From March 2023 to March 2024, Jacqui Webster took a sabbatical from her job as a professor working on food policy to cycle across Europe and Africa.
Her new book, Two Bugs on Bikes: Our middle-aged gap year cycling across Europe and Africa, was published by Hembury Books last month.
In the article below, Jacqui describes why, aged 51, she decided to take a year off work, and how writing a book made the experience more meaningful.
She shares extracts from her book revealing how the illegal charcoal trade in East Africa is a barrier to efforts to mitigate climate change and worsening public health outcomes, and how some projects are aiming to improve both fuel efficiency and nutrition.
Jacqui Webster writes:
My partner Joe McNamara and I planned this trip together, but it was really his adventure. We’d met through triathlon and had both done a lot of cycling including several multi-week trips in Australia and New Zealand.
But taking a whole year off from work was another thing altogether. I loved my work and have always identified through my job. I found leaving everything behind daunting and was worried that I’d feel directionless. But we both had long service leave to take and Joe’s boys had left home so he was keen to go, and I didn’t want to be left behind.
In total we cycled 18,000 kilometres across 30 countries carrying everything we needed, including camping and cooking gear, on our bikes. As it turned out, I quickly adapted to life on the road and managed to switch off from work completely, at least for the first six months.
We didn’t start out on the trip with the idea of cycling through Africa but once we got there, I realised it was impossible not to think about work.
Likewise, I didn’t start out with the idea of writing a book. I just kept a journal to record our experiences. But on our return, I talked to a book coach, who convinced me that I had the material to write a travel memoir. And so, the next stage of the journey began.
Writing the book was a great way of keeping our adventures alive and helped me to reflect on the resilience of some of the people we met and the public health challenges that we witnessed up close, riding our bikes through Africa.
The book documents our physical journey, including the people that we met and the experiences we had along the way, starting in Morocco then travelling east through Europe from Spain to Turkey before flying to Kigali in Rwanda and cycling to Cape Town in South Africa.
But the book also highlights our emotional transformation. We grow to appreciate the simple routine of cycling from A to B, finding places to eat and sleep along the way, which gives us time to think and reflect.
We return determined to not get sucked back into the busyness of everyday life and committed to keep our dreams alive, including a shared vision to return to live and work in Africa one day.
The book is a travel memoir not a public health textbook, but it is peppered with my insights on social, health and environmental challenges in different countries. One example is the illegal charcoal trade which is evident in much of East Africa.
Charcoal is produced by burning wood (preferably hardwood species) in the absence of oxygen. The process can take several days and removes water and other volatile compounds to produce pure carbon, which is more energy efficient and better for cooking than wood.
Millions of families are dependent on charcoal production for income, but the fact that much of the trade is illegal means there is no protection, they are paid a pittance and risking their lives and their health.
The below extracts are taken from the book when we were in Malawi, climbing up to the border with Mozambique before continuing to Lusaka in the capital of Zambia.
Extracts
A colourful truck climbed past us, belching out smoke as it chugged up the steep road, barely travelling faster than us. On the back of the truck were white hessian bags of black charcoal, three or four bags deep, roped down under a big tarp. Five bodies were perched on top of the charcoal bags, smiling and waving for my camera.
Illegal charcoal production and distribution is rife in Malawi as it is in much of East Africa, with 97 percent of households relying on charcoal for cooking and heating.
This increasing demand is resulting in rapid deforestation, undermining agricultural productivity and food and water security.
Efforts to stamp out illegal charcoal production and distribution have been derailed as demand is increasing and so many people’s livelihoods depend on producing charcoal.
……….
Crossing the bridge over the Lilongwe River we were funnelled together with crowds of people bustling to and fro, selling supplies. What looked like slums on the side of the river turned out to be the Tsoka flea market.
Black plastic sheets tied to bits of wood formed the shelters, smoke pouring from charcoal fires over which aluminium pots bubbled, people fixing shoes, selling second-hand clothes and plastic bags of radioactive-looking drinks or water. Rubbish was strewn along the riverbanks where people were washing their clothes in filthy water. We pushed our way through, trying to ignore the many people begging and all the things we could buy.
Back on the road on our last day in Malawi, a constant flow of men cycled in the other direction, their bikes loaded high with bags of charcoal – sometimes as many as six bags on one bike, piled on a wooden frame fixed behind the seat of the bicycle. The men were lean and sweating from the exertion. They had to concentrate hard as one slip and the bike would unbalance, which could lead to injury or even death.
The men are paid a punitive price for such backbreaking, dangerous work but it’s still three times what the women who carry the huge bundles of wood on their heads to make charcoal are paid. When it is cash-in-hand work and there are no other local employment options there are really no choices but to take on this work.
Crossing the border into Zambia at Chipata the next day, we were naively expecting things to get better. Malawi is among the ten poorest countries in the world, depending on which classification system is used. Zambia, by contrast, is a lower middle-income country.
However, it turns out this is largely due to its copper and cobalt exports, and the wealth is not distributed throughout the population. The vast majority of Zambians are employed in agriculture, with incomes substantially below the poverty line.
It was 600 kilometres west on the Great East Highway (the dreaded T4) to reach Lusaka. We were running out of time, so decided to press on and skip the national park. For the next week, the landscape we passed was largely the same: endless kilometres of dry savannah with the occasional acacia trees; villages, consisting of a mix of rectangular brick houses and traditional circular houses with thatched roofs, set back from the dusty roadside; the occasional shop, often with amusing names like White Man’s Grocery or Broke But Hope Shop. Aside from a few potholes, the road surface was reasonable and there was a cycle lane.
“What are those kids selling?” I asked Joe, looking up ahead to the side of the road where three young boys were holding out what looked like meat skewers.
“It looks like mice,” I continued.
“It is mice,” said Joe.
We later learnt that mice are eaten as a delicacy by some people in Zambia, including the Tumbuka people in the east. Mice are strung on sticks and cooked, salted or dried. Other common forms of protein are caterpillars, or mopane worms, which are soaked in hot water and then fried with onions, tomatoes, and spices.
With other animal protein sources in short supply and expensive, it is not surprising that people in different African countries are so resourceful. We’d already witnessed the remarkable spectacle of the lake flies in Malawi. In a small town in Kenya, we’d watched curiously as women and children had crowded around a mound of dirt, catching termites, plucking off the wings and popping them straight into their mouths.
We cycled on, declining the offers of roasted mice even though our stomachs were growling.
Just outside Katete we stopped at the Tikondane Community Centre. Tikondane means “let’s be there for each other”, and in that spirit, the centre is run by the people of Katete for the people of Katete. Pulling up on our bikes at the beautiful gazebo-style dining area, we were met by Rachael, the local office manager, who guided us through well-kept gardens to a little cottage with four rooms off a communal kitchen area.
“The centre director, Elke, is from Woolloomooloo in Sydney,” Rachael said. “I’m sure she will want to meet you later this afternoon.”
We discovered that food and nutrition are a big part of the centre’s economic development program. Matthew showed us around the Tikondane food projects, including goats, chickens and rabbits that are raised for meat, guava, lemon and banana trees in the orchard, and the worm farm.
“We are increasingly growing moringa, a nutritional supplement superfood,” he explained. “This is where we blend it with ground nuts, milk powder and chocolate. There are many malnourished children in Katete. Moringa is proving to be a good solution and is also a source of income for the Tikondane Community Centre.”
[Moringa is a fast-growing drought resistant plant which is nutrient dense and has anti-inflammatory properties.]
Portable grow bags with wooden structures for netting were also being used as affordable and sustainable ways of growing vegetables, and compost piles were dotted across the property as part of the eighteen-day composting program to support increased growth of the gardens.
“Tiko uses much of the food that it produces,” Matthew told us. “But we also sell some products. This is where we grind the nuts to make peanut butter. We also sell lemon juice from the trees and the dried moringa in bags.”
He pointed out some clay ovens, explaining that the centre is trying to tackle unsustainable charcoal use. “Clay ovens use firewood and retain the heat longer, so they require much less wood. This is much more efficient.”
“We’ve seen all the men transporting bags of charcoal on bikes,” I said.
“Yes, it’s a big problem in this country,” he said. “Illegal charcoal production and distribution is leading to deforestation, which is bad for the environment and agricultural production. By supporting the schoolgirls to grow saplings as an income-generating project and helping families to build kitchens with clay ovens that use energy efficiently based on the firewood from the trees they have grown, we are addressing poverty, health and climate change in one project.”
Chatting to Elke, the Australian who established the centre, over a glass of South African white wine before dinner, we learnt that the local cultural beliefs are another barrier to improving nutrition.
“People don’t understand the concept of healthy eating and the importance of consuming fruits and vegetables,” she explained. “Maize is considered to be the only possible food. That’s one of the reasons why the people of Katete experience such shocking levels of malnutrition.”
She went on to tell us about the 19 Steps out of Poverty program, education and training to help local community members to look after their families’ health through better nutrition and diverse livelihood strategies building on sustain-able farming practices.
“It’s working,” she said. “Families are increasingly able to afford school fees and better food.”
Elke explained how she’d retrained as a nurse and come out to work in Africa after her husband died of lung cancer. She’d dedicated her life to establishing and running the Tikondane Community Centre and was now ready to retire.
It was one of only a handful of times on the trip when I talked about my work and the parallels with some of the projects I was working on with Indigenous communities in Australia and the Pacific Islands. I was mentally documenting similarities and differences and opportunities for exchanging experiences.
“Please come back and work here,” Elke said the next day as she hugged us goodbye. I made a mental note to add it to my growing list of projects to consider coming back to.
……….
Arriving in Lusaka… we were struck by the skyscrapers and modern buildings. Flashy four-wheel drives crowded into the entrance of the shopping centre near our backpackers. Inside it was similar to a mall in Sydney, with every type of shop you could imagine, and a range of restaurants and fast-food places scattered nearby.
It was hard to get our heads around this, when for the last ten days we’d been cycling past thatched huts and people desperately trying to eke out a living selling charcoal.
Around 60 percent of the population of Zambia is experiencing poverty, living on less than two dollars a day. Yet if you walk around Lusaka, you could be in LA.
Further reflections
The disparity in living standards between the rural areas and the capital city reflects the uneven development apparent throughout the African countries we visited.
One of the questions frequently raised since we returned is the extent to which colonisation has impacted cultural beliefs. This isn’t a straightforward question to answer. The most obvious answer is completely. But the situation is way more nuanced than that.
Colonisation has impacted each country and the cultural beliefs of specific population groups within these countries, in different ways, depending on a range of complex interconnected factors including, but not limited to, the historical context, the power dynamics during colonial rule, the way colonisation ended and the events that have unfolded since.
While I don’t go into detailed analysis of this in the book, I do comment on the situations in different countries, including how the Belgian colonial administration influenced the Rwandan genocide, the Ugandan expelling of the Indians (brought in as indentured labourers by the British) and the ongoing impact of slavery in Zanzibar, Tanzania.
But I’m also conscious that we were just passing through. I didn’t set off with the objective of doing an in-depth cultural analysis and am not best placed to do so. As such, I’m only sharing my perspective on what we learnt along the way, recognising the limitations of my knowledge and understanding.
Travelling by bicycle does help to break down barriers. Our vulnerability exposed us to situations which resulted in increased trust, fostering more meaningful relationships.
But as Australians (myself with British heritage, having grown up on a farm in England), we were also acutely conscious of our colonial roots and privilege. The fact that we were able to travel to another country at all, let alone take a year off work to do so, set us apart from most of the people we met.
Many faced challenges putting food on the table and could only dream of owning a bicycle. Others, even the most well-off people in some countries, were unable to travel due to the prohibitive currency exchange rates.
I acknowledge and am extremely grateful to all the people who shared their precious time and knowledge with us during our travels. I am now exploring opportunities for linking with some of the projects we visited through my work, with a view to returning to work in Africa one day.
• Two Bugs on Bikes: Our middle-aged gap year cycling across Europe and Africa, by Jacqui Webster, was published 1 May 2025, Hembury Books, Sydney, ISBN: 9781763807792 and is available from Booktopia or Amazon or can be ordered from your local bookshop or library.
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