Thank you for visiting our fundraising page.

Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor us: WaterAid will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

Well, Tom and I are back from our cycle ride in Africa. We had a great time and there’s lots of memorable highlights:

*** The exhaustion and triumph after achieving a difficult day’s riding

*** Tom dancing with the Masai warriors – jumping up and down while holding a lethally sharp spear

*** The dust that got everywhere

*** The strange and wonderful bathroom and toilet arrangements

*** Seeing the blue Pacific at the end of the trip and diving into it in our cycling clothes

*** The friendship within our group aged from 24 to 73 and from England, New Zealand, USA, Finland and South Africa.

*** Being warned when we camped in Ambeseli national park that we might find a pile of elephant dung by the side of the tent in the morning, as a local elephant had taken to walking over/through the electric fence

*** The look on the face of one of the Masai men when I explained that I was a vegetarian

*** Having to get off the bike because a giraffe was crossing the road ahead

*** Seeing a cheetah cub with a face covered in blood from the kill it was eating – this from the safety of a vehicle

*** Eating a chocolate cake made in a camp fire

*** Experiencing earthquake tremors while lying in a tent

Unfortunately I had a spectacular fall off my bike on the third day of the ride and badly injured my right hand, so it meant I was unable to ride for three days. Even when I got back on my bike it was very painful, but I hope you are still happy for us to have your sponsorship money even though I didn’t do it all. Tom completed some very difficult off-road riding, even though he’d never done anything like that before. So, we both in different ways had a very challenging but satisfying time.

We have now raised over 4500 GB Pounds towards our total of GB Pounds 5000 and we have more promised, so we are in sight of achieving our goal. Thanks to all of you for the part you have played in helping us achieve this.

If you’d like to try an adventure like this, I highly recommend the company we went with – Escape Adventures based in New Zealand. They offer trips in Africa, South America, New Zealand, China and Tibet. You can view all these rides on their web site: http://www.escapeadv.com.

We paid for all the trip ourselves, so everything we raise goes to WaterAid, and the money is earmarked for Tanzania.

There are lots of shocking statistics we could quote, but the one that really set us thinking is that on average women in rural Africa spend more than 4 hours a day collecting water. How can they look after their families properly or do things to earn them money when so much time is spent on this necessity? Children are often involved in this job too, so they may not be able to go to school because they are too busy helping gather their family's water needs.

We've set ourselves a really ambitious target £5000 (approx 9500 US dollars). Here's how the money could be spent:

· £20 pays a technician to train a village pump attendant for 3 days on pump maintenance.
· £50 pays for the cost of a bicycle to support the community extension worker to disseminate hygiene messages.
· £1,080 pays for a set of form work to cast the concrete walls of a hund dug well, reusable over many years
· £4,800 will pay for the cost of a deep borehole with good yield complete with AFRIDEV hand pump, 45 meters and serving 300 people plus.

Read about some current WaterAid projects in Tanzania

http://www.wateraid.org/international/what_we_do/where_we_work/tanzania/5564.asp

and

http://www.wateraid.org/uk/what_we_do/where_we_work/tanzania/5619.asp

So please sponsor us now!

If you don't want to sponsor us online, you can still sponsor us by sending a UK cheque made payable to WaterAid to Sea View House, Long Rock, Penzance, TR20 8JF.

Many thanks for your support.

Jane and Tom