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?!