A post from Ireland. Ireland’s academic ranking has taken a dive in the most recent OECD study on international student performance. Since 2000, the country’s students have dropped from 15th to 25th place in the OECD world ranking for maths, and from 9th to 13th in science. Ireland has never seen itself as particularly strong […]

Part 1: Life and death I am writing this post from the shores of beautiful Lake Bunyonyi in the south of Uganda. I have just watched the dark clouds push through the emerald green valley where the lake is nestled, bringing a whipping wind and a burst of rain to clear the air. My cold […]

Over breakfast this morning the waiter peered out the restaurant window to the border crossing into the DR Congo and shook his head. Even so early in the day, streams of people crossed the tiny metal bridge from Cyangugu in Rwanda to Bukavu in the DRC, their heads piled high with stacks of eggs and […]

I’ve caught a handful of dalla dallas in the last few weeks (the cheap, local minibuses that buzz around n between the towns of Tanzania). They’re crowded. Very crowded. And I’m quite sure they’re not safe. I’m not sure what it is about them that makes me leap to such a conclusion. In Australia, everything […]