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…
Category: Travel
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…
Café talk: the location of A-ha’s ‘Take on Me’ music video
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…
The Creepy Village of Kuldhara
When a fellow traveller at the hotel in the desert town of Jaisalmer told us there was a haunted village nearby, well, how could we resist? I’ve always wanted to see a ghost on my travels, perhaps late at night somewhere, in a remote mountain cabin, down the wooden panelled hallways of an old mansion, or…
In Search of Silence and the Missing Female to Female Nine Pin
It’s been a few months since I last posted for the series ‘Letters from the Heart of Africa’. We are now over halfway through with 21 posts (A list of these are at the bottom of this post – I aim to finish the series by the middle of 2018!). Thanks for your patience with…
The Childhood Adventures of Owning a Globe
On my seventh birthday my parents gave me a globe. My own spherical world of colourful landmasses and oceans, strung together with lines and stitched down with words, sat on a shelf by my bed. At first I thought it was broken for it tilted to one side. My dad convinced me that many things in…
Mistakes on a train: a helpful traveller goofs up
Travelling can bring out the very best in us; we help each other with heavy luggage; we give up seats; we share food, books and mobile phone chargers; people once strangers can become life-long friends after a few plastic meals together on a flight. There is though one type of travel where that kindness doesn’t…
When the Bangles Don’t Fit
A street stall selling costume jewellery Guwahati, Assam, India 2017 ***
