Continued from part 1 I walked towards the fire where there were two crouching silhouettes outlined in bright orange. I…
Climbing Mount Karisimbi
CLIMBING MOUNT KARISIMBI , a snow-capped volcano between Rwanda and the DR Congo, the tallest peak in the Virungas, was…
Travels with Dr Muss – Healing the Memories
I started ‘Letters from the Heart of Africa’ over 15 months ago and now, 34 posts and 50,000 words later…
When Memories Come Calling
Memories are like kites dancing on warm zephyrs on high – with just a tug, and if our strings of…
Images of Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat may not provide you with solitude at times and watching sunrise can be something of a tourist trap.…
A Weekend Break in the Northern Hemisphere #2: Kampala and Lake Victoria
Crossing the border from Rwanda to Uganda, a traverse from Francophone to Anglophone Africa, offered subtle changes from the bus…
Images of the Amalfi coast
Ischia, Ravello, Amalfi, Positano and Sorrento.
Being Lighter at the Equator: a Weekend Break in the Northern Hemisphere
With my friends Thierry and Juko, I took an 8 hour bus ride from Rwanda to Kampala in Uganda, crossing…
A hike up Mount Bisoke and a lesson in understanding gorilla sounds
One Friday afternoon, with Freddy’s permission, I snuck out from work early – we had decided to climb the perfectly…
Sometimes on Tuesdays, always with tea (Part Two)
(To read part one of this post please click here) On one of our regular meet-ups Vincent* told me how…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Electric-green unplugged
Today it’s April the 7th 2018, a day that marks the 24th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide.…
As Time Goes By …
Giving a training course to a group of nurses in Rwanda gave me a new perspective on the concept of…
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
Why not hear this on my podcast (The Non-Friction Podcast) Did you know Indians use some English words and phrases…
Unguarded Moments
The basic facts I knew about Rwanda before I lived there were: it has rare mountain gorillas. Diane Fossey, the…
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,…
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…
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…
Memories of my father
Over half a century ago, a young man, my father Kamal Hazarika, sat at the back of a bus listening…
Ever fallen in love with a stray dog you shouldn’t have fallen in love with?
The pack of beach dogs that played in the glinting waves, trotted purposefully onshore and shook off their sea-drops. Heads…
A Merry Assamese Christmas Day
Prologue: When I was a child in the 80s, families from Assam, a state in north east India, who had…
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…
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;…
When the Bangles Don’t Fit
A street stall selling costume jewellery Guwahati, Assam, India 2017 ***
The nemesis of my sole
Heel gobbler. Lace snapper. Tongue cracker. In the stony, dusty backstreets of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, shoes took one…
Hey Loons 