Hey Loons

My mum, the pilot

Once upon a time, a little girl was told that women shouldn’t fly airplanes … I grew up knowing ‘mum flew planes’. This was one of a series of simple facts in my childhood: my sister and I were born in London; our parents came from India; dad sang; mum flew. She told us stories…

Sometimes on Tuesdays, always with tea (Part Two)

(Continued from last week’s post) On one of our regular meet-ups Vincent* told me how he was rescued as a 13 year old orphan at the end of the Rwandan genocide by a platoon of soldiers. They took him, his younger sister, niece and brother to a UNICEF camp for orphans at the Saint Famille…

Sometimes on Tuesdays, always with tea

Sometimes you can’t see how incredible a person is when you first meet them. Still waters run deep, people are like rivers whose long courses from distant springs are uncertain, or like books, whose covers give mere hints to what is inside. It takes time to get to know them, or perhaps it takes some…

Faith, devotion and complicity

I enjoyed lazy starts to the day on the veranda, shooting the breeze with Peter the security guard. We’d breakfast on toast and tea, staring at the banana plants and far-off hills that cupped Kigali, waking up with the sun to the background of a crackling radio. This post continues the blog series Letters from…

Where you never walk alone

In contrast to my daily commute in London, my walk home in Kigali was rarely dull, no two journeys were ever the same. Sometimes I encountered friendly faces and random, curious hellos. At times it felt welcoming and for anyone who’s ever consistently made an urban commute, in the hushed solemnity of an underground of…

Finding a face in a marathon race

I WOULD run a marathon but I’m ashamed of getting overtaken by a man dressed as a gorilla in a tutu. Or even worse, being overtaken by a toilet. Still, looking for a face – now, that’s a proper challenge. (This post was first published in January 2017) You see I’m trying to find a…

The sports bar in the heart of Africa

Football (or soccer for followers of this blog across the Pond) often gets in to the press for the wrong reasons. Hooliganism, racism, homophobia, overpaid players and corruption all drag the name of football through mud; but in its purest form, the game played by children in, well, mud, brings people together no matter their…

Electric-green unplugged

Today it’s April the 7th 2018, a day that marks the 24th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide. One million people were killed in a hundred days in one of the darkest, most horrific, most shameful periods in history. This post is part of the series ‘Letters from the Heart of Africa’ first…

As Time Goes By …

Giving a training course to a group of nurses in Rwanda gave me a new perspective on the concept of time and the meaning of urgency and importance. This is the next post in the Series, ‘Letters from the Heart of Africa’. *** It’s curious that we humans, who are all imperfect, expect perfection with…

Where was A-ha’s ‘Take on Me’ music video shot?

Who’d have thought, the little café round the corner has a proud secret – it was the location of one of the most famous MTV music videos of all.

English words that only Indians use

Did you know Indians use some English words and phrases you’ll rarely hear anywhere else in the world – in case you’re travelling to India soon, here’s a helpful list of 21 of my favourites: 1) Doing the needful. In India this means doing is what is necessary e.g. I hope you can do the needful…

Unguarded Moments

The basic facts I knew about Rwanda before I lived there were: it has rare mountain gorillas. Diane Fossey, the renowned zoologist, worked there to research the gorillas. a genocide happened there in 1994. it is a tiny country about the size of Wales in the heart of Africa. It was the genocide that shaped…

Being mindful – bug bites and quiet nights

Most of the nights after work were quiet nights at home and I found my pace shifted down a gear, my tempo slowed and I became more mindful – without the distractions of wi-fi and liberated from a smartphone, my attention sharpened and became undivided. I’d take time to study the red blossom on a…