Sally Hayden

So I had gone the previous year to Malawi where I had a Simon Cumber's student scheme, which you kind of get as a student.

And so technically I reported from there for the Irish Times, but not – I definitely wasn't professional.

And so, I mean, I think I did two articles in the end, but like –

It took me about four months to write one of them.

So then I went to Rwanda on the professional kind of scheme of version of the same scheme.

And yeah, I was like a bit more professional, but still, you know, I was 24.

I turned up.

I literally booked a one way flight because I had been doing it.

internship in CNN before in London.

And so I brought everything I had with me in London, which I think was two suitcases to Rwanda on a one way flight.

And, you know, they give you this grant money.

So you're meant to kind of stay in a nice hotel and do everything in a very convenient way.

And I stayed for, I don't know, five weeks or something like that.

And I lived in a room in a hostel above a bowling alley.

and got like motorbikes everywhere and was basically trying to stretch the money as far as I could.

And I think that was really brilliant, actually, because it meant that I could spend a lot of time just talking to loads of people and respecting where I was in the sense of like, you know, not just like rushing in publishing very quickly.

And, you know, you actually get to take the time to, I mean, obviously, having even more time is much better.

But

At least like taking a bit of time to, yeah, just to absorb everything that you're hearing.

I mean, to be honest, at the time, I also didn't, like, I didn't have anything else I was meant to be doing, which is the benefit of when you just graduate, isn't it?