to mention the rest of the community that is gaining indirectly.

The programme is designed so that it can continue without FARM’s direct participation. As, I’m sure, with many others, I have a lot of doubts over the efficacy of much charity directed towards Africa. You can send as much money and food as you like and, although it may do some good in the short-term, it will run out very quickly. That is if it even gets to the people it is intended to, with corruption notoriously rife.

Of course, there are times when food aid is entirely necessary, and it appears that this is the case here in Mwingi at the moment. It is not an area that is barren and cannot sustain life without assistance in a normal climate. But, for the last three years, the rains have failed. Twice a year the farmers meticulously prepare their land for cultivation, sowing seeds in anticipation of the expected rainy season. That costs time and money, but to no avail. Apparently they’d normally expect the rains to fail perhaps twice in a ten-year period. This is an exception.

There are dams, rock catchments and tanks to collect water from everybody’s roof but, as there has been virtually no rain, these are all dry. Therefore many people in Mwingi are currently reliant on food aid. But the important thing is that they are not expecting to have to rely on such assistance year in, year out. The rains should return in October. The wells will fill, the crops will grow and the farmers will once again be able to feed themselves.

But I’m going off the point a bit there. Back to FARM-Africa; a long-term solution for a much deeper problem.

The goats that FARM-Africa give out to the selected households – the “poorest of the poor” – are not given merely as gifts; they are a loan that must be repaid with the first kid. In the same way, the drugs kits and bicycles provided to the Community Animal Health Workers (CAHW) must be repaid in time. The returned goats can then be passed on to another beneficiary, who will do exactly the same thing.

Of course this needs someone to organise it, as does the training required to ensure these individuals know how to care for their new animals properly. In the first place, this was done by FARM-Africa, but part of the programme involved the setting up of the Kitui Mwingi Goat Breeders’ Association (KMGBA). They now look after the groups and have representatives and committees at various levels to manage the development of the project and its beneficiaries.

The most promising sign that I saw today was exactly that: a sign. I visited the KMGBA Toggenburg Breeding Station, the centralised location for the entire association. Shut away in the office was a sign with a big FARM-Africa logo taking up a lot of the space.

Proudly displayed on a big post outside the gate was the current one. No longer is this a FARM-Africa breeding station. It is very clearly the Kitui Mwingi Goat Breeders’ Association Toggenburg Breeding Station.

(supported by FARM-Africa)

I’ve now spent two days visiting various goat groups set up by FARM-Africa around Mwingi Town, and it’s been fascinating to meet the beneficiaries and see the livestock itself. But I’m going to be around the area for at least another week, and I can’t spend every day writing about how marvellous FARM-Africa is (even if that is very much the case).

Consider today a rest day.

Instead, as I was bored last night, I put together some photos. Everyone seems shocked to hear that the bearded, ragged-looking man in front of them is only 25 years old. I don’t think they would have been that surprised had they seen me four months ago. A lot can change in 100 days!

I’m not very photogenic, I must admit. Having said that, I’m a firm believer that being photogenic is closely correlated to how attractive you are in the first place. Funny that.

The plan now is to spend the weekend exclusively with one of the beneficiaries, getting to know them really well and finding out exactly what they get up to as part of their normal life, when they’re not welcoming some idiot Englishman who came on his bike. I can’t wait. Anyway, I musn’t leave you without some photos, bearing in mind I’ve been taking a ludicrous number, so here you are.

Being welcomed by one of the groups:

The community around the Kitui Mwingi Goat Breeders Association’s main breeding centre rely on this dam for water. It is completely dry and they spend all day digging holes in the bottom, waiting for them to fill with just a few litres of dirty and salty water. This is the first time it has dried up completely since 1984:

What is the main focus for FARM-Africa’s project here? Goats, of course. Why not visit www.justgiving.com/pedallingalltheway to donate some money and help them continue supporting the people of Mwingi and elsewhere in Eastern Africa (I’m a persistent bugger; you may as well just give in and donate now. After all, you’re bound to in the end. Trust me):

(By the way, photographs have now been added to all the blogs so, if you haven’t already, take a look back through, especially for the last month, to see what it’s looked like along the way.)

For the past few months, people have stopped and stared as I cycled by. Crowds have gathered to watch me eat a piece of bread. I’ve even had audiences when having to relieve myself. However, in the last 36 hours I’ve been greeted by singing and dancing three times. I prefer that kind of attention!

Having said that, I’d better not get used to it; I suspect that it would lead to me being sorely disappointed upon my return to England.

Today has been nothing short of fascinating. The whole point of this bike trip was to come and visit the project here in Mwingi, and that’s exactly what I had the opportunity to do. When you add to that the fact that my bicycle is still standing in exactly the same spot it got put yesterday, and that I have no need or intention to move it, it’s been a good day.

So, what exactly is this project all about?

Well, I believe that the full title is the Kitui and Mwingi Dairy Goat Capacity Building Programme (or something along those lines). Among other related activities, they help to set up local groups of the poorest households and provide them with the skills and knowledge, as well as helping them build the necessary housing, to rear their own goats. The families targeted, being the poorest around, often have absolutely nothing; no livestock at all.

FARM-Africa try to provide them with a goat, often that is in-kid (i.e. pregnant), as a loan-in-kind that must be repaid in due course with one of that animal’s offspring. But it’s not a simple case of setting people up with goats; they are also bringing in better animals to ensure that they are as beneficial as possible.

Most of the livestock around here are meat goats and beef cattle. The conditions are not favourable enough to support dairy cattle, and so milk supply is limited to what can be got from the meat animals. However, FARM-Africa have brought in Toggenburg goats, a British (I think) dairy goat breed, and have set up breeding stations, run by the goat groups themselves, where they are cross-breeding these pure dairy goats with the local breed, resulting in the best possible compromise between tolerance to the conditions and milk yield.

I visited one of these breeding stations today, and saw some fabulous looking Toggenburgs lined up in their pens. In many cases, the goats’ houses look even better than those that their owners are living in themselves! There were representatives of a few separate groups there to meet me, some which had been running since the beginning of this project in 2005 and others which were started just one year ago. Those are the people who have probably been directly helped by the donations that you gave during my boat trip last year, and they’re now on the path from having no goats to having anything up to ten, as the older members were telling me some of them now have.

The one thing that I’m always most interested in hearing about is people’s dreams and ambitions. There’s no doubt that, even with the support and training that FARM-Africa provide, these projects have no chance of success without a huge amount of effort from the beneficiaries. And, if you don’t allow yourself to dream, where do you get your motivation to try? Of course you open yourself up to ridicule as you reveal your seemingly impossible goals, but me rowing the Atlantic seemed pretty impossible to most at one point.

I’m a big fan of those fantastic dreams; the kind that people chuckle at when you tell them. There was one gentleman there today who I think lived in the shed (and, believe me, it was nothing more than that – as I said, the goats had better accommodation) next to where we were. He very proudly told me that his intention was to get to twenty-five goats, at which point he would sell fifteen of them and replace his hut with a proper house, including a solar system on top. Of course, amused smiles broke out among the other faces at this grand plan, including upon his own, but why not? It will undoubtedly take some time and a lot of effort but, ultimately, what’s stopping him?

Thanks to your donations and FARM-Africa, not a lot.

I could go on about the other group who I met, currently struggling with a buck that isn’t doing his job, and the drug-store owner with plans to expand into wholesale and distribution, but that can wait for another time. I did learn one important lesson today though, that I feel is worth sharing.

When you’re provided with some porridge in a bowl made out of some hollowed-out thing, don’t be fooled by the seemingly cleverly-designed spout for drinking it from. That’s no spout; it’s a handle. If you try and take it from there, it doesn’t work. Well, unless your intention is to spill it all over the floor, your beard and generally entertain and amuse a group of goat-farming FARM-Africa beneficiaries from Mwingi.

Now, if that’s what you want to achieve, go for it. It works perfectly.

(Oh yeah, were you wondering how to donate money? I thought you probably were. Head on over to www.justgiving.com/pedallingalltheway. We’re over 90% of the way to £25,000. I’d love to make it before touching English soil again.)

If you set off from Blackheath, London and cycle over 5,800 miles for 109 days, where do you get to? Well, in my case you find yourself 4,268 miles away in Mwingi Town, Kenya. And what do you do if you turn up in an unfamiliar town and need to find the FARM-Africa office? It turns out that you simply follow the horde of singing and dancing people guiding you in!

It’s been a long time coming and taken a ludicrous amount of effort, but today I finally arrived at my destination, the home of FARM-Africa’s Kenya Dairy Goat Capacity Building Programme, having travelled across 17 countries and three continents. I would have been happy had I fallen into a cess-pit on my arrival but, thankfully, that didn’t happen. I had a welcome; an incredible welcome.

Throughout the day, I’d been constantly checking my GPS to see how far away I was. Starting the day with 50 miles to go, I watched it steadily fall, trying to not to stop every five minutes just to make sure it was still decreasing. As I slowly pedalled up and down the hills into an inevitable headwind, eventually it got to 10 miles. Then 5. Then 3. Then 2…

Mwingi was in sight. I’d already seen the signs, first of all being welcomed by Mwingi County Council, then Mwingi Town Council, but this was the town itself. A small matter of a quick downhill followed by a climb separated us, but there was still a moment for a quick photo before making my descent. What I didn’t spot was the crowd of people about halfway down.

As I picked up speed, I noticed a curious group of cyclists on the right-hand side of the road. You get a few people on bikes around here, but these were different. For a start, there were about twenty of them. More importantly, they all appeared to be wearing gleaming white coats. Something was up.

Seconds later I was waved down, and it all became clear. This was my welcoming committee! Having travelled for anything up to 30km to be there (and, when you don’t have a car, that’s not always easy), a number of the beneficiaries of the project had come to Mwingi Town to escort me in, and they’d got themselves some bikes to help them out. From that point in, I had my gang with me.

Admittedly, as we slowly climbed the hill into Mwingi itself, I suspect a few dropped off the back (based on the number of bikes stacked on the roof of the 4×4 when we eventually arrived), but plenty forced themselves up the hill, as I desperately tried to look as though it was a piece of cake for me, secretly trying to catch my breath at any opportunity.

That wasn’t the end of it. Oh no. Once we entered the town centre itself, getting plenty of thoroughly confused looks along the way, there was another group. A large group of women were there, also in their splendid coats, singing and dancing away. For the final few minutes, as we turned off the main road and down towards the FARM-Africa office, I had cyclists in front and dancers behind.

I’ve lost four pairs of sunglasses on this trip. I didn’t need them for the sun today, but I still wouldn’t have minded a pair. They come in handy when things are going on in your eyes. Obviously, being the cold, hard man that I am, there was just a little sweat coming from my eyes.

Finally, having pulled into the office compound, I could get off my bike for, hopefully the final time. The singing and dancing kept on for ages. So did the grin on my face. What happened next is all a bit of a blur, but I think someone was taking photos and a video of it, so I’ll try and lay my hands on them tomorrow. What I do remember is being given a hen and some really nice bags. Actually, for that matter, where is my hen? I could do with an egg.

And that was that. I couldn’t have come up with a better way to end my 15-week journey. Only it’s not yet the end.

Over the next week, I’ll be visiting the project and its beneficiaries, hopefully getting to know some of them a lot better and finding out exactly what their lives are like. Most importantly, I’ll be finding out exactly how FARM-Africa has affected them.

And I’m going everywhere by car!

(Just as a gentle reminder: have you ever looked at www.justgiving.com/pedallingalltheway? Why not give it a go!)