If you have ever considered adding this line to your little black book of love-inducing chat-up lines, then you would be perfectly suited to ‘Speed Hating’.

An alternative Valentine’s Night option to the cheesy traffic light arty, the Harley came up with this modern twist on Speed Dating. As a bitter singleton, I turned up on February 15th expecting little more than to drink a bottle of wine and gather a whole stack of cringe worthy moments.

The night began as we walked in through the doors and were all assigned murky personas for the evening. Mine was Myrtle. And yes, I was forced into fending off the Harry Potter reference at least a million times.

Four minutes of rushed conversation commenced, sometimes slightly awkward and consequently what seemed like the longest 240 seconds of my life, but on most occasions pretty hilarious.

Obviously my hatred of mushrooms put every single man off me, as sadly I didn’t get a mention on the ‘board of meaningless encounters’ at the end.

Despite Cupid failing to deliver this Valentine’s Day, overall it was a refreshing evening of wine, wilted roses and crushed love hearts…

One piece of advice for all you lonely hearts: Please don’t open the conversation with “I hate children”. It is bound to be a massive turn off nine times out of ten.

P.S. Archibald, if you’re reading this, call me? xxx 

Alexa Adam wants to celebrate student’s achievements, talk about issues that students care about and help students to make the most of the Union.

Farah Al-Shorbaji wants to increase representation, have better online and library resources, more society and team funding, increase tutor accountability and increase environmental awareness.

Sam Mannion wants a Union shop at Endcliffe village, a cash machine at Ranmoor, departmental weeks in the Union and more emphasis on careers guidance. He was Chair of the Union Council last semester and Chair of Sheffield Labour students 2010-2011.

Tom Hollis wants to be friendly and approachable and stand up for students. He wants to keep in touch with students all year round, not just at election time.

Nick Mouat wants to recognise students’ contribution to the city of Sheffield, continue to oppose cuts to education funding and higher fees, and wants to make sure all students’ voices are heard. He has been Chair of the Volunteering Committee and a Sports Rep for Tapton CDC.

Abdi-Aziz Suleman wants regular open café events where people can air their concerns to students reps, work with NUS to attempt to overturn the government’s cuts and improve integration with the local community.

Michael Lee wants to get students of all ages to work together towards a common goal of increased interaction and will have an open door policy.

Katherine Dawson wants a live Twitter feed in the Students’ Union, an online student forum, and continue the fight against cuts and fees. She is the current Chair of Union Council and also Geography Councillor.

Tom Booker wants to introduce a Union Lottery that benefits students and charities, have more charity boxes around the Union, promote a greener Union by installing solar panels and hold a referendum on reforming the Women’s Officer role into an Equality Officer.

Listen to all of the presidential candidates have their say:

Activities Officer:

Lisa Hall wants to give students more opportunities to share their ideas through monthly meetings and workshops and work with Union outlets to bring sponsorship and cost effective ways of running events and promoting them for societies.

Emily O’Connor wants to promote better communication between societies and officers, make the ‘I want Change’ page the homepage for all Union computers and to ensure everyone feels valued and involved in their university experience.

Waleed Arshad wants fewer cliques within societies, improve awareness of ‘Give it a Go’ and work to increase involvement of all members of the liberation campaign.

Tom Dixon wants to create a society search engine to help find student communities with similar interests, secure more spaces for society use and develop long-lasting relationships between societies and local communities.

Clare Haines wants to open the Zone to all students, encourage societies to have recruitment events frequently and make sure societies get recognition for their work. She is charities officer and was RAG General for the Philosophy Society last year.

James Higgin wants to work to provide discounts for societies on Union services, introduce a points system to reward volunteers in the community and publicise the ‘Get Involved’ part of the Union website.

Cat Tibbs wants to liaise with the Society Development Coordinator to make more information about budgeting and creating cheaper student events available to all societies, and wants to fight to make sure that societies are a key benefactor in the plans for the redevelopment of University House.

Listen to all activities officer candidates have their say:

Women’s Officer:

Amy Masson wants to implement an anti-sexism policy in the Students’ Union while extending the Union’s ‘Zero tolerance to sexual harassment’ to include University buildings. She also wants to run a positive body image campaign and is currently the Chair of Women’s committee.

Shaveena McFadyen wants to promote greater female rights and equality by developing a range of campaigns to raise awareness on the social constraints that women suffer.

Listen to the women’s officer candidates having their say:

Welfare Officer:

Tom Harrison wants to help LGBT groups stamp out stereotyping while putting a greater emphasis on mental health issues and resident support liaison. He also wants to launch a ‘Welfare Pack’ in order to make students aware of the help available.

Helen Haworth wants to work against the council’s proposal of introducing fortnightly bin collections and make students aware of the services offered by the Welfare committee. She also wants to introduce to introduce a unisex minibus to build on the success of the women’s minibus.

Jonathan Gleek wants to create a ‘tricks of the trade’ guide to help students with finding housing. He also wants to promote the PASS hologram ID scheme across the city while also creating a regular student market on the concourse selling local foods and groceries.

Sarah Bailey wants to raise awareness for mental health, stress support and drugs and also run a stay safe campaign including self defence classes. He also wants to run monthly forums in student villages and run an international buddy scheme to help integrate the student community.

Roscoe Hastings wants to ensure minimum disruption to the support services when University House is redeveloped and work to create a guide to off campus living for students who are moving into the private sector. He also wants to challenge the costs of living in student accommodation by working with ACS and getting a better deal for students.

Listen to the candidates for welfare officer have their say:

Union Development Officer:

James Penney wants more financial transparency and back ethical investments. He also wants to make sure students get better financial advice than now, and is keen on feedback led services.

Sara Moon intends to create an alternative club night which would be designed by students, and wants to explore more alternatives for student enterprise. She also wants to work on alternatives to the bottled water scheme, and encourages wider participation by raising awareness of Union democracy.

James Taylor wants is to promote a greener students’ union, as well as expanding it to new levels. He emphasises the importance of listening to the views of the students, and wants to invest in your future.

Nina Eb wants to give students ownership over the spaces in the new University House development and will fight for extended opening hours of food outlets for students. She was Chair of the International Students Committee from 2010-2011.

Listen to the union development officer candidates having their say:

Education Officer:

Lucas Tomlinson wants student councillors to have professional training and would fight for standardising tutors and feedback while increasing support for dual students. He is student exchange ambassador  2011-2012.

Grace Crook wants more computers available over campus and less disruption for students with disabilities when taking exams. She wants all departments to hold monthly drop-in sessions to raise student concerns. She is a member of the education committee.

Kevin Ryan campaigns against underfunding and marketisation of higher education and is committed to widening participation at universities. He also wants to ensure that the university remains a civic institution throughout Sheffield.

Richard Alderman is keen to have academic representatives for each department and wants career development to be at the heart of your degree. He wants a mobile app for booking computers in the IC to save walking around looking for one.

Listen to the education officer candidates having their say:

International Students’ Officer:

Aghotse Alero will get more international students involved in school activities by organising campaigns, would organise more social events to bring international students under one umbrella. She has worked with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Nigeria.

Anandha Seenivasan wants to conducting workshops with the help of every department within the university in order to change the current system and make students more independent. He is committed to keeping to within the student budget.

Yang Fan will fight for international students and creatively blending cultures together and support intercultural exchange. She also wants more channels to hear students’ voice and is has worked in journalism and modelling.

Fadi Dakkak wants to integrate international students more with British students and break down barriers to allow international students to become more involved. He has worked with international students committee for three years.

Annie-Brient Aboagye wants to start a buddy system between current students and graduates of the university. She will fight the rising costs of visa applications and start a forum for students to have a platform to say what they want.

Yachen Zhang wants to organise events to bring students of different cultures closer together, and tackle problems with immigration and visas for students. He also wants to support native students who want to learn a foreign language with international students.

Listen to the international student officer candidates:

Sports Officer:

Luke Macwilliam intends to increase coaching qualifications among club members and promote schemes like Rags Adopt-a-charity. He is a member of the sports committee and RAG. His sports are Cricket and Badminton.

Tolu Osinubi wants to introduce a Sport Sheffield newsletter, and to host an Olympic Sports Day showcasing Sport Sheffield. She also would encourage teams to take sport to the local community through charity and volunteering projects. Osinubi was chair of the Sports Committee from 2010-2011 and is a member of the ladies rugby and football club.

Listen to the sport officer candidates:

You can find a complete guide to all candidates and referenda at http://www.shef.ac.uk/union/you-run-us/elections/officer-elections-2012/candidates/

Lauren has since recovered but wants to warn others of her ordeal

A Sheffield student was left with damaged eyesight after drinking what she believes was fake vodka.

Lauren Platts, a third year Biology student, bought a £5.99 bottle of vodka to share with a friend before a night out. But she said she was left paralysed for two days and since then has suffered from partial blindness and severe migraines. She has also been escorted home from work by friends, and it has even affected her ability to drive.

“I went to buy vodka half way through term and it was basically just a normal night out – we wanted something to drink,” she said. The man in the shop said, ‘This stuff will make you blind’ – he made a joke about it and I laughed at the time, like you would. We went to a friend’s house, and me and my friend shared the bottle before we went out. We had about half each of the bottle.

“She was absolutely fine the next day. I don’t think I drank any more. I felt alright on the night out, and had no more to drink than usual. For two days after that, I didn’t get out of bed, apart from to be sick. I felt paralysed. It was so bad, I had to text my housemate to get a glass of water. After those two days I managed to get up but I still felt ill. I realised my peripheral vision kept going. The best way to describe it is when you get up too quickly, and the vision goes on the sides.

“I had migraines before, but not ones that affected my vision. It does come back, once every one or two weeks, it will last a few minutes and then will be on and off all day. But I’m basically fine now.

“You just kind of trust the place you’re getting it from. It has put me off drink, and if I have something to do, next time I won’t go out at all. It’s always in the back of my mind that when I drink, it could happen again, so it is off-putting. I don’t think most students care. And after having that experience, I think they should care.”

It’s safe to say that the first series of 10 O’Clock Live was a bit of a disappointment. A satirical news show in a market that is saturated by panel games would have been brilliant at the time, especially when it was hosted by the team that brought us Channel 4’s Alternative Election Night. The result, however, was much like trying to make a bacon and chocolate sandwich. The ingredients were brilliant on their own but it was clear from that first episode that it wasn’t going to work.

A combination of badly paced interviews, dodgy sketch work and an inability to really deal with the latest news stories (incredibly important given the show’s ‘Live’ status) meant that 10 O’Clock Live never really lived up to its promises. With the new series comes the opportunity for the production team to listen to these criticisms and improve. The question is: Have they done just that? With this first episode at least the answer seems to be, sadly, no.

The format is indistinguishable from last year’s. The awkward one liners of Jimmy Carr, Lauren Laverne’s not-quite-funny ‘exposés’ and the dire sketches where a silly accent is put in place of any material are all still there. The roundtable discussions and Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe style report on the BBC’s worship of the Queen in light of the upcoming jubilee got the most laughs from a disturbingly stony faced audience.

The best elements are either improvised or very much based on the presenters’ previous work rather than adding anything unique to the show.  David Mitchell doesn’t fare much better. His own section for doing what he does best, ranting, has been sadly removed entirely, at least for the first episode.

The overall impression is that this second series hasn’t developed or learnt anything from the faults of the first. Small gems of potential are still there but they are lost amongst a format that doesn’t ever quite seem to work and a nagging sense that each of the personalities running it work better, and have shown that they do so, on their own.

The story of a young boy, Oskar Schell, played by debutant Thomas Horn, who attempts to discover what he believes to be a secret left by his father (Tom Hanks), who was killed in 9/11, meeting and affecting many people as he goes, could easily be construed as twee, saccharine Hollywood tosh; but on three separate levels, it is observable that this multi-Oscar nominated drama has more about it in order to truly make you engage with its story and characters – because if you don’t, you’re going to get a very sore backside sitting through this one.

Firstly, the performances are tremendous. Horn’s character – who mentions the possibility of his having Asperger’s Syndrome at an early point in the story – has a number of traits that some may find quite infuriating: his insistence on carrying a tambourine everywhere to keep himself calm, and his inability to allow the majority of the people he meets on his journey speak without interruptions. However, these quirks fail to disguise the fact that Horn’s performance is breathtaking, and the more time you spend with him, the more his quirks become endearing, the more you feel his pain, feel sympathy with his anger, want to find out more and more as he does. Horn really comes into his own in certain individual scenes, such as a confrontation with his mother (Sandra Bullock) that drew audible gasps from the auditorium. Schell is partnered for much of the picture -the young man is in practically every shot – by a mysterious mute (Max von Sydow) known only as The Renter, for he rents a room from Schell’s grandmother, who matches Horn’s level of performance with silent power, and must be in with a real shout of turning his Supporting Actor Nomination into a win. The scene when Schell plays him his father’s final messages from the family’s answer phone is the most effective scene in the film, although the final twist between the two of them – of twists there are many in this film, and most of them are good, but you’ll see their one a mile away.

Secondly, it’s incredibly well shot. It gives New York’s skyline a visceral beauty, not like the tourist video style of Woody Allen movies, but a simple yet effective combination of awe but also claustrophobia from the street level view of the child who now lives in fear of his everyday surroundings, mixed with the sense of freedom and freshness that is transmitted when we cut to Oskar’s memories of his father, usually in order to escape, as he does, from the increasingly nightmarish realities of his life but also his inner demons.

Thirdly, the story is very well told – it draws you into thinking it’s heading towards a typical Hollywood tale of someone ‘on a journey’, with the background of 9/11 to draw some teary eyes from the American audience, and in truth it is just as manipulative as that type of picture, yet you don’t mind it, because the story really does bring a little tear to the eye, and whilst at times it gets a bit overwrought with its emotions, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close takes you with it virtually every step of the way.

8/10

Pawel Pawlikowski’s latest film, The Woman in the Fifth, tells the story of Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) an American novelist and university lecturer who emigrates to Paris in an attempt to re-establish his relationship with his estranged wife and daughter. However, after being turned away, he finds himself broke and desperate for work, forcing him into the debt of a seedy landlord and into the arms of an intriguing socialite.

Based, if only loosely, on the Douglas Kennedy novel of the same name, The Woman in the Fifth is labelled, if only loosely, as a thriller. The reality is a little more complicated than that.

Pawlikowski keeps to his trademark style of red-herrings and false leads as the film unfolds into a compilation of love stories, thrillers and family dramas. Admittedly all the different threads work confidently on their own but they just don’t weave together, often leaving the film feeling unbalanced and unsure of itself.

For instance, the romance between Tom Ricks and the woman in the fifth, Margit (Kristen Scott Thomas), is just confusing and underdeveloped. Thomas does her usual shtick as the “glamorous older woman” which would have been tolerable if the audience wasn’t forced to sit through a sex scene with her bordering the line between lover and mother. In the end, the character just sits in the middle of narrative, insinuating some relevance which is never really realised.

That being said, the phase of the film that focuses on the underbelly of Parisian gangsters is film-making at its best. This is not the usual Hollywood “whodunit” where everything is either far too obvious or the explanation is eventually spoon-fed to you.  Intense and frightening, the scenes in the mysterious underground room are shot with knuckle-whitening restraint. Sadly it just makes you wish the whole film could be as good.

So why doesn’t it work? As the wise, old saying goes: you can’t feel sympathy for a guy who wears Ray Bans. Despite badgering the audience into feeling bad for Tom Ricks, the narrative leaves little to feel sorry for. Every female character, including the film’s namesake, falls in love with him despite being void of any charisma or charm.

He’s a character only a writer could love. In other words: a writer.

Cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski returns to work with Pawlikowski after My Summer of Love, resulting in an undeniably beautiful film. Its minimalistic interpretation of Paris is an unprecedented joy, hinting at a much more unromantic view of the city of love. The shots linger for an uncomfortably long time, echoing the bleak and empty feel of the film.

But it’s too easy to suggest it’s a masterpiece simply because it subscribes to art-house motifs. No, The Woman in the Fifth is a clever but relatively safe piece of cinema that only hints at the talent of its creators.

6/10

Remember the Ashton Kutcher film What Happens in Vegas? Of course you don’t, no one does, not even Ashton Kutcher. But Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu is effectively a Bollywood version of that movie.

Rahul, a recently fired architect with overbearing parents, is played by Imran Khan, who looks disconcertingly like an Asian Ed Miliband. One drunken night in Las Vegas, he marries a girl he met that day called Riana (Kareena Kapoor) and hilarity ensues. Here the word “hilarity” is being used in the broadest possible sense.

Isn’t it time we left this overused premise behind now? Haven’t we seen enough films and TV shows in which two people who hate each other go to Las Vegas and drunkenly get married? We’ve all seen Friends, and we ought to stop treading and retreading such old ground.

The laziness of the set-up aside, the film plays out as a fairly by-the-numbers romcom. When we first meet Rahul and Riana they couldn’t be any more different from one another. This point is relentlessly hammered into our brains as if by Thor himself; the guy is socially awkward, the girl is carefree! He drives a posh car, she rides a motorised scooter! He irons his socks, she stands on tables and shouts! At one point he actually says “I love her” aloud to himself, for the benefit of the apparently stupid audience.

Perhaps even more irritating is the way we’re expected to sympathise with the angsty problems of a very rich architect. His being sacked is not a problem for the obvious financial reasons, but because he finds himself lacking “purpose”. It’s hard to feel much pity for someone when they’re riding around in a limo.

There’s also one too many montages. Actually, one montage is probably too many, so there are about three too many montages. There’s the we’re-having-crazy-fun-in-Vegas montage, the we’re-becoming-best-friends montage, and of course the we’re-sad-now montage, complete with flashbacks and moping.

Amongst the largely unfunny jokes, there are some nice moments, and one good gag involving a translator. The two central characters bounce off each other quite well too, and, this being Bollywood, there’s the fun of the obligatory dance number. The best thing about this film though is the ending, about which no more will be said in case you want to see it, which you probably won’t.

All in all, Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu is an unremarkable romcom with a decent ending, but a tired premise.

5/10

God bless Nicolas Cage.

One could almost call him “The Little Actor That Could”. In the past few years he’s been churning out appallingly bad movies with an impressive regularity, but he never ever gives up, because the next one might just give him the recognition he deserves. It usually doesn’t, but at least he tries.

Even appearing in Ghost Rider, widely regarded as the worst comic book movie ever made (and which also got him the Razzie Award for Worst Actor) didn’t deter him; in fact, now he’s back with the follow up – Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

The film follows anti-hero Johnny Blaze (Cage), in hiding in order to protect the world from his demonic alter-ego, who’s asked to help find save a child – who may be the Antichrist – from the clutches of the Devil (Ciaran Hinds). Cage isn’t really known for imbuing his characters with a particular depth of emotion, and Johnny Blaze is no exception – images of a puddle in the Sahara spring to mind. For one half of the film he’s giggling like a hyena on nitrous oxide, and the other half spitting out lines with what’s supposed to sound like torment and pain but usually sounds closer to constipation.

The rest of the cast, meanwhile, don’t do much better. Even Ciaran Hinds, fresh from a captivating performance in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, manages to be completely uninteresting as Satan. The only one with an excuse for being comatose is the child Danny, played by Fergus Riordan, and that’s only because he’s possessed for roughly half of the film.

Still, the film’s writers, producers and directors seem to know their audience quite well, if they think that audience consists entirely of six year olds who have been diagnosed with ADHD. Theirs is a bold and interesting way of making a film. A script that makes sense; lines that don’t sound like they came from a monkey with a MacBook; a plot that’s even remotely engaging – all petty issues that this film decides to ignore completely.

Instead, they get down to the real essence of cinema: big guns, a pretty girl or two, lots of fire and explosions, over-the-top stunts and special effects, and enough slow motion to film an entire series of Baywatch. And then they show the whole thing in 3D, which of course is the missing ingredient that turns any old piece of trash into a cinematic tour de force.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a complete mess; an insult not only to the tradition of comic book adaptations, but to the entire history of cinema itself. It’s a shambling, brainless waste of 95 minutes which actually becomes better when condensed to the length of a two-and-a-half minute trailer. Not even the thrilling allure of wearing a pair of stupid 3D glasses can make this film watchable, and there’s a very good chance that Cage could be up for his second Razzie.

1/10

A Dangerous Method is the intriguing new drama by David Cronenberg, master of body horror turned master of films starring Viggo Mortensen.

Here, Mortensen plays Sigmund Freud alongside Michael Fassbender’s Carl Jung. A Dangerous Method explores the relationship between the two psychoanalysts, and the impact, both personally and professionally, of Jung’s patient Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley).

Cronenberg’s films are always interesting, and this is no exception. Based on the play The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton, who also wrote the screenplay, A Dangerous Method is an engaging and challenging look into the lives of these three characters, and into the curious world of psychoanalysis.

This may be a departure for Cronenberg dramatically, but not thematically. His sci-fi and horror films tend to be based around the idea that there is something inside us which needs to get out… and it usually does, graphically and horrifically. Here, this idea is dealt with in the context of Freudian repression, exploring how we bury our memories and desires, and then the ways in which they later manifest themselves.

In the case of Spielrein, this manifestation is masochism, believing that true beauty emerges from pain; “Only the clash of destructive forces can create something new.” This is a fascinating idea, but one which was examined much more effectively in Cronenberg’s hugely controversial Crash.

Ironically then, A Dangerous Method is not dangerous enough. At times it feels stuffy, particularly in long sequences of exposition in which Freud and Jung are simply reading and writing letters to each other. Cronenberg has made a drama about psychology, not a psychological drama, like his brilliantly haunting film Spider.

That said, a subpar Cronenberg film is still a superb film. Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender are currently two of the world’s best actors, with the world’s best names.

Mortensen takes all his roles very seriously and gets right under the skin of Freud, never without a cigar. Fassbender’s Jung is a classic Cronenberg character; cold and distant on the surface, with a whole lot more going on inside.

Even Keira Knightley is outstanding, relishing every word in her Russian accent. It would be a mistake not to mention the frighteningly charismatic Vincent Cassel, who does what he does best; the creepy foreigner, completely stealing his few scenes in the process.

As with all but one of Cronenberg’s films, the excellent score is by Howard Shore, which works alongside picturesque shots of Switzerland to give the film its impressive atmosphere. Even the scenes in which people are just sitting in rooms talking about psychoanalysis are interesting, thanks to a combination of Hampton’s screenplay, Cronenberg’s direction, and of course the three central actors.

A Dangerous Method, while lacking the visceral power of Cronenberg at his best, is an excellent drama with excellent performances at its heart. His fascinating vision of reality and self-destruction shine through, and the film maintains David Cronenberg’s position as an important director with intellectual ideas; with a way of seeing the world, with something to say and a unique way of saying it.

8/10

However, as soon as I arrived in Muhaka, many of my worries immediately vanished.

The local children jumped into my arms and searched for attention, and a few of the elders of the village came to give me friendship stones they had carved as a peace offering to their new guest.

They did not ask for money or sized up my belongings; instead, they offered a friendly smile and allowed me to feel settled and comfortable in their presence. This feeling of comfort grew with every moment I spent with the locals of Muhaka.

During my month in Kenya, I worked for a company called Camps International.

By completing the various tasks assigned to me, I was able to give back to the community and thank them for their kindness and generosity.

My first job was teaching a secondary school class in the local stone-built school. I was lead into the room by the head teacher, shown what page of work the class was on… and that was it.

I had no help, no classroom assistant to show me how to deliver my lesson and I had no preparation to fall back on.

As I felt 35 eyes staring at me in great expectation, I knew the pressure was on. Trying to cover up a mild panic attack, I introduced myself in broken Swahili.

Thankfully, the children helped me start off the lesson and I eventually found confidence in my teaching skills – even though I’m sure I still made numerous mistakes.

The children in Muhaka have an inspiring dedication to learning and to improving themselves.

One girl I spoke to told me how she runs for an hour barefoot to school every day in order to receive an education and one day become a nurse.

Think about how many university students (myself included) complain about nine o’clock starts and more than three hours of lectures in a day.

The harsh truth is that most of the children in Muhaka will never make it to university level, and yet many of them show more commitment to studying than we in the Western world do. This made me realize how many opportunities I have received in the past and taken for granted.

However, what influenced me the most was the time spent I with the younger children in the newly renovated nursery built by Camps International.

These children were only five or six years old, however the amount of responsibility that is placed on them is more than I had at the age of 18.

Many of the children care for their younger siblings and also help with the manual work around the village. Although they may lead a very difficult and challenging life, not once did I hear one of the children complain.

Instead they were always smiling, laughing and singing. They craved attention from anyone and being able to give them that attention cost nothing to me and meant the world to them.

Seeing their faces light up as I gave them a pair of cheap sunglasses or took a picture of them is a memory that will stay with me for a lifetime.

I not only took away with me a new language and some amazing pictures, I also gained a new understanding of the word ‘kindness’ as this was given to me throughout my entire stay in Muhaka.