Boat from Mumbo Island to Senga Bay
We travelled the 40km by boat from the island to the main shore, arriving at the Livingstonia Beach Hotel where we stayed the night. There is no pier to dock the motorboats and so we had to climb overboard to rowing boats that took us to the beach.

Another opportunity to enjoy the shore of Lake Malawi, and a final opportunity to recharge for the last days cycling to Lilongwe.


Holistic approach needed
In the afternoon we visited another ActionAid supported project - the Umodzi Youth Organisation. The sun was burning and it was baking hot as we stood without any shade, and we were glad to break into small groups to move on and visit different aspects of the project. I joined a group to see a new technical college being constructed. This will teach practical building skills when it is opened. We also met with a group of women living with AIDS, one of whom was a mother with a young baby only one week old. These women are fortunate to be receiving Anti Retro Viral (ARV) drugs to help combat the virus. However we were disturbed to learn that issues of poverty (affecting access to regular, decent nutrition, and access to transport) meant that they might only manage to take their drugs about 12 days in a month, rather than daily. The World Health Organisation's recommended minimum adherence level is 95%. Although these women have access to the drugs, they are unlikely to be gaining benefit from them at these levels of intake, and there is also a possibility that the virus may develop resistance to these drug combinations. This underlined for me that although progress has been made in provision of drugs in Africa, that so much more needs to be done to ensure that a holistic approach to all the needs of people suffering with HIV/AIDS is essential to be able to surmount the disease. And that continuing poverty remains the underlying cause of so many problems across the continent.