Cycle to Lilongwe
The final day of our challenge, we experienced some confusion over distances, as lunch came quickly after our morning rest stop, and then the afternoon brought us suddenly to the Petroda petrol station just outside Lilongwe where we were due to meet our welcoming party. However as we arrived earlier than expected, the party was not there! Uncertainty reigned until a decision was made to complete the day by cycling into central Lilongwe. After getting police approval we slowly rode these last 5km. We had to stop a few times to let the congested backlog of traffic behind us get past, but eventually we made it to the Lilongwe Hotel, our final destination... where we could lay our bikes down, hug each other and realise that our two week challenge had finally come to its end.

In the evening we had a debriefing meeting with ActionAid staff... Noerine (chair of the board of trustees), Chris (Malawi country director) and McBride (national HIV/AIDS coordinator). It was encouraging to see that they were aware of the issues that we had discovered during our project visits. Noerine stressed the female face of the problem (mothers left to raise children whilst also becoming responsible to support families financially), and the need for a rights based approach which is being used as a focus point by ActionAid to push for change.